Residential Open Space Satisfaction Case studied: selected residential complexes in Tehran

The meaning of the yard as residential open space has changed in the contemporary Iranian architecture, where its dignity has transformed to the public space in the sub-neighborhood. In the new urbanism according to the land limitation and economic problem, home’s space has decrease and share building has increased. This article has been conducted to investigate the possible landscape architecture measurements which could contribute to improve user’s satisfaction and therefore, the quality of space. According to the psychological aspect of satisfaction, it has different dimensions. While architectural and functional features effect on the evaluation of space, on the other hand, place perception and residence expectation influence on the habitant’s evaluation. Hence, according to the literature review, four-dimensional model, including architectural, socio-relational, functional and context features was developed in other to investigate the user’s perception and consequently, residential satisfaction. This research assumed that satisfaction is diverse across different spaces or levels of environment; therefore, satisfaction was questioned in distinctive scales. The study used data collected from questionnaire contained sections measuring participants’ perceptions of the physical environment, the social environment, aspects of residential and neighborhood satisfaction one hundred and six residents in three residential complexes in Tehran were interviewed. The selected complexes were chosen from the medium scale and high rise blocks. The path model analysis had architectural, socio-relational, and functional and context features of open space as the exogenous variables predicting residents` evaluation of open space and the level of satisfaction, namely: Favorability of place, preferability of the place and recommendatory of the place. Evaluation of sense of privacy, cohesion of space components, and consistency with the nature were asked in order to investigate the perception and satisfaction of architectural design. The criteria such as Safety and maintenance were questioned as the context features. The four categories of indicators are correlated with one another, so the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was established by simulating the complex relationship between evaluated open space indicators. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for the estimation of some implicit indicators and give subjective weights to them. At the last part, the correlation between place evaluation and satisfaction was calculated. The path model showed that overall neighborhood satisfaction was associated intensively with the spatial feature of complexes and moderately with social issues. Furthermore, people were satisfied by open spaces with more natural and green space and more hierarchies of social and private spaces. Moreover, Satisfaction with each component related to different predictors, is supporting the idea that inhabitants hold complex views of their environment. The result emphasizes the important role of designers as the creator of place. The result implies that satisfaction at the various levels differs significantly. So it is recommended to measure residential satisfaction in three scales of interior space, open space and sub-neighborhood space. As well as in the studied cases, user satisfied from these different scales sensible diverts. The results of the present study suggest that place satisfaction deserve serious consideration by practitioners and scholars devoted to improving deteriorating neighborhoods.