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Preschoolers and their inter-generational parents are the main users of modern urban residential outdoor space. To design and build appropriate outdoor space, it is necessary to understand the two groups’ psychological and behavioral needs in depth. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

By means of literature reviews, field surveys, questionnaires, and interviews, this study addresses the psychological, behavioral, neighborhood conversation, and space use characteristics of preschoolers and their inter-generational parents in the residential quarters of Haidian District in Beijing. This paper investigates the safety, interests, micro-climate appropriateness, supporting accompanying behavior, and promoting neighborhood conversation as the design strategies for residential outdoor space.

The findings suggest that children’s wills are dominant in choosing activity space, while the duration of stay is decided by inter-generational parents; appropriateness for children’s use is the most significant indicator for evaluating satisfaction of outdoor space; safety is the first rule in outdoor space design; and the design of details in outdoor space and facilities needs to be strengthened.

Some preliminary conclusions have been concluded in this research while some deficiencies still exist. For example, quantitative research method and data processing method need to be deepened and studied continually in the following research; also, the research defines the investigation elements based on literature reading and individual field research, which remains to be verified and deepened in the future.

This research paid attention to usage experience in residential quarters so as to get rid of the pursuit of beauty in form in the planning and design strategies for residential quarters, proper care for youth and seniors, promote community vitality, enhance the shared living environment, and promote community association. This research can arouse the attention to children and the elderly in subsequent residential quarters and urban research. It is a very important field to study the behavior characteristics of children and the elderly and then study the urban space that is suitable for them.

Planning and design strategies for residential quarters should be explored from the perspectives of the correlated group of preschoolers and their inter-generational parents – the group of people who most frequently use residential outdoor space. This research paid attention to usage experience in residential quarters so as to get rid of the pursuit of beauty in form in the planning and design strategies for residential quarters, proper care for youth and seniors, promote community vitality, enhance the shared living environment, and promote community association. This research can arouse the attention to children and the elderly in subsequent residential quarters and urban research.

This research is of great significance, in caring the young and the old, building up communities’ vitality, enhancing living environment, and promoting community association, to explore planning and design strategies for residential quarters from the perspective of the correlated group of preschoolers and inter-generational parents and the group of people who uses the residential quarters’ space most frequently.

The fundamental lifestyle changes, economic concerns, property price increase and construction cost can explain the transformation of traditional housing layouts to massive indoor planes by prioritizing indoor over outdoor spaces. That is, overlooking the effect of outdoor spaces, on life quality, to compensate for indoor spaces expansion. As a result, this study highlighted outdoor spaces and their impact on psychological wellbeing, especially through the enforcement of quarantine conditions and social distance.

To achieve that, a spatial analysis for (70) apartments, in Amman, was undertaken to understand outdoor space in terms of spatial configuration, size, adjacent spaces and usage. An assessment for outdoor space based on both users' and professionals' perspectives to discuss the current situation condition in terms of physical layout, activities, area, spaces' treatment and associated incentives. (125) responses were collected from the head of household living in an apartment through using a structured questionnaire. In addition, feedback in terms of dynamics home components, home buyers' market trends and local regulations were collected from (22) professionals.

Study results have shown that apartments' buildings in Amman are deficient, quantitatively and qualitatively, in both apartments with outdoor spaces in general and units on typical floors without outdoor space in specific. While, quantitative deficiency is associated with the poor layout in terms of area, functionality and variety. Qualitative is related to the absence of nature inspiration that incorporates five senses. As a result, this underlines the need for formulation design guidelines and strategies considering psychological wellbeing to improve outdoor spaces as a hub for activities.

Highlight the value of introducing post-pandemic multi-family housing that could lead to changes in building codes and design strategies to enhance psychological wellbeing of residents.

This paper explores the issue of design intentions versus users' reactions by conducting a post occupancy evaluation study. It introduces an assessment of the performance of Qatar University-QU campus outdoor spaces from users' perspective after it has been used and occupied for over 20 years. The assessment aims at understanding the mutual interaction process between the built environment exemplified by the physical characteristics of campus outdoor spaces and the needs of the university community exemplified by students, faculty, and staff. Therefore, the paper argues for the value of evaluating current campus outdoor spaces from users' perspective. It aims at defining problematic areas related to the utilization of current spaces-that are contrasted with the architect's design philosophy and intentions. The methodology adopted is multi-layered in nature and incorporates a wide variety of assessment techniques; including walk-through evaluation and direct observation, behavioral mapping, and survey questionnaires. The investigation reveals a number of problems that may hinder the performance of different types of QU campus users. The paper concludes that by recognizing how well university campus outdoor spaces respond to the needs of faculty, students, and staff, one can recommend ways of improving the outdoor environment necessary to facilitate the work and learning experiences of different users within the campus and the desired student-faculty interaction.

Comfortable outdoor workspaces are important for employees in business parks and urban areas. Prioritizing a pleasant thermal environment is essential for employee productivity, as well as the improvement of outdoor spaces between office buildings to enhance social activities and quality of outdoor workplaces in a hot arid climate has been subjected to very little studies Thus, this study focuses on business parks (BPs) landscape elements. The objective of this study is to enhance the user's thermal comfort in the work environment, especially in the outdoors attached to the administrative and office buildings such as the BPs.

This research follows Four-phases methodology. Phase 1 is the investigation of the literature review including the Concept and consideration of BP urban planning, Achieving outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) and shading elements analysis. Phase 2 is the case study initial analysis targeting for prioritizing zones for shading involves three main methods: social assessment, geometrical assessment and environmental assessment. Phase 3 entails selecting shading elements that are suitable for the zones requiring shading parametrize the selected shading elements. Phase 4 focuses on the optimization of OTC through shading arrangements for the prioritized zones.

Shading design is a multidimensional process that requires consideration of various factors, including social aspects, environmental impact and structural integrity. Shading elements in urban areas play a crucial role in mitigating heat stress by effectively shielding surfaces from solar radiation. The integration of parametric design and computational optimization techniques enhances the shading design process by generating a wide range of alternative solutions.

While conducting this research, it is important to acknowledge certain limitations that may affect the generalizability and scope of the findings. One significant limitation lies in the use of the shade audit method as a tool to prioritize zones for shading. Although the shade audit approach offers practical benefits for designers compared to using questionnaires, it may have its own inherent biases or may not capture the full complexity of human preferences and needs.

Few studies have focused on optimizing the type and location of devices that shade outdoor spaces. As a result, there is no consensus on the workflow that should regulate the design of outdoor shading installations in terms of microclimate and human thermal comfort, therefore testing parametric shading scenarios for open spaces between office buildings to increase the benefit of the outer environment is very important. The study synthesizes OTC strategies by filling the research gap through the implementation of a proper workflow that utilizes parametric thermal comfort.

This paper aims to address tertiary education informal learning space preferences for learners’ informal learning activities. The study accentuates learners’ preferred informal academic learning space (IALS) for informal learning activities that required interaction and communication and collaboration.

The research is based on a survey questionnaire that participated by 1,079 diploma learners from Polytechnics’ technical and non-technical academic programmes in Malaysia.

The finding reveals that learners mostly preferred IALS that were categorized as semi-outdoor and connected to nature. Learners prefer to have IALS for collaborative learning activities with the appropriate information, communication and technology facilities and thermally conductive. Learners preferred an attractive layout design with comfortable furniture for informal learning activities. Apparently, learning space design is more focused on formal learning rather than informal learning.

This study grants a profound insight centred upon the learner’s perspective on the spatial alignment of education 4.0 learning ecosystem can be configured to enhance collaborative and self-regulated learning activities by distinguishing the critical preference of IALS.

Social interaction has a vital role in the healthy development of children. Growing up without a family for children – who are called “children in need of protection” (CNP) in this study – can cause developmental disorders. Social interaction with their peers and with society is important for their well-being, as well as for the whole society. So, for the good of both, more appropriate and supportive living environments should be produced. In this study, the authors will try to answer the question: How do environmental factors affect the social interaction of CNP in outdoor spaces within a village-type settlement?

A children's village is chosen as the case area since the children's village typology provides a strong relation between indoor and outdoor spaces. Data are gathered through the review of visual and written materials and systematic observation in order to analyze the issue in a natural setting.

The output of this study underlays the effects of location, layout and characteristics of residential areas at the neighborhood scale, as well as the spatial, physical and functional factors at the singular-space scale. The intentional social function of the space was found to be the strongest factor in enhancing social interaction.

There are no adequate studies focusing holistically on environmental factors in outdoor living spaces, including spatial, physical and functional dimensions, that affect the social interaction of children in need of protection.

This paper sets out to look at the different types of crawl spaces that are found in Sweden and why they are still being used in today's constructions despite the advice of building experts to avoid their use.

Literature reviews were performed to look at the types of crawl space foundations available as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each type and to look at the economic costs associated with repairing a damaged home that could be attributed to a crawl space foundation. Interviews were conducted with engineers with regard to moisture design issues in the Swedish building industry.

This study shows that there are five traditional types of crawl spaces used in Sweden: plinth, outdoor ventilated, indoor ventilated, unventilated, and suspended crawl space foundations, four of which are currently available to builders. Despite all of the available knowledge regarding the disadvantages and the past performance of the outdoor ventilated crawl spaces, companies in Sweden are still using this design and are still experiencing expensive problems.

This paper is limited to Sweden. The situation in other countries was not specifically examined; however, it appears that other countries are also facing the same problems and this paper may provide some insight into why.

This study shows that there are many ways to construct a crawl space, some of which are considerably less risky than others. The study also indicates that the building industry in general seems to lack the theoretical background or incentive to utilize these variations properly or completely move away from these designs.

The world has recently faced the outbreak of an existential threat. Since December 2019, many aspects of life have changed owing to a devastating pandemic, COVID-19. The second wave started spreading in different parts of the globe. This article focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on Cairo city, regarding three upper-middle-class districts as a case study. Based on a literature review, a theoretical framework is proposed to analyse how residents changed their living, work, and leisure time habits during the outbreak of the pandemic.

A retrospective survey was conducted among the residents of three districts to investigate the new living model of adaptive, spontaneous urban and architecture design tactics that transfer people’s actual life, work, and leisure arrangements into future planning considerations.

The results reveal relevant observations about the adaptation of the existing environments of home, work, and leisure activities. From these results, different considerations and new norms emerge for housing typologies in post-pandemic Cairo.

The conclusions of this study introduced the new term “the fifth place” as a space-time place that could serve as a motivation for urban designers and architects to design space typologies considering the emerging circumstances.

Recently, children are no longer considered the passive users of their spaces; they are rather treated as active participants in those spaces design, with their own experiences. The present research aims to investigate the impact of selected architectural variables of kindergartens' design on the child's attachment to the place. It also examines the multi-complex approach in dealing with children in experiments.

Spatial analysis and photographing methods were used to analyse the educational spaces in two kindergartens in Greater Cairo, Egypt. In measuring children's place attachment, the research depended on a complex participatory approach, which comprised interviews with children, story completion, children's drawings and visual questionnaires.

The results of this qualitative study highlight that the design of a kindergarten classroom's details plays a significant role in strengthening the child's place attachment. The results also stress that connection and exposure to nature supports the child's spatial values.

The authors argue that this paper is considered a good basis for including children as the architectural design decision-makers for their buildings, by shedding light on the architect–user relationship and its impact on the design process. It demonstrates how architectural design of child-oriented spaces can promote a child's self-identity and perception.

This research investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of transitional spaces in a Korean academic setting, to assess the impact of the pandemic on users' utilization of transitional spaces and evaluate any changes in their usage patterns. The research explores whether transitional spaces can function as social interactive spaces, aligning with Ray Oldenburg's “third-place” theory. The focus is on South Korean academic settings, aiming to create neutral and safe zones for users.

The adopted methodology involves reviewing the literature and employing design charrette as a major data collection tool. The design charrette provided a platform for users to share insights on current transitional spaces during the pandemic and envision these spaces as future social and interactive spaces.

The design charrette participants advocated for modifying the current transitional space design to transform these spaces into shared spaces for both visitors and regular users in the future. Restricting access for external users to the main building area until necessary. The significance of site amenities in determining transitional spaces as “third-places” was emphasized. While the nature of the building, its location and transitional space amenities are crucial aspects to consider, designers may prioritize user opinions and preferences, as the success or failure of the design ultimately centers on user behaviors.

The research focused on a specific university, hindered by limited access to other institutions during the pandemic. Restrictions on external users discouraged entry without proper permission, which was challenging to obtain. The conventional design charrette outlined in the research method was impossible due to pandemic-related limitations on gathering participants in one location. Therefore, the researcher modified the design charrette method to align with strict social distancing measures.

The results of the research are not limited to academic settings, but they can be implied in other environments where social interaction spaces are required and where there is a constant flow of visitors and regular users. The design charrette can be used as a methodology for interior spaces along with large-scale projects of urban planning.

The research analyzed transitional spaces during the pandemic, suggesting redesign to serve and act as buffer zones between private and public areas and become a common social gathering place for visitors and regular users within the built environment.