Exploring the link between environmental features of urban recreational-commercial spaces and mental well-being: A study of Esfahan’s Chahar-Bagh

The urban built environment has become the major space for recreation, commercial, and occupation purposes. As a result, it can have undoubtable impacts on our health particularly on the mental wellbeing. While much of the literature has focused on physical health, less consideration has been paid to the possible psychological impacts of the urban environment. Iranian Chahar-Bagh not just as a commercial hub or a road both also considered as a recreational and social space has had a noticeable role in our cities for a long time which shows a great potential and necessity for evaluating its features and understanding mental health related indicators for designing a leisure-commercial public space. Following a mixed- method approach, this project combines both quantitative and qualitative research. In the first part, we complete a quantitative study with the usage of systematic review for analyzing the association of the environmental indicators of urban spaces and mental well-being. Among more than ۱۰۰ papers published in English, ۲۲ peer-reviewed papers published in English between ۲۰۰۷ and ۲۰۱۷ in two noticeable journals, Public Health and Health & Place were identified. MAXQDA۱۲ were used to analyze the data in this section. In qualitative part of this study we considered codes which extracted from the systematic reviews and investigate them in the Iranian Chahar-Bagh to identify architectural/urban design framework. The overall findings suggested eight environmental features as the more effective on mental wellbeing. After investigating these ۶ items in Esfahan Chahar-Bagh – as a representative for Iranian Chahar-Bagh – it is illustrated that all extracted features could be seen in the space especially: walking quality, green space accessibility, and buildings suitable height could be the most major indicators affecting psychological well-being. Given the increase in mental well-being problems and the current rapid urbanization worldwide, results of the present systematic review should be taken into account in future projects. However, further research is needed to provide more consistent evidence and more detailed information on the characteristics of the public spaces that promote better mental well-being.

کلیدواژه ها:

Mental well-being ، recreational space ، commercial spaces ، urban design ، Chahar-Bagh