Design for play: Child-friendly neighborhoods following the culture context and play patterens

Over the past few decades, there has been increasing recognition that the everyday environments of neighborhoods affect a child's brain structure and profoundly impact their health and well-being. However, childhood experiences within the neighborhood have witnessed a substantial transformation increasingly leading to children disappearing from the urban scene and a reduced frequency of children engaging in outdoor activities. This thesis aims to evaluate the child-friendliness of two modern neighborhoods in the city of Homs. In addition, this study examines the perceptions of 6-12-year-old children and their parents to grasp the physical and social-spatial factors of the neighborhood affecting children's usage of their neighborhood. To complete the analysis, this research involved a review of the literature about the child-friendly neighborhood concept and the physical and social-spatial factors influencing children's outdoor activity. It also included semi-structured interviews with parents, field observation, mapping, and an analysis of neighborhood land use in the study area. The morphology analysis reveals that neighborhood morphology has an influence on children's outdoor activities and parents' perceptions of neighborhood. The findings refer that the traditional neighborhood morphology retains essential features for creating a child-friendly environment, contrasting in contemporary neighborhoods. In addition, streets, in old and modern neighborhoods, remain significant spaces for children's recreational activities, emphasizing the need to reimagine streets as play environments. In light of the findings, this study proposes several suggestions for city planners and officials that aim to create neighborhood-scale environments conducive to the health and well-being of future generations of children.