Resilient places, resilient childhood: Exploring the role of the built environment in supporting the well-being of children in war

Millions of children in the world are forced to lead a daily life in conflict and war-torn environments. In these difficult conditions, the intensity of stress, fear, and trauma they face on a daily basis means that many of them are left with numerous psychological consequences later in life. Children's ability to cope under this stress and achieve positive growth is affected by multiple and interdependent factors and systems, including the individual or personal traits, family and the larger social systems, educational systems, political systems, and others. The research on resilience of children in war has witnessed an interest to move to an ecological paradigm in psychology, which emphasizes the nested and interdependent effect of such factors. However, this body of research has overlooked the role of the physical environment as a potential promoter or a hindrance to children's resilience. The field of environmental psychology offers us a theoretical body that relates the well-being of human beings with the physical environment they inhabit and interact with. Theories like restorative environments help explain how certain environmental configurations and conditions can trigger attention restoration and stress relief. People are also bound to places emotionally through forming attachments; the disruption of which can cause a threat to well-being. This body of research is accumulated and presented as the basis for this explorative study, which asks these main questions: how does the physical environment contribute to children's healing and resilience in war? How do children experience war from an environmental perspective? What are the long-term effects of these place experiences? To answer these questions, environmental experience becomes a central concern of the research methodology. The goal of unpacking children's place experience in conflict and its long term effect on resilience and well-being leads to navigating the data from a retrospective lens. The study is based on seven narrative accounts of people who have; as children, lived in unstable and war-torn environments. Their stories will, through an interpretive phenomenological analysis, uncover the deep meanings of resilience and its relationship to place-meanings. The significance of this study lies in its advocacy for the careful consideration of planning children's environments in post-conflict reconstruction, by giving voice to war-affected youth, their experience of day-to-day places, as well as argue for the environmental qualities; supported by the analysis and the theoretical framework, which contribute to children's healing and resilience. The challenge that design for children faces today in the face of this reality is its capacity to be active rather than reactive. The transformative role of design is to elevate the discussion on restoration and resilience from the temporary humanitarian solutions of providing shelter to a long-term active and positive culmination of place meanings, place identities and place attachments. Such an approach encompasses not only the physical but also the mental, emotional, social and spiritual dimensions of children's well-being.