The Concept of Behavioral Setting and its Impact on Improving Environmental Quality Neighborhood Parks (Case Study: Shiraz SEKONJ Neighborhood Park)

Neighborhood parks are important as spaces of residential neighborhoods where part of the daily interactions of residents take place. Hence, the study of environmental quality of the behavioral settings in which they are formed can be considered a suitable indicator to measure environmental quality with behavioral patterns. In order to intervene or adopt strategies in the design and planning of neighborhood parks, behavioral settings offer appropriate indicators. The present study has a combined strategy (qualitative and case study) with an analytical-descriptive approach. The paper evaluates the quality of behavioral settings in a selected neighborhood park (SEKONJ of Shiraz) in three steps. In the first step, the basics and conceptual framework are discussed and in the next step, two components, namely physical (welfare, recreational facilities, and site features) and social (social interactions) are introduced to measure the quality of the setting in neighborhood parks. In the third step of the research, two tactics of semi-structured interview (40 participants) and behavioral mapping (using filming and observation techniques) are used together to collect data. In addition, in this stage using the components expressed in the second step, the quality of behavioral settings in the selected neighborhood park is analyzed. The results of the findings indicate that there is some synomorphy between the behavioral pattern of “recreation” and the physical environment, but the behavioral pattern of “children’s play” is not consistent with the physical milieu. Finally, planning and design guidelines and strategies to improve the environmental quality of neighborhood parks are proposed.