Introduction
The expansion of large-scale residential complexes in Iranian cities has increased the need to understand how architectural design contributes to residents’ place attachment, particularly through women’s lived experiences. Place attachment reflects the relationship that residents develop with their living environment through everyday experiences, perceptions, and social interactions. Although previous studies have examined individual physical, functional, psychological, or social aspects of residential environments, their integration within an architecture-oriented framework for explaining women’s place attachment remains limited. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between architectural design dimensions and women’s place attachment in the Ekbatan and Omid residential complexes in Tehran.
Methodology
An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was employed. In the qualitative phase, 43 semi-structured interviews with women residents, including 22 participants from Ekbatan and 21 from Omid, were conducted until theoretical saturation and analyzed using grounded theory and MAXQDA. The analysis resulted in 42 components organized into four architectural design dimensions: physical and functional dimensions within and outside the residential unit, and two emergent qualities of the designed environment: perceptual–psychological and social qualities. In the quantitative phase, data were collected from 730 women through random sampling using a structured questionnaire and analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4. The measurement model was assessed for reliability and validity, while independent-samples t-tests were used to compare the two residential complexes.
Results and Discussion
The findings indicate that the four architectural design dimensions are significantly related to the perceptual–psychological and social qualities of the residential environment, although the strength and significance of these relationships differ between Ekbatan and Omid. The perceptual–psychological and social qualities also show significant positive relationships with women’s place attachment in both complexes. These findings suggest that physical and functional characteristics of residential environments provide the conditions through which perceptual–psychological experiences and social relationships emerge, contributing to the formation of place attachment.
Conclusion
Women’s place attachment is associated with an integrated system in which architectural design qualities, together with the perceptual–psychological and social qualities emerging from residents’ experience of the environment, contribute to attachment to residential places. The proposed architecture-oriented framework clarifies the relationship between design characteristics, environmental experience, and women’s place attachment and provides a basis for the design, evaluation, and improvement of residential environments.