A Model to Improve the Concept of Place Attachment

Place attachment is among the most important bonds between person and place. In recent decades, various researchers have carried out quantitative and qualitative studies in this area, trying to find solutions for creating a sense of attachment to place. Although many efforts have been made and are being made to explain the factors influencing place attachment, the achievements of research in this field have been presented in a scattered and fragmented manner and in this situation, it is not possible for architects and designers to ameliorate the attribute of attachment to space. Among main concerns of this research are: finding aspects, intervening variables and measurement tools for place attachment as well as answering how to create a place to which a person can attach. This research aims to help designers recognize and use factors in creating and enhancing the concept of place attachment. This qualitative research will be undertaken by reviewing the theoretical literature in various sciences, environmental psychology, philosophy, and literature. Discovering void in previous researches, it will establish a new model of place attachment and introduce three motives: Background, Middle-ground and Distant view. The findings show that we face a complicated structure in the process of place attachment, in which the first stimulus or background speaks of the intra-mental connection before the present moment, faces that are processed in the mind and create mental images that human beings use to understand the environment, The second stimulus of this structure is the setting that speaks of the reality or the moment of human presence in the place where it is possible to gather things at that moment. The moment of presence in the place is a mixture of mentality and objectivity and is different from the background stimulus since it is rooted in the presence of the factor of human perception and feeling, and The third stimulus or foreground is the reality that emerges from the gradual emergence of the background and setting, along with the person's wishes and requests at that time, in which a complete perception (uniformity) is formed. A concept that cannot be easily broken down into geometry, activities, and emotions. These three, then, create an atmosphere where all elements have a role which is regarded as the main factor affecting one's judgment about the place.