Investigating the Development of Design Principles of Playground Areas for Children by Focusing on Age Group (5-12) * (Case Study: Rasht)

Urban design in Iran does not have a long history and the designing playgrounds for children, particularly in age group (5-12), have been less prioritized. In Iran’s old cities, due to the identity and emotional attachment of inhabitants and their adaptation to traditional communities, children may easily find their needed area for playing. Today, urbanism has caused spatial limitations for children and this has resulted in a completely different way of their game from the former generation. The popularity of computer games among more than 80% of children today testifies to this fact. Therefore, it is necessary to develop urban solutions for the present cities in order to allocate appropriate areas to this age class. By adapting the current principles and criteria in designing playground areas, the present article has compared these two subjects and through proving some hypotheses, it deemed children’s expectations about playgrounds today to be higher than traditional swings and slides and it observed this to require revision while it has been influenced by the technique of designing playground areas and matrix environment through type of houses in order to confirm on the way of neighborhood’s design and its impact on children’s playing behaviors and their physical activities. It has tried to propose new principles toward designing playgrounds for children, especially age group (5-12); a type of approach that benefits the designs of contemporary playground areas as its ultimate objective and based on identifying children’s needs and interests. The article is also meant to improve the quality for children’s games in urban areas for further presence of children in order to create qualitative game opportunities via a conscious process.