The Influence of the Private Living Areas on the Sense of Belonging to Place in the Design of Student Residences; Case Study: Yazd University Dormitories

Entrance to university is a new stage of life for many students, and the experience of living in a dormitory is a different experience of residence for them. Now, most student dormitories cannot meet the qualitative needs of students' residences. Conflicting activity areas exist in these dormitories; hence, students highly prefer to control and manage their interactions and communications with others. Accordingly, privacy is one of the components of a place that influences the sense of belonging to the place. The extant study aims to explain the relationship between privacy provisions in the dormitory and its effect on the sense of belonging to students. This study was conducted based on the descriptive-correlational method, and required data were collected through questionnaires and field studies. Dormitories of Yazd University were investigated as the case study. After reviewing the theoretical views and foundations of the survey quantitative and qualitative analyses were done using SPSS software and content analysis of interviews. According to study results, the most significant factors for the realization of privacy in student dorms can be classified to control over visual and auditory factors and access rate. The most important factor influencing a "sense of belonging" to the student residence place includes perceptual-cognitive factors (that are mainly influenced by the architecture and residence place), social factors (concerning roommates), and having suitable physic. The results indicate that student’s sense of belonging to the dormitory is considerably influenced by the desired privacy in the dormitory place for them. Finally, some recommendations have been proposed based on the mentioned factors to optimize the dormitory living conditions in future designs.