Extracting design principles of educational environments in order to improve children creativity (case studies: three elementary schools in Iran)

Due to growth ages, activation, promotion of creativity in the children is very important and today Communities need creative men and women. In order to improve creativity, there are some methods to encourage children’s mind to new thinking and develop the creativity, one of them is built environment. Thus, understanding the role of architecture and environmental factors on creativity is crucial. To understand this role, buildings and environments of different creativity centers were analyzed. These centers are perfect samples in the world. The comparison of centers shows that some architectural factors are common in these centers. Then, students creativity in the three schools in Tehran with different environmental qualities through the Torrance test was evaluated. Torrance s creativity tests both figural and questionnaires were distributed among 150 students (6-11 years old) in three schools (Kherad School, Bahar Modaresi School and Farhang-Honar school). Overall, 50 samples were taken from each school. The study reveals that students in Kherad School are more creative than two other schools and environmental factors that influence creativity in Kherad School are more respected. So we can say that architectural characteristics are believed to influence children’s problem solving and creative thinking abilities. Then design principles of learning spaces that increase children s creativity were extracted.

Keywords:

Creativity , Children , Design Principles , Educational Environments.