PurposeThe concept of a creative place has been considered by experts, but a review of the research background shows that the definitions provided for creative place are different, and the factors that make an urban space a creative place are not clear. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of creative place and to extract the indicators that make an urban space considered a creative place.Design/methodology/approachBy extensive library studies and using a specialized panel, 59 items in the form of 12 indicators were extracted as identifiers of a creative place and a researcher-made questionnaire was prepared and tested in a case study. Data analysis of this study was performed in two stages by using the factor analysis method in R software.FindingsThe factors of “competitive advantage (economically)”, “freedom”, “attractiveness”, “entrepreneurship and professionalism”, “culture and art”, “vitality”, “diversity”, “distinction”, “participation”, “reconstruction, nobility and infrastructure”, “meaning” and “creative experiences” are important as identifiers of creative place, respectively. The evaluation of the case study showed that the total score of creative places in this urban space is 69.6 (out of 100) and “meaning” gained the most point in this urban space.Originality/valueThe factors of this research can be provided to architects and urban planners as identifiers of a creative place and a case study can be evaluated in terms of the degree of compliance with creative place identifiers.

Researchers believe that the architecture of residential halls has a significant impact on various aspects of students' lives, especially on the quality of their education. The purpose of this study was to extract and evaluate residential preferences affecting the architecture of dormitories for students in dormitories at University of Mohaghegh Ardabili in Iran. The seven extracted indicators formed the basis of the researcher-made questionnaire with 35 questions. Pretests were performed at University of Mohaghegh Ardabili and its Cronbach's alpha was obtained with a coefficient of 0.930. The size of the study sample was 250 students from among students, which was confirmed by Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) method. The analysis of the exploratory factors was examined by two software 8.8 Lisrel and 26 SPSS and by the factor model test of the second order and the binomial test (ratio). We concluded that students' residential preferences in the case study include indicators of dimensions, service and welfare, location, privacy, landscape, flexibility, and materials with a positive and direct impact. Statistical analysis showed that flexibility is the most important indicator and landscape is the least important indicator for students.

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