Role of Environment in Connecting Disabled and Abandoned Children to Society (A case Study of Turning Rofaydeh Welfare Complex Project into a House in a Neighborhood Park)

Abstract

Due to physical and mental disability, children tend to withdraw themselves from society especially if their parents abandon them, and if society fail to establish a suitable relationship with these children, their presence will uproot from society. In this paper, we deals with the case Rofaydeh Welfare Services Complex in Iran in the he city of Tehran where 60 disabled, mentally or physically disabled children are taken care of, some of them were also orphans. The aim of the article is to provide an environment which is conducive to more relationship and interaction of these children with members of society with regard to their lack of caretaker and family, as well as protecting the primacy of the children's living spaces as their home.The research methodology included library and field methods; thus, suitable strategies were developed to achieve the goal of this paper. The research indicates that designing the complex as a house in the middle of the neighborhood park allows for children's presence in the society among the people and close interaction with people through being positioned in a neighborhood park, as well as providing the presence of the children in a space similar to a house which is every child's wish. On neighborhood scale, the park protects the children from social damages so that they feel sense of intimacy working between them and people.