A conceptual model for children's participation in the architectural design process: Exploring deep participation

Nowadays, architectural designers interact with children to better understand their demands so that to improve the emotional connection between the child and the architectural space. The present study mainly aimed to find contributing factors to improved architect-children participation in the architectural design process for children. The procedures of this research were based on the meta-synthesis by Sandelowski and Barroso. The data were collected using desk research and then coded and classified in MAXQDA 10. The validity of the codes was evaluated by the Glynn tool, and the extracted concepts were also prioritized in Excel 2010. The findings indicated that common methods of participation depend on the architect’s ability to use participatory and design theme tools. However, the new definition of participation (i.e. deep participation) does not rely on these factors and emphasizes the presence of children during the design process and their role as the main ideator. The depth of participation (i.e. improving the quality of architect-children participation) is determined by the degree to which children’s most genuine wishes about the design theme are understood well. Contextual, proactive, motivational, and architecture-focused components help increase this depth. The relationship between these components was presented as the conceptual model of deep participation.