Investigating the components of student satisfaction with campus public spaces: A case study of the Art University of Isfahan's Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning

The campus's physical environment significantly affects student recruitment, retention, and satisfaction. Pressure to accommodate growing student populations has resulted in the unstructured physical growth of campuses in recent decades, jeopardizing student satisfaction with the campus's physical experience. As a result, studying the physical environment on campus is now – perhaps more than ever – a subject worthy of sustained academic inquiry. Additionally, with the shift from a "teaching paradigm" to a "learning paradigm" and technological advancements, the role of campus public spaces as informal learning environments designed to meet the needs of students has received considerable attention. As a result, reimagining the architecture of these spaces appears necessary to boost campus performance and meet the needs of the new generation of students. This paper examined student preferences and needs in campus public spaces to increase student satisfaction. Thus, the primary consideration focuses on the characteristics of university public spaces based on student preferences. The research methodology is qualitative, and the study area is the Art University of Isfahan's Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning. To this end, four public spaces on campus were selected  based on their popularity with students: the core collective spaces, the library, the area in front of the library, and the campus side entrance from the "Gozare Rahe Shahi." The data collection process included a qualitative survey and the placement of questionnaires in four public spaces on campus. These questionnaires were placed in designated locations for six days, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and a total of 248 comments were collected. Based on the collected data, student preferences for campus public spaces can be classified into two distinct categories: physical characteristics and activity-related characteristics. Furthermore, the library emphasizes a functional aspect, which refers to students' library access hours. According to the analysis of student perspectives, the physical aspect of the space demonstrates their desire for suitable landscape and furniture design, environmental comfort, and support areas in campus public spaces. Our findings regarding the activity dimension indicate that students value the environment's capacity to support a variety of individual and collective activities. These activities include solitude, interaction, academic engagement, recreation, and individual or group study in public spaces on campus. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates that the importance of these activities varies according to the four study areas mentioned previously.