Psychological Role of Architecture in Social Integration of Immigrants in Multicultural Cities: Design Experience of a Residential Mixed-Function High-Rise

Abstract

International migration in the recent decades brought about multicultural societies almost everywhere. It seems that in such societies, two main approaches 1 been considered particularly in regard with the designing of the residential places. The first is to design neighborhoods related to the isolated nationalities, and the second is designing neighborhoods for the mixed ones. Taking a qualitative content analysis research approach, the article focuses on the second approach and will show how architecture may psychologically contribute to the integrative acculturation and enhance intergroup relations in different aspects. It also approaches new typologies of urbane grains; The author has pursued the goals through putting the theoretical frameworks into a design experience among 37 bachelor students of architecture in Eyvanekey higher education institute and comes to the conclusion that a specific spatial arrangement of architectural functions in terms of new building typologies (e.g., high-rises) with mixed functions could in different ways contribute to the social and cultural integration of the migrants.