Résumé:
From the first human settlements until nowadays, the urban public space has been a primary
motivation for creating and improving the quality of life for all categories of citizens. Due
to its importance and central role in community life, its design, function, and use have
become interesting topics. Children as an important and vulnerable category of citizens are
spending their life more intensively within playgrounds, green spaces, and plazas of their
housing neighborhoods as their first type of outdoor living environment. Thus, these open
outdoor spaces in residential areas are highly important to children, because they provide
different arenas for play activities as the most necessary function for children's selfexpression
and development. Despite the importance of open outdoor spaces in housing
neighborhoods for the child category, the urban reality in the Algerian context is quite
different. These spaces are characterized by being either overcrowded or completely
deserted, anonymous, monotonous, limited, unsafe, and polluted. As a consequence, these
environmental conditions and the low quality of these spaces tend to provide fewer
opportunities for playing, recreating, and learning. Based on this hypothesis that children's
outdoor activities are highly affected by the quality of the outdoor environment, a mixed
methods approach is adopted to verify the assumptions and provide responses to the research
question centered around quality and usage. The research methodology consists of a
combination of qualitative and quantitative procedures combining direct observations, space
syntax analysis, a survey by questionnaire as well as behavioral mapping. The results support
our initial hypotheses and provide a comprehensive vision of the role that open outdoor areas
in residential neighborhoods play in defining and shaping the children's outdoor activities
through quality components that include play structures; vegetation and natural elements;
accessibility and visibility characteristics, as well as safety; condition cleanness and
maintenance; and diversity. Furthermore, the inexistence of appropriate play spaces for
children within the neighborhood vicinity has become a common identity for the Algerian
collective housing neighborhoods. These conditions are thought to be contributing elements
that lead children to sedentary outdoor play, the return to street usage as a playground, and
further encourage the decline of outdoor play. This study offers to decision-makers a
perspective for rethinking and considering the open outdoor spaces in residential
neighborhoods regarding the child category. Finally, this research suggests more related
areas of interest that might be regarded as further research paths leading to gaining a better
understanding of this child-environment relationship.
