opportunities provided by benches and transmutable elements such as movable chairs and steps as sitting areas (Whyte 1980). Freedom is a way of enhancing interaction within the urban space between people as well as between people and built environment. Sepe (2016) referred to freedom as ability to use of place by people of different age groups, presence of different activities in different times and performing actions that normally are not permitted such as walking barefoot in the designated public areas. Other important quality for an effective urban space is to have an identity that makes it characterized in citizens’ eyes so that people always remember and want to go back such as a smell or a view. Lynch (1960) defines the term “identity of a place” as a set of characteristics that make the place unique and recognizable is given by urban and architectonic elements and by elements connected to the perceptions. In addition, Sepe (2016) emphasizes on existence of nature to achieve a successful design for a happy place. According to him, besides having nature as in the shape of flora and fauna, it is needed to provide natural lighting, presence of water, naturally occurred smells (e.g. wood, grass, sea) and direct contact with natural materials. Yet, he claims that adequate state of cleanliness, security and minimizing noises generated by public transport are other core characteristics that a space should have to be make its users happier.
2.3.
Concluding
Public spaces have strong ability to enhance urban happiness for citizens due to their openness, multifunctionality and way of creating social interaction between people. They allow to gather people from different background - the age groups, activities they perform in a public space and the time that they visit places are different – so that public spaces allow social interaction in urban environment. Social interaction provides reliefs and networks which enhance psychological well-being of people. Therefore, public spaces need to be designed as revealing this ability in the best manner. To create urban happiness in public spaces, these landscapes should provide people a positive emotion so that they can remember these places and want to come back again. This is also related with “identity” quality and remindful mean of the space as Lynch (1960) clarified, which can be created by a view, a smell or placing a valuable landmark. Besides, considering the broad literature review, there are major reasons that people can feel happy in a public space such as freedom. They feel free when they take off their shoes to step on bare lawn area, rotate their chair to the sun or use urban stairs as their resting point. 6
