The Role of Spatial Configuration in Shaping Sociability in Community Shopping Centers in Isfahan

Contemporary shopping centers, beyond their economic function, can act as semi-public environments that support presence, staying activities, and social interactions. Although sociability has been widely addressed in previous studies, a considerable part of the literature has either focused on perceptual and behavioral qualities of commercial environments or examined spatial configuration independently through Space Syntax indicators. Accordingly, the relationship between spatial configurational capacities and the physical–functional components of sociability in contemporary shopping centers, particularly in the context of Isfahan, has remained insufficiently explained through a comparative approach.This study aims to assess the sociability of contemporary shopping centers in Isfahan by simultaneously comparing field-observation data and visual spatial-configuration analysis. The research is applied in purpose and adopts a mixed-method approach based on a comparative case-study strategy. Four contemporary shopping centers at the social scale, positioned between neighborhood-scale and regional-scale centers, were selected according to their different spatial-organization patterns. In the first analytical path, the physical and functional components of sociability were extracted from the theoretical literature and evaluated using a field-observation checklist based on a five-point Likert scale. In the second path, visual spatial configuration was analyzed using the Space Syntax method and Depthmap software. The analysis included visual connectivity, visual integration, visual depth, visual entropy, and visibility-related characteristics.The findings indicate that sociability in shopping centers results from the simultaneity of spatial legibility, permeability, visual continuity, opportunities for staying, diversity of activities, and the quality of pause and gathering spaces. The theoretical contribution of the study lies in clarifying that Space Syntax indicators do not directly measure sociability; rather, they reveal the spatial and visual capacities that may support it. When combined with systematic field observation, these indicators provide a more precise framework for analyzing sociable shopping centers.