Urban Design
Abstract
The public spaces of city shape social flows, provide the material needs of citizens, their intrinsic need for communication and face-to-face social interactions. Therefore, the quality of urban spaces in the formation of social interactions, the mental image of the city and its visualization are important. ...
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The public spaces of city shape social flows, provide the material needs of citizens, their intrinsic need for communication and face-to-face social interactions. Therefore, the quality of urban spaces in the formation of social interactions, the mental image of the city and its visualization are important. Several factors play a role in the formulation of the concept of quality, the most important of which is the configuration of urban spaces. The spatial configuration organizes the relationships between urban spaces. It is a factor in shaping qualitative variables such as readability and accessibility. Parks are one of the urban spaces whose social performance and productivity are directly affected by spatial quality. However, urban parks are now the epicenter of most social anomalies due to different factors and, as public spaces, are less able to provide a suitable environment for the formation of social interactions. In recent decades, the theory of space layout has made it possible to analyze the spatial configuration and its relationship with social, economic and physical factors using spatial variables.The present study investigates the structure and analyzes the features of spatial configuration of Mashhad in order to examine its effects on the spatial quality of urban parks. Configuration analysis provides an appropriate assessment of the spatial distribution, accessibility, security and readability of urban parks and can play an important role in redefining the quality of urban parks spatially. Since parks play an important role in urban spaces, evaluation of the layout, spatial distribution and access to urban parks in Mashhad are among the most important goals of the study. In addition, the readability and security of Mashhad parks are other parameters that are studied in this study using the space-layout theory variables. The present research is an applied research with a descriptive-analytical method. The statistical sample involves 290 parks in Mashhad in the five categories of neighborhood, local, district, region, and city. The research was conducted using spatial variables of space layout. The theoretical framework of the research was developed based on documentary and library studies with the aim of explaining the dimensions of spatial quality. Also, the city’s statistics in 2014, land use maps of 2011 (1/200 scale), satellite images and field surveys were used to analyze the data and collect information about the urban parks in Mashhad. The analyses were conducted in the GIS environment and 10 UCL Depthmap based on Mashhad’s axial map. The basic variables in this study were connectivity, interconnection, and control. The intermediate variables were readability, accessibility, space security, and cohesion. Research results show that despite the large dispersion of parks in the city, there is a spatial logic between the performance of parks and the city’s configuration. While regional parks are expected to be more readable in the structure and configuration of the city of Mashhad than district parks, the analyses show that they are less visible and accessible than other parks. The spatial distribution of these parks and their placement in spaces with a greater depth has decreased their spatial quality. Thus, one cannot expect significant functional and social effectiveness from this category of parks. In terms of spatial quality, urban parks are perhaps the only form of urban and social spaces that have the greatest impact on the spatial configuration of city due to their type of performance. The results of this study show that the distribution of urban parks in Mashhad is less spatially hierarchical. Although the main parks are distributed on a city scale in accordance with the axes of association and readability, most regional and district parks do not have such a distribution. This feature also affects the spatial cohesion of urban parks in relation to the structure of Mashhad and reduces the quality of space. Finally, it can be of said that, regardless of the spatial cohesion of Mashhad, which has a weak correlation with the components of the urban space and the city as whole, all the research indicators related to the quality of parks in Mashhad are poor and weak. This necessitates the attention to the park’s functional scale in the planning process, the proper location of urban parks, and the proper design according to the urban spatial pattern. Also, an assessment of the category of parks found that despite the number of neighborhood and local parks, these types of parks are better in terms of control than other parks, which seem to be logical according to the functional radius on a local scale. However, urban parks are of great importance in terms of accessibility and readability in the current structure of Mashhad. It seems that the assessment of spatial quality and its relationship with function can have an effective role in the planning and design of urban parks.
Urban Design
mitra beyzaie; amin shakiba; mohammad reza noghsan mohammadi
Abstract
The developments in recent decades, along with inattention to the features of a desired and efficient neighborhood in each district as well as a disregard for the views and demands of residents of such environments have caused various problems in neighborhood centers.The main objective of the present ...
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The developments in recent decades, along with inattention to the features of a desired and efficient neighborhood in each district as well as a disregard for the views and demands of residents of such environments have caused various problems in neighborhood centers.The main objective of the present research is to identify the problems with Yaghoubi and Posht Silo neighborhood centers in the historical and new texture of Yazd, respectively. The research analyzes these neighborhoods using the FMEA technique, which is mainly used to achieve the ideal level of quality.It is possible to identify and solve the problems of urban environments in a methodical and efficient way by using this technique and calibrating it with concepts in the field of urbanization.This research is an applied study which uses descriptive method and library documentation to describe its theoretical foundations. The second part of the study is related to the two neighborhood centers in Yazd. In this part, the FMEA technique is emphasized through descriptive-analytic method using field studies and surveys, interviews and questionnaires. The most significant result of the research is that for comparing the two neighborhood centers, which is obtained using the FMEA technique. While having some shortcomings in terms of the needs and conditions of its present time, the Yaghoubi neighborhood is much better than Silo due to pedestrianization and the placement of space at the level of human perception, its commercial usages, as well as the favorable combination of provocative functions of the residents.Drawing from the analytical results and prioritization issues, some strategies are recommended for improving the situation in the two neighborhood. Finally, the study summarizes the ideas taken from the Yaghoubi neighborhood center to improve the quality of the Posht Silo neighborhood center in accordance with the conditions of new urban textures. These ideas include:- Determining the space and scale of space at the level of human perception;- Relaxing the space by reducing the presence of drivers and assigning the neighborhood center to pedestrians;- Bringing together user-friendly applications for local residents for permanent presence;- Collecting users who are believed to be very important among people in Yazd and who are complementary to each other and have multilateral interactions;- Providing climatic comfort in space, considering the important points in designing according to the warm and dry climate of Yazd;- Handling the richness of visual sense in space due to the physical design of native architecture;- Handling enough enclosure and permeability for a favorable local environment;- Performing the promotion of native identity by utilizing the components of visual consistency while constructing complexes;- Handling the gathering and presence of more people by opening up space at the center of activities;- Handling security at all points using space resolution.Regarding the above ideas, it may be stated that, despite their formation in earlier times, neighborhood centers in the historical textures analyzed, Yaghoubi neighborhood center being a representative of them, are successful local spaces that fulfill “space expectations” in urban design knowledge and provide the user with a desirable space to adapt to the features required to form an ideal neighborhood center.
Urban Design
Shahab Abbaszadeh; Sevda Tamry
Volume 1, Issue 4 , March 2012, , Pages 95-104
Abstract
With the onset of industry revolution, automobile invention and development of cities, the pedestrian and pedestrian-oriented spaces and urban spaces role priority gradually faded and the quality of urban public spaces, urban open spaces, and the pedestrian walkways decreased. Lack of pedestrian-oriented ...
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With the onset of industry revolution, automobile invention and development of cities, the pedestrian and pedestrian-oriented spaces and urban spaces role priority gradually faded and the quality of urban public spaces, urban open spaces, and the pedestrian walkways decreased. Lack of pedestrian-oriented spaces and current low quality pedestrian spaces affect citizens' social interactions in contemporary metropolitans. Pedestrianism is a part of daily journey and activity of citizens in metropolitans, however, pedestrians' need and security is ignored in current cities. In doing so, majority of current urban spaces in our cities are defined as road way, where the presence of automobile is preferred on designs of high-quality and appropriate pedestrian-oriented spaces. Nevertheless, these spaces play an essential role in increasing contacts and citizens’ social interaction level. In this regard, ignoring human scale and the pedestrians' needs are the problems ahead. Lack of quality in pedestrian-oriented open spaces has led to poor citizens’ presence and social interactions. Hence, identifying factors affecting the quality of mentioned spaces for meeting citizens’ needs and increasing the presence and social interaction level is more important than before. Tabriz metropolitan is not an exception either. Having more roadway spaces compared with pedestrian-oriented way has made the life difficult for the citizens. By conducting rigorous literature review, the study derived influential factors forming theoretical framework of the research (including factors affecting urban pedestrian-oriented spatial quality: vitality, legibility, security, and permeability factors). Research utilized mixed-method approach, where aforementioned influential factors extracted from literature review, formed the qualitative part of the study. In the quantitative part used as the validity of the research, Tarbiat & Valiasr axes in Tabriz metropolitan were studied and evaluated. In other words, the study examined the verification of extracted theoretical framework from literature review, through conducting a survey in quantitative part. In this regard, a questionnaire was used to gather the data about pedestrian-oriented spatial quality and citizens’ satisfaction of the mentioned spaces. G*POWER software and Cochran sampling technique were used to calculate the sample size of the study. Ultimately, using SPSS software the data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical methods. This study indicated that vitality, legibility, and permeability factors, the main factors of urban spaces qualities, play an important role in Tabrizian citizens’ satisfaction of pedestrian-oriented spaces. The finding of this research can be utilized for designing more sociable and friendly atmosphere pedestrian-oriented spaces, where citizens' social interactions are concentrated.
