Urban Design
Sahar Samavati; Ehsan Ranjbar
Abstract
The topic of happiness has attracted the attention of urban experts in the last decade. Cities such as Copenhagen and Bogotá are creating literature based on their experiences in this area. The quality of the city and urban spaces is a significant factor affecting happiness. The amount of happiness ...
Read More
The topic of happiness has attracted the attention of urban experts in the last decade. Cities such as Copenhagen and Bogotá are creating literature based on their experiences in this area. The quality of the city and urban spaces is a significant factor affecting happiness. The amount of happiness in urban spaces can be a reflection of the quality of these spaces. Similar to vitality, hence, happiness can also be seen as a quality of urban spaces. Happiness has become a key concept in recent urban studies. Happiness literature considers the role of place, local communities, social cohesion and sense of belonging. Unveiling the concept of “urban happiness”, Enrique Penalosa, the mayor of Bogota, revealed the potential for happiness and wellbeing in government policies, planning, and decision making. Penalosa’s policies and decision makers in the “wellbeing infrastructure” emphasize the crucial role of planners and decision-makers in improving citizens’ quality of life and happiness. The global data indicates Iran’s inadequate status in the field of happiness, part being due to the poor quality of urban spaces that cannot provide the grounds for happiness. As one of the first researches in the field of urban happiness in Iran, this research seeks to analyze the factors affecting happiness in Tehran’s urban spaces. Reviewing the global and domestic studies based on the content analysis method, a specific conceptual model was developed. The model presents the factors affecting the macro-to-micro level happiness in urban spaces. As pedestrian spaces and walkways are important due to the presence of citizens, these spaces were selected in Tehran center based on the analysis of the case study in order to provide a realistic understanding of the factors affecting happiness in urban spaces. Purposeful questionnaires were developed based on field study, preliminary discussions and conceptual model. To find hidden relationships between variables, SEM method was used to analyze the data extracted from the questionnaires. The Veenhoven index was used as one of the most reliable indicators for assessing the overall state of happiness in this area. This research seeks to find the factors affecting happiness in urban spaces based on a comprehensive survey that analyzes citizens’ mental and objective perceptions of space. Providing such a comprehensive outlook on factors affecting happiness in urban spaces in Iran, especially in Tehran, can be a suitable basis for formulating policies and strategies for organizing and improving the quality of urban spaces in order to promote the status of happiness in the city. Also, based on the impact of cultural and social conditions on the overall state of happiness, the results of this study can provide an understanding of the dimensions of happiness based on the status of urban spaces in Iran. The findings show that the average level of happiness among citizens on the basis of Veenhoven index is 5.90 out of 10. The results of the analysis indicate that physical aspects, urban space qualities, subjective dimensions, and community characteristics are the most important factors affecting happiness, and physical characteristics have the highest impact on happiness. Also, the citizens’ happiness in pedestrian zones of Tehran’s historical center is more affected by the quality of urban space, especially its physical properties, than the macro aspects of community.
Urban Management
mohammad ali firozi; saeed amanpour; Javad Zarei
Abstract
Institutional collaboration in urban management is the result of activities between urban organizations that contribute to collective action and have characteristics of trust, cooperation, participation, interaction, facility, and integrity. Therefore, it reflects the formation of the role of urban renewal ...
Read More
Institutional collaboration in urban management is the result of activities between urban organizations that contribute to collective action and have characteristics of trust, cooperation, participation, interaction, facility, and integrity. Therefore, it reflects the formation of the role of urban renewal of sustainable management of the actors in the areas of policy-making, administrative and executive management, and administrative development that facilitate institutional interaction. The present study focuses on the institutional capacity of cooperative management of renewed and worn fabrics of Iranian cities and the metropolitan Ahwaz in particular. The research method is an explanatory and descriptive approach to quantitative and qualitative analysis. Therefore, the required information was collected by reviewing reliable scientific documents, obtaining experts’ opinions in the field and conducting interviews with managers and staff member agencies. The statistical techniques of Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression in the SPSS are used to analyze the data. Also, with regard to the social network analysis, UCI NET is used for the analysis of semi-structured interviews. The results showed that, depending on their role, each agency should promote institutional capabilities consistent with the related requirements and consider sustainable urban renewal as a default action. In order to fulfill the integrated management approach in sustainable urban renewal in the city of Ahwaz, it is essential that each institution has a participatory approach. It is worth noting that setting mutual relations between the players and cooperation among them must be based on a long-term program that takes public interests into account.
Urban Planning
MH Y; A P; Maryam Jami
Abstract
Objectives Today, walking is one of the missing links in urban life. Thus, it is required to review the form and structure of today’s streets, which is a great concern for the urban experts and citizens. Therefore, it is crucial to consider urban pedestrians and find solutions to promote urban ...
Read More
Objectives Today, walking is one of the missing links in urban life. Thus, it is required to review the form and structure of today’s streets, which is a great concern for the urban experts and citizens. Therefore, it is crucial to consider urban pedestrians and find solutions to promote urban environmental quality of life and to promote citizens’ satisfaction with the environment. The city of Sareyn is not an exception. Given the climatic conditions of Sareyn and its high traffic, it cannot attract tourists and residents. These circumstances may pose an obstacle to the development of Sareyn in terms of tourism. Thus, constructing pedestrian walkways could facilitate the revitalization and development process of the city. As a result, this research aims to introduce significant factors in constructing pedestrian walkways in Sareyn, which will be a suitable background to guide the development process of the city. Findings This paper applies the path analysis method to determine the factors affecting the construction of pedestrian walkways in Sareyn. The results of regression analysis method for direct effects indicate that about 64% variance in pedestrian walkways is likely to be explained by research indicators. Variables of walkways and transportation, security, economic functions and urban services and facilities are more significant than other variables in predicting the dependent variable. The second and later stages of the path analysis method measures indirect effects. The results of these stages show that the effect of urban services and amenities on the construction of a pedestrian walkway is 46.3%, it is 11.4% for the transportation criterion, 11% for economic performance, 3% for the socio-cultural criterion and 18.1% for the security factor. Sum of the direct and indirect effects of the independent variables on constructing pedestrian walkways shows that the most effective factor in Sareyn city is related to “Walkways and Transportation” factors. Walkways and transportation affect the dependent variable directly by 0.362% and indirectly by 0.091%. Other effective factors in order of importance are security, urban services and facilities, economic, socio-cultural and geographic functions. Results Path analysis method was used to determine the effective factors on making pedestrian walkways in Sareyn, as a pole of tourism in Iran. Due to the multiplicity of factors, multiple regression test was performed. The direct effects were analyzed in the first step and then the indirect effects were calculated. In the first step, it was observed that research factors explained pedestrian walkway construction by 64%. The most significant factors in this stage were urban services and facilities, transportation, security, socio-cultural and economic functions. The most significant indirect factors were determined to be geographic factors with an indirect path and security with two indirect paths. There were 5 direct and 8 indirect paths in this research. Finally, the most important factors were walkways and transportation, followed by security, urban services and facilities, economic, socio-cultural, and geographic factors. The results show that the improvement of the above factors would make good conditions for constructing pedestrian walkways. Furthermore, the improvement of these factors would have a positive effect on the number of pedestrians using walkways. Finally, improvement of other factors would also have such effects.
Urban Design
Mahdi Montazerolhodjah; B N; mojtaba sharifnejad; Z F
Abstract
Rapid sprawl of urban areas in Iranian cities in the last few decades was the result of two population growth factors: (1) natural increase in population, and (2) migration to urban areas. These conditions are aggravated during times of transition from a pre-industrial society to an industrial one. This ...
Read More
Rapid sprawl of urban areas in Iranian cities in the last few decades was the result of two population growth factors: (1) natural increase in population, and (2) migration to urban areas. These conditions are aggravated during times of transition from a pre-industrial society to an industrial one. This trend has led to a shortfall in many sectors, primarily housing. One of the innovative schemes in response to this problem in many cities like Yazd, which has received wide acknowledgement, has been “sites-and-services” scheme. In a sites-and-services scheme, the preparation of land and procurement of infrastructure and services are the responsibility of the project authorities. Depending on the investment made, resources available, the implementing agency or degree of organization of the beneficiaries, sites-and-services schemes were activated in a number of differing ways in Yazd. These types of schemes provide only what the households cannot easily get or afford themselves: a plot of land with basic, essential utilities (clean water, sanitation, flood protection, security lighting, etc.) and municipal services (waste collection, schools, etc.). Sites-and-services projects have formed the main pattern of urban development during the past decades in Yazd. However, many of these projects have had a planning oriented process, have just focused on land use planning, population density and transportation and have ignored the environmental qualities. These condition has created urban textures with very poor quality, image and townscape. Although there are references to the aesthetic aspect and its role in urban contexts in some of these layouts, what is witnessed in reality is discrepancies between buildings and spaces and, therefore, their lack of visual appeal. Meanwhile, the visual environment in urban contexts is composed of a sophisticated structure of physical and non-physical elements; it is the cognitive joint between humans and their environments; it can facilitate people’s perception and evaluation of their living context and boost their environmental comprehensibility. The objective of this research is to assess the physical indicators affecting the aesthetic component in contemporary urban developments formed as a result of site and services projects during the past four decades in different regions of Yazd. The related literature was reviewed to collect information and determine the study criteria regarding the physical indicators of aesthetic component in urban areas. The results from the literature review and observation survey served very well in codifying the variables and attributes for developing the questionnaire to examine the resident’s perception of the aesthetic components in their neighborhoods. The questionnaire survey was done in 3 selected regions (region 10 in Imamshahr, 92 hectare project in Azadshahr and 93 hectare Kowsar project in Safayeh) that have been formed in difference times. A sample of 100 participants was selected randomly from residents in each region. Pearson correlation and regression analyses were performed. According to this study, the effect of any physical indicator is different from a region to another. Nevertheless, the width of the road and façade continuity has been mentioned in all the three studied regions. After that, visual balance and architectural style have an important role in the aesthetic component. The findings may also be used to improve the site and services scheme strategies and design guidelines regarding future urban development in Yazd and other cities in Iran.
Urban Planning
A M; zeinab shahrokhy; hossein tahmasebi moghadam
Abstract
Introduction Housing, as the environment in which the family has formed and developed, plays an important role in many aspects of human life. However, millions of people live in cities without the security of enjoying the proper ownership of housing and related services. With ...
Read More
Introduction Housing, as the environment in which the family has formed and developed, plays an important role in many aspects of human life. However, millions of people live in cities without the security of enjoying the proper ownership of housing and related services. With regard to this, governments should increase their efforts to promote, preserve and ensure the full realization of the right to adequate housing for those social strata. In this way, as the first measure expected of the governments, housing is provided for a decent life of the citizens. Depending on their views, governments apply policies and interventions. The problem of housing in Iran, as in most other societies in the world, is of particular importance. The government was obliged to meet this requirement in the form of a five-year development program. However, housing policies, as tools for proper development in accordance with Islamic principles, have not been able to meet the housing needs. Therefore, considering the housing problems in the city of Kermanshah and the continuation of these problems, this research is carried out to identify the factors affecting housing policies in the city and to present the necessary strategies in this area. Results Based on the strategic plan of housing policies in Kermanshah, the existence of a series of macroeconomic factors hinders the full realization of housing programs and policies. The contradictions, discrepancies and heterogeneity in the physical structure of the city were considered as the biggest obstacle on the macro level, which needs serious attention. It is necessary to pay attention to external macro factors such as managers’ ‘taste’ in looking at housing policies, lack of public sector facilities, housing market downturn due to lack of investment by the private sector with moderate importance, lack of adequate oversight on the implementation of national building regulations in designing and implementation of all urban and urban development projects, feeling of insecurity for public and private investments with little significance, inadequacy of government’s housing policy for the entire social strata of the community, non-establishment of factories in the industrial and agricultural sectors, and expensive materials and building materials. On the other hand, there is a range of effective factors on housing policies in Kermanshah. Using these factors, one can deal with some of these problems. Considering these factors, offering housing loans in accordance with the up-to-date requirements has the highest strategic appropriateness. Therefore, one should pay particular attention to these factors. Conclusion Regarding the plans and policies implemented in Kermanshah, as one of the metropolitan cities of Iran, there has been some difficulty in furthering development goals despite the improvement in the quality of residential units. The root of these problems is mainly in the regulation of residential development policies with a purely economic viewpoint without regard to target groups. Therefore, one has to find suitable strategies and solutions in order to resolve the housing problems of this city. Therefore, in this research, after understanding the city’s problems and the opinions of experts in the field of housing, with the consensus of the experts, it was concluded that the most influential programs were the housing mass production policy and Mehr housing plan. Despite all the quantitative measures, the city of Kermanshah needs about 20,000 houses for its citizens in the 2010s. Providing housing facilities for different income groups, encouraging the private sector to build and provide housing through industrial practices, education and culture, enforcing national building regulations and optimal monitoring of these regulations are the most important strategies for this research.
Urban Design
Firouz Armoun; seyyed yahya KH; E K
Abstract
Place names, as identity roots of those places, are able to convey the nature and flavor of the place and space through reconsidering its connection with the contextual and temporal needs. As soon as the name is heard, an image of its wholeness and figure is shaped in our mind. The connection between ...
Read More
Place names, as identity roots of those places, are able to convey the nature and flavor of the place and space through reconsidering its connection with the contextual and temporal needs. As soon as the name is heard, an image of its wholeness and figure is shaped in our mind. The connection between a place’s name and the natural or build environment can be the same connection between the formal and conceptual components. When the original name of a city, neighborhood, alley or a specific place is mentioned, it will be illustrated with its unique characteristics in one’s mind. A place could be physically destroyed for a long time, but its name may stay in the minds of people and recall the quality, concept and feature of the place and its inhabitant’s mood and taste. Whether or not a place’s name is consistent with its objective reality and existing attributes can be considered as a significant measure of transparency and readability. However, the identity, quality and subjective dimensions of names are ignored in contemporary urban developments. Urban studies do not address the connection between the objective-subjective and semantic-physical factors of place names in the urban and landscape design. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the importance of connection between urban areas and places and their naming. It focuses on explaining its reflection and its force on the urban place’s perspective. The case study is Ardabil city and its historical fabric. It is of utmost importance to investigate this matter due to the historical-cultural eminence of Ardabil with more than 30 centuries of history. Most of the old neighborhoods and alleys in the historical fabric of the city have historical names, in a way that the old passages of the city are still called by the same historical names. This study is in need of credible documents and sources. The research method in this study is the mixed approach. To identify the original names of the places, the descriptive-analytic research method was used, which is based on documentation (texts, maps, images) along with field studies. The research results showed that political, economic, social, cultural and environmental factors had significant effects on traditional naming of urban places, especially in Ardabil. In addition, in some cases, the physical form and soul of a place is determined by its formation process. Such processes give more weight and color to the holiness of the city and its political and commercial dimensions. It seems that the names are metaphors representing the same things that were, are or could be in the city’s landscape, capacity and subjectivity.
Urban GIS
siamak ghazipour
Abstract
This article investigates the social patterns of women’s everyday movements in Sang-e-Ladge neighborhood (Tehran) in a week time span using representational and analytical methods in the “Time-Geography” theory. The main aim was to analyze the ways in which female residents use local ...
Read More
This article investigates the social patterns of women’s everyday movements in Sang-e-Ladge neighborhood (Tehran) in a week time span using representational and analytical methods in the “Time-Geography” theory. The main aim was to analyze the ways in which female residents use local spaces in their everyday social life. With a mixed methodological approach, based on qualitative survey and using snowball sampling method, the information of daily activity of 78 female residents of Sang-e-Ladge was collected in the form of narrative and descriptive datasets (diaries and direct interviews). Spatial and temporal information of daily social activities was extracted into a comprehensive database in order to analyze the social patterns of everyday activities. The analytic results revealed that the major part of woman’s social activities was arranged and took place at indoor private spaces (i) or outside the local district area (e); the public spaces (both indoor and outdoor) of the neighborhood (j and k) contained much less social activities. At the same time, analysis of “activity bundles” revealed the quality and quantity of co-presence and co-existence of social individuals in space and time fabric of the district. The analyzed activity bundles were three different types: the focal, the spatial and the temporal bundles. Temporal activity bundles are the bundles vertical to the space plane. They are produced when at least two trajectories meet each other at a definite spatial reference (a precise coordination is space plane) for a non-zero amount of time (for example when individuals stay together at a shop or a park). The density of temporal bundles revealed the places in which individuals spent their time together. The time duration in temporal bundles indicated the social significance of places they used for social activities. The main attribute of temporal bundle distribution in the neighborhood is its dispersal arrangement throughout both space and time. It means that the temporal bundles have no limit in time budgets in socially active hours, but the same fact was not applicable to their spatial distribution. The spatial bundles of activity are formed when at least two separate trajectories overlap each other in the same direction at the same time. In contrary to temporal and focal bundles, the distribution and density of spatial bundles are limited to a very narrow and specific time span of individual’s daily budgets (between 9 a.m. and 13 p.m.). They are mostly created among local shopping centers (the strongest density was recognizable between two main local traditional shopping centers). Spatial distribution of bundles shows that the public social activities are some sub-activity of other activities, not an independent daily activity. For this reason, as shown in the diagrams, the neighborhood gets almost evacuated of individuals throughout the weekends (when most shops are closed and inactive). The results of this study could be summarized in three main parts: first, the social activities of local woman residents are mostly arranged in private spaces and the role of public local spaces as places of social interactions are very slight. Second, the temporal bundles of activity are very dispersed, with no recognizable pattern, and are mainly produced in nonpublic places of the neighborhood. This indicates that women’s social networks have less internal cohesion in a way that they are unable to create a strong integrated network of social relations. Third, the spatial bundles of social activities are just partial deeds in long with other daily activities. To discuss the contribution of main findings, we must lay stress on facilitating the spatial and temporal dimensions of women’s social interactions in order to empower their everyday experience of walking and their local networks of social activities. This could be realized only when this kind of socio-spatial studies become one of the main agendas for determining the indices in planning procedure for social development of communities such as Sang-e-Ladge.
Urban Design
F R; B Z
Abstract
Nowadays people’s health (physical, mental and social) is one of the main dilemmas of societies living in metropolitan areas. In this regard, urban design, as one of the influential disciplines among many others, seeks to find solutions to help solving these dilemmas by focusing on the physical ...
Read More
Nowadays people’s health (physical, mental and social) is one of the main dilemmas of societies living in metropolitan areas. In this regard, urban design, as one of the influential disciplines among many others, seeks to find solutions to help solving these dilemmas by focusing on the physical and functional dimensions of the urban environment. The main questions of this paper are: what are the effective physical-environmental attributes on the social health of citizens and which of them are more effective? Accordingly, the main objective of this paper is to study and compare the effects of physical- environmental attributes on people’s social health. To achieve this aim, multiple regression method was applied to study, analyze and test the assumptions in order to (1) measure correlation among the mentioned indicators and social health and (2) to identify more effective indicators to predict social health. The study results demonstrate a few common indicators in both neighborhoods; some indicators in distinct neighborhoods have mutual correlation with social health. However, some of the indicators have no significant correlation with social health, these include age, job activities, suitable lighting of public spaces and car ownership. Some indicators have the most correlation in both neighborhoods; they have more certain correlation with social public life of people .These indicators include security and low crime rate in neighborhood, inclusiveness of public spaces, cohesion among neighborhood residents, safety and security of children in public spaces, sense of attachment to the neighborhood, education and townscape quality. In particular, security and low crime rates, sense of attachment to the neighborhood and inclusiveness of public spaces have a high correlation with resident’s social health. Results of the third assumption indicated that there were some differences among correlations between independent variables and social health in the two neighborhoods, one with a historical and traditional social and physical construction and another being a completely new grid neighborhood. Investigating the fourth assumption in the last stage, a limited number of indicators was extracted from the indicators with mutual correlation with social health to predict social health and form the regression equation. Regression results for Dardasht neighborhood indicate that only four indicators (among the indicators with a significant correlation with social health) are obtained as significant indicators in the regression results. Only the following indicators have enough significant predictive role for the dependent variable (social health): availability of gathering spaces, inclusiveness of public space, suitable security and low crime rate, social cohesion among neighborhood residents. However, there is not much difference between coefficients. The highest predicted effect is related to inclusiveness with 1.921 unstandardized coefficient B and the least predictive effect is related to social cohesion among community groups with 1.571 unstandardized coefficient B. The significant indicators in the regression equation for Mulla-Sadra neighborhood are more than those for Dardasht neighborhood, i.e. there are enough significant effect to predict the dependent variable. These indicators include security and crime rate, sense of attachment to the neighborhood, education level, inclusiveness of urban spaces, safety and security of children in public spaces, and suitable townscape of public spaces. Security and inclusiveness have the most coefficient value (2.345 and 1.939, respectively) and suitable townscape has the least coefficient value (1/374). The results indicate that only two indicators, security and inclusiveness, are common among regression results for the two neighborhoods, indicating the highest generalizability of these two indicators regarding different social and physical attributes of these two neighborhoods.
Urban Design
m h; sh e; enayat alah mohaghegh nasab
Abstract
At the present time, children’s rights and their participation in urbanism have found a special place in the world’s urbanism experiences. This approach allows children to influence and contribute to the planning and design of their environment. Since creating urban spaces in participatory ...
Read More
At the present time, children’s rights and their participation in urbanism have found a special place in the world’s urbanism experiences. This approach allows children to influence and contribute to the planning and design of their environment. Since creating urban spaces in participatory process focuses on the stakeholders’ ideas, making suitable urban spaces for children necessitates their cooperation in the planning and design processes. Also, because of children’s different point of view of the city comparing to adults’, children’s participation methods will be different in urban planning and design process. Applying descriptive analysis method, this article reviews children’s participation concepts and process in creating children-friendly urban spaces. A pattern will be extracted for children’s participation process in the city to answer the questions of how to codify a participatory pattern based on teaching and creating a common language with children and what is the meaningful relationship between trained children’s ideas and suggestions and other substituent groups in planning and designing the city. In this research, it has been attempted to hold up educational sessions and workshops on urbanism for children to provide a suitable platform for their voluntary participation in the city of Sede Lenjan. In this way, children’s opinion, as the main involved group, can be investigated in friendly spaces and their suggestions and ideas can be adjusted properly to designers’ ideas. For this purpose, 128 children were trained and answered the distributed questionnaire. Findings of the research showed that the research process aimed at increasing children’s participation and creating a common language among them and other stakeholders and designers was efficient. It thus can be used very well in children’s participatory programs. Also, the findings of descriptive and inferential statistics (Pierson- Chi-squared) showed that children’s ideas had a huge difference with those other stakeholders and designers, emphasizing the necessity of using children’s active participation in the programs more than ever. The results of this research showed that seven steps should be considered in order to create a practical model of children participation: (1) researcher’s field studies; (2) publicizing and generalizing the research; (3) determining optimal sample among children; (4) teaching the participatory process and creating a common language with children; (5) survey of children to use their opinions in designing; (6) designing via the comments raised in the fifth step; (7) process modeling. The final results of data analysis revealed that what the designer group found by their presence in the city and discussing, observing and surveying the facilities, problems and design priorities was different with the reality of children’s life in the city because of children’s different understanding of their own unique needs and spaces. Also, city administrators, parents, residents and other social groups could not be a good substitute for children group, as their opinions had a huge difference with children’s opinions. Therefore, it is necessary to emphasize a participatory process that considers direct viewpoints of children in designing child-friendly urban spaces.
