Urban Planning
esmaiil zarghami; abdolhamid ghanbaran; pooria saadati vaghar
Abstract
Lean construction has attracted plenty of attention during the past decade for provision of housing to the lower class. An important issue that has always appealed to large numbers of architecture and urban construction and planning researchers as post-planning assessments is to what extent and in what ...
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Lean construction has attracted plenty of attention during the past decade for provision of housing to the lower class. An important issue that has always appealed to large numbers of architecture and urban construction and planning researchers as post-planning assessments is to what extent and in what aspects the constructed condominiums satisfy their inhabitants once completed and utilized. Thus, useful suggestions can be made to decision-makers and planners of such projects for enhancement of the quality of life in the condominiums through identification of their strengths and weaknesses. An example of these lean construction projects is Mehr Housing, designed and implemented to meet the need for housing among the middle and lower classes of the Iranian society. It needs to be investigated, however, how successful the project has been, and to what extent it has satisfied the residents. Given the great diversity in the design of these condominiums in the city of Hamadan (in that some are enclosed, and others are connected to urban areas), Iran, little research has been focused on Mehr Housing. Therefore, the present research investigated three enclosed and unenclosed Mehr condominiums in Hamadan by focusing on the physical and spatial components governing such condominiums. These included the Ghadir, Farhangiyan, and Andishe (Kuy Reza) condominiums. Most global experiences suggest that the more favorable housing conditions that are expected in enclosed condominiums are not observed. This formed the basis of the research, a descriptive-analytical study in terms of the methodology adopted in the literature review and theoretical framework. ANOVA (with the Bonferroni method), independent t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient analysis, and linear regression were used for data analysis. The results demonstrated that there were significant differences in average satisfaction between the three neighborhoods, with the Madani neighborhood exhibiting the highest average satisfaction, followed by the Beheshti and Andishe neighborhoods, in that order. A prioritization of the physical and spatial components effective on residential satisfaction in the three condominiums also suggested that environmental health was highly effective in enclosed condominiums, accompanied by amenities, additional facilities, and flexibility. Furthermore, the results obtained from the investigation of the relationships between satisfaction with architectural components and individual, demographic, and residential components demonstrated that there were no significant relationships in any of the three neighborhoods between satisfaction on the one hand and age, gender, or academic degree on the other. However, the neighborhood factor (which distinguished enclosed and unenclosed neighborhoods) exhibited significance, where total satisfaction was generally higher in enclosed condominium residents, confirming the main hypothesis of the research.
Urban Planning
gholamreza malekshahi; Amer Nikpour; Sanaz Habibi
Abstract
IntroductionSatisfaction with the residential environment is an important factor for attaining life satisfaction. One of the most important measures of the Iranian state is the provision of housing for low and middle income classes in cities through the Mehr Housing Project. It seems that the policy ...
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IntroductionSatisfaction with the residential environment is an important factor for attaining life satisfaction. One of the most important measures of the Iranian state is the provision of housing for low and middle income classes in cities through the Mehr Housing Project. It seems that the policy behind this project paid particular attention to quantitative aspects of housing rather than its social and economic characteristics. The Mehr Housing Project is the biggest national housing plan which needs to be studied in terms of its outcomes due to its broad and new character in Iran. The present research aims to investigate and compare the satisfaction level of the residents of the state-initiated andself-owned Mehr houses in Amol. Methodology The research methodology was based on descriptive and analytical approaches and the required data was collected via field survey and secondary documents. The number of samples was determined using Cochran formula to be 253. Due to data abnormality, nonparametric tests were applied to analyze the residents’ satisfaction. Also, the binomial test was used to investigate and identify the satisfaction level with both state-initiated and self-owned Mehr houses. The Mann-Whitney U test was applied to compare the satisfaction level between state-initiated and self-owned Mehr housing project. Finally, Friedman’s test was used to rank the satisfaction level of residents. Amol state Mehr housing, with 546 households, is located in Hezarsangar Avenue, Amol, Iran.These complexes were constructed by 4 different cooperative companies. In addition, there are 3 other self-owned Mehr housing complexes, includeing the Paniz complex with 64 units and Pahlevanzadeh complex with 64 units, both located on the Taaleb-e Amoli avenue, and Royal-Roz complex with 182 units located on the Mirzahashem-e Amoli boulevard. The socio-economic condition, landscape and access in the self-owned Mehr housing is better than that in the state Mehr hosing.Cochran’s method was used to determine the sample size. Eventually, 253 households(153 households from the state Mehr hosing and 100 households from self-owned Mehr housing)were interviewed. Due to data abnormality, nonparametric tests were used to analyze the residents’ satisfaction. The applied methods include the binomial, Mann-Whitney and Friedman tests. Results and discussionIn this article, we tried to evaluate the objective and subjective factors that affect residents’ satisfaction with the state and self-owned Mehr hosing. The results show that the satisfaction level is low in all the housing components, the minimum satisfaction level being associated with the facilities, visibility and landscape. In Mehrself-owned housing, a dissatisfaction is observed with the components of facilities, visibility and landscape. As for the other components, given that the significance level was 0.05, the satisfaction or dissatisfaction level with any of the components was not significant. However, the degree of satisfaction with Mehr self-owned housing is relatively higher than that of the state.According to the results, Mehr housing complexes do not meet the expectations of residents. It can thus be argued that certain quantitative aspects along with the apperance of the houses have been prioritized in planning the construction and implementation of the Mehr housing project. The results are consistent with previous research results for mostcomponents. As a result, neglecting the quality, needs and satisfaction of residents has led to dissatisfaction with Mehr housing project. Therefore, managers and planners need to review the objectives and receive feedback from residents. Conclusion In providing housing for low-income groups, quality improvement, particularly in the area of the quality of physical space, the provision of educational, health and commercial services, the provision of sports equipment, playgrounds and greenery, the reinforcement of public transport and landscaping are necessary and effective on the satisfaction of residents. It is thus suggested to develop some strategies to achieve the above objectives for the Mehr housing complexes in Amol.The culture-led urban regeneration and cultural tourism are two sides of a coin in the renovation of valuable urban areas. The first is a comprehensive process for saving the deteriorated urban areas of the city from the destruction of physic and activity, and the latter is the most effective way of promoting people’s participation, culture and art and mobilizing social and cultural forces for old urban areas. Culture-led urban regeneration is one of the most recent approaches to sustainable urban regeneration, which, after many years of experience, has proved its legitimacy not only as a theoretical approach, but also as a practical strategy for the modernization and improvement of the old neighborhoods. The contribution of the cultural and human heritage of valuable neighbors to the process of regeneration can be realized because the local economy and related businesses would be supported through tourism development and tourists’ interest in such neighborhoods. Therefore, the culture-led urban regeneration through tourism development can be considered as one of the most promising solutions for the sustainable regeneration of old towns.When tourism is considered as way of rehabilitation of the underlying culture, culture-based tourism is clearly intended. Cultural tourism is defined as a type of tourism whose main purpose is to spread the horizons of knowledge through the discovery of artistic heritage or architecture of a land. This article investigates the interaction of the two in the framework of strategic planning of cultural tourism development in the old fabric of Rasht, which covers the Zahedan and Sagharisazan neighborhoods. The research method is descriptive-analytic, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative tools, including a questionnaire, for data collection. The internal and external factors are evaluated through a panel of 30 local experts, including experts from the Municipality and Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department. The sampling method was snowball sampling due to the uncertainty of the population.The results show that, despite having its own cultural resources, the old fabric of Rasht has not been able to use local resources due to the weakness of the cultural tourism infrastructure and the lack of creativity in the use of art and culture in the process of culture-led urban regeneration.Prioritized strategies, executive policies and action plans were developed for mobilizing cultural and artistic sources in developing cultural tourism while actively protecting cultural heritage and identity simultaneously. Creating new and different tourist attractions through reviving ritual traditions, improving historic buildings by planning attractive activities for tourists and pedestrinization of Bazar-Khahar-e- Imam –Zarjub are among the most prioritized strategies designed for cultural-led urban regeneration through urban tourism in the old fabric of Rasht. Besides, the results of this article show that the plan for tourism development in the Iranian historical neighborhoods should be a long-term plan that prioritizes the provision of infrastructure and changes in short-term views towards urban management.
Urban Architecture
Mitra Ghafourian; Elham Hesari
Volume 5, Issue 18 , May 2016, , Pages 91-100
Abstract
Residential Satisfaction is one of the most complex issues and the key criterion which has been studied by many urban scholars and also other scientific researchers. It is necessary since it contributes to individuals’ well-being and quality of life. Admittedly, the Residential Satisfaction concept ...
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Residential Satisfaction is one of the most complex issues and the key criterion which has been studied by many urban scholars and also other scientific researchers. It is necessary since it contributes to individuals’ well-being and quality of life. Admittedly, the Residential Satisfaction concept is based on a wide range of expectations, desires and tendencies in order to meet basic and transcendental human needs, and refers to the real experience of people's lives. Satisfaction with the residential environment is, in fact, people's quality of evaluating their living environment and many factors such as personal, physical and social factors influence its level. Hence, evaluation of these factors leading to satisfaction with the residential environment can be used as scales and standards by the city planners, urbanists and architects. It seems that by reviewing the research conducted on residents' satisfaction and its inductive conclusion, one can reach a systematic framework and a comprehensive model to explain the factors affecting this quality. This paper is in search of a theoretical framework to identify and assess background factors and variables affecting residential satisfaction, and to develop a theoretical model to analyze the relationship of each variable with the extent of residents’ satisfaction using a meta-analysis method by comparing the results of previous experimental research. This analysis was undertaken to achieve tangible and clear conclusions. Accordingly, on the one hand it deals with defining satisfaction with the residential area based on the views of experts in the field; and on the other hand, by looking at previous experimental studies, it deals with identifying and analyzing the factors affecting the satisfaction of the residents and offers the proposed model of the research. The results of the research identify that Satisfaction with residential space is a complex phenomenon and depends on multiple factors which includes personal, social and physical factors. Personal variables, independently, are known as the most influential factors affecting different levels of expectations, desires and tendencies of life. Social factors were identified and defined as emotions that are effective in the process of shaping the social dimension of satisfaction. It can be stated that the public's sense toward local community increases in places and is affected by people’s mental perception of the environment. in fact, people feel more satisfied with their local community when it seems supportive, reliable and friendly. The third level of commonality also showed that satisfaction is also influenced by the living conditions and physical environmental factors. If built environment was selected by people and it has a good quality, it will affect judgment of satisfaction of the residential environment. In addition, social and physical factors of residential environments form the real experiences of people from these environments. With respect to the objective of observing the physical environment and mental perception of the social conditions in which one lives, residents will have different actual experience in terms of the environment. Thus, if there is more convergence between individuals' expectations with their real experience of the environment, the satisfaction with the residential environment will increase.
Satisfaction, Residential Environment, Personal Factors, Social Factors, Physical Factors.
Urban Design
Hadi Pendar; kamran ZEKAVAT
Volume 5, Issue 17 , February 2016, , Pages 15-28
Abstract
Residential areas are constantly changing. Some of these changes occur in an environment’s evolutionary process over time. Urban design pays particular attention to the process of structural transformation in the residential environments for improving the quality of life; environments that have ...
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Residential areas are constantly changing. Some of these changes occur in an environment’s evolutionary process over time. Urban design pays particular attention to the process of structural transformation in the residential environments for improving the quality of life; environments that have experienced various paces of physical change in the periods of transformation. Therefore, for evaluating environmental qualities, it is necessary to obtain the residents’ assessments of the incongruence and consecutive cycles of buildings construction at different paces. In recent decades, many neighborhoods in Tehran have had substantial physical changes as a result of increasing pace of urban development.
The main question of this research is how people experience the impact of physical changes at different paces and what those criteria are. Other questions examinethe relationship between affective-evaluative narration of residents and adaptation to new condition in low to high rate of changes and the indicators that influence satisfaction of experience of different paces of physical changes in the residential environment. Therefore, understanding cycles of construction at different paces leads to assessing the quality of residential environments using residents’ points of view. The purpose of this theoretical framework is understanding the process of experience and evaluating original inhabitants’ satisfaction rating of the pace of physical changes .
Lack of appropriate theoretical framework for understanding the process of evaluating residents' affective appraisal of physical changes in morphological analysis and quantitation of satisfaction to its inefficiency can be considered as relevant theoretical gaps.
This qualitative study was undertaken as a case study research method and accompanied with morphological methods, semi-structured questionnaire and deep interviews for data gathering.
Based on surveys of residents and comparing its results with morphological studies, three groups of alleys that have had low, medium and high pace of physical changes, as units for the field study were selected. 38 original residents of Niavaran were selected for in depth interviews by a purposive sampling of six streets. Age of mental reconstruction was determined as 20 years.
In depth interview questionnaires based on qualitative questions was carried out for data gathering. Analysis of data was performed using phenomenological method. After deploying interviews by theoretical coding method, comparing codes and recognition of the differences and similarities between them, main issues were extracted.
The results shows that while the pace and intensity of change is controlled and context values are stable, the residents have shown sympathy to context identities and nostalgia that is gradually forming in frameworks reference. However, the residents’ sensitivity to high pace and intensity of change gradually reduced. Amongst the residents that have experienced the different intensities of physical change, meaningful observations were made in terms of sensitivity toward the primary shape of living space. It seems residents’ experience of changes at different intensities is influenced by a series of conditions and fields. Highlighting the importance of physical space in understanding and interpreting residents’ experiences of high paced change, causes the physical to convert into a criterion for determining the type and intensity of change.
The theoretical framework for understanding the physical changes creates an opportunity for urban planners and urban designers to write physical policies based on residents’ points of view of process of physical changes from low to high pace.
Because of the qualitative nature of the evaluation which obtains data regarding residents’ experience in different environments , it can be a good basis for meta-analysis studies and can achieve a theoretical framework responsive to the conditions of similar environments in Tehran metropolis.
Urban Planning
Volume 2, Issue 5 , March 2013, , Pages 13-26
Abstract
The post-industrial revolution era is characterized by increasingly global urbanization with the resulting problem of the shortage of housing. In fact, housing has become not only one of the desperate needs but also an ever-growing concern of human being who has always been preoccupied with finding ...
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The post-industrial revolution era is characterized by increasingly global urbanization with the resulting problem of the shortage of housing. In fact, housing has become not only one of the desperate needs but also an ever-growing concern of human being who has always been preoccupied with finding a solution to this issue. Maskan-e-Mehr is deemed to be the greatest national project in housing. Due to the wide scope and newness of the project, an evaluation of the results is necessary. Generally, housing satisfaction as one of the widely studied issues along with housing environments proves to be a part of the life satisfaction. As a matter of fact, satisfaction means the amount of individuals’ accessibil -ity to the intended objectives. The identification of the effective factors responsible for the satisfaction and dissatisfaction rate of the residents can be helpful both in the analysis of the existing living conditions and in the future decisions to improve the quality of the housing environments and to avoid the same defects in the future locations. This study can assist the policy-makers and planners in designing an effective architecture for Maskane-Mehr projects to meet the needs of the residents. The present article undertakes to evalu-ate the satisfaction level of the residents in Fatemieh site of Maskan-e-Mehr in Yazd city. Although the adopted methodology in this study is largely descriptive, the data collection includes documentary and survey carried out via distributing questionnaires and inter -viewing the residents. A formula-based sampling of 367 subjects residing in kokran was taken as the statistical sample which was, for the sake of more accuracy, raised to 400 sub -jects. To assess the extent of satisfaction of the Maskan-e-Mehr project, the questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part dealt with the independent variables such as age, sex, marital status, education, income, occupation and a medium designed to investigate the variables on the level of perception of the satisfaction of residents. The second part was devoted to the dependent variable pertinent to the satisfaction of the Maskan-e-Mehr project. These variables include integrated facilities management and maintenance, light-ing, ventilation, landscape and views, arrangement, neighborhood relations, economic, environmental dimensions, transportation, accessibility and security. The analysis of the data has been done via the SPSS20 software. According to the descriptive results obtained from applying the Chi-Square test, there is a meaningful relation between independent variants such as gender, occupation, marital status on the one hand and the satisfaction level on the other hand. Based on Pearson Correlation Coefficient, the results show that there is a meaningful and direct relation between the age variable and that of satisfaction, whereas the education and the average income variables have a meaningful but indirect relation. The evaluative results of this research indicate that the overall satisfaction level of the residents of Fatemieh Condo is average. The residents of Fatemieh Condo are dis-satisfied with the economic condition of the condo while the neighboring residents are satisfied with criteria such as security, lighting, ventilation and the physical status of the complex. They, however, expressed an average satisfaction about the other study criteria. Taking into account the complex of Maskan-e-Mehr Fatemieh city of Yazd, it is possible to raise the level of satisfaction of the residents through provision of a range of facilities and reduction of the problems in their residential location. Finally, some solutions have been proposed for the improvement of the project, the facilities and the services for our case study.
