BAGH-E NAZAR
Year:2016 | Volume:13 | Issue:39|Papers Count:6

Due to recent urban developments, the undesireable presence of pedestrians along urban expressways for access to public transportation facilities, daily trips and evading traffic is a typical trend. This problem decreases the urban life quality and health of citizens in a metropolis like Tehran. New viewpoints consider this daily travel along “expressway landscapes” as a kind of “everyday nature”. It is important to notice that, the meaning of everyday nature and what be perceived in everyday landscape are different form a park or sites with recreation, sports goals. Review of debates over “presence of pedestrians along expressways” shows the opposing views have reduced dramatically over time. This article addresses the quality of “pedestrian connections improvements” along expressways and their related aspects of programing and design. The research is based on the case study of Resalat expressway, as one of most important population core and transportation systems of Tehran. The question is can landscape architects use bridges, existing sidewalks, parallel pedestrian, green patch and other facilities to plan a “continuous pedestrian connection” where daily travel is requested? Does experiences like Tabiat bridge in Tehran or Highline in NewYork, which both are recreational places, have a role in development and improvement of such pedestrian connections as an everyday nature of cities?The framework is based on “Forman model of landscape ecology” and “viewpoint of Kaplan about everyday nature”; through using case study/combined research strategy with synthesizing case procedure. After evidences review, phenomenon survey in the flowing steps. First is inspect and analysis of “quality-oriented approach of landscape”, “landscape ecology of Forman”, “Kaplan’s view point of everyday nature”, definitions and principles of “pedestrian and expressway design”. Second is study of real cases and acquire essential needs for design research through the production and use of a template module of analysis which is generated from the previous step. Third is case study area Pathology and quality of related improvement identifying. This step also uses the previous step structure of template module of analysis. Final step present the findings and Indicators to identify demands for improvement (table5) and some standard offer for this kind of design (table6), which can be generalized to similar problems in other situations (transferability).Findings associated with proponents of “pedestrian presence along expressways”, conditionally consider “pedestrian connecting” along expressways as an opportunity. It’s important to consider this kind of request for commuters as a real aspect of today cities. This phenomenon can be “ignored”, “prohibited” or “improved as an opportunity”. Last approach have a holistic theory to balance the needs of city with new conditions to achieve higher quality of everyday urban life.

One of the factors that distinguish the city from other human settlements is the physical dimension that always absorbs significant attention of managers, urban planners, residents and visitors and quality of it has an important role in quality of resident’s life. The lack of program and immethodical development, especially in big cities, caused current physical quality failed to meet the needs of residents and many criticisms has risen about this subject; Ahvaz city is an example for this matter. The objective of this research is to investigate and analysis of physical space of Ahvaz city and also capabilities and weaknesses of that space for providing residents’ requirements. Research method is descriptive-analytical with qualitative approach. The article was written in holistic scale and relies on the theory of main structure of city. In order to reach the objectives of the research, after primary reviews, three hypotheses developed: 1. diversity is the most important capability of physical space of Ahvaz city, 2.lack of inconsistency is the most important weakness of it and 3.the physical space of the city has conformity with modernism more than other schools. Then, required data about literature of subject gathered from library studies and by selecting a set of criteria from reviewed criteria, using survey observation and library data, some examples of capabilities and shortages of Ahvaz physical space investigated. The result shows the diversity is the most important capability of the physical space of Ahvaz and environmental factors, inconsistency and the lack of universality in the city are the most important problems of physical space of it. In total, the identity of city is strong and it is weak in environmental criteria and also in discipline. Physical components of city have relative conformity with modernism school.

Today in literature of “Urban Art” in our country, the definition of it, is either based on the mission of art work to improve the quality of urban landscape or on a variety of art works in the city; however the interesting point here is that the Urban Art is not clearly determined in the previous studies. How can it affect the quality of urban landscape? And whether all works of art in the city are caused such qualities?With the distribution of artworks all over the cities and failure to reach their maximum determined targets, it seems that Urban Art has been backed away from its original essence and subdued by some styles attenuating its values as much as decorations and ornaments of city. Therefore, it has not only lost its meaningful presence in the city, but also [the present application of it] has led to some sort of confusion.To achieve the desired goals, this paper suggests considering “urban art” as a landscape phenomenon, because it depends on two components, “citizen” (human) as the “target audience” that urban art works are created for him, and “social space” as an environment to form perceptions and social interactions, not just a simple context of the works. Finally it concludes, in modern times, the most appropriate platform for urban art is not every urban space and public space, but it is a social space establishing the social connections as the highest goal of civic life to be able to invite the target audiences to understand art works and achieve urban qualities in this calling.

Being evocative, is one of the numerous qualities in the realms of public spaces and consists of four stages; formation, retention, evocation, and transition. The role of public spaces and territories is more important in the first two stages. Bazaars are places in which people experience social interactions, feel the space, and perceive the environment. The formation and retention of collective memories are the consequences of such activities and behaviors. It seems that in recent years “Bazaar Mohammad Ali Khan”, known as “Bazaar Khan” in the city of Yazd, that is considered one of the scenic and historic spots of the city, has loosely contributed in this regard. To resist the momentum of the contemporary culture and finding a new path to depict its temperament, reconstruction of reminiscences is a necessity in a new context. Therefore, this research is carried out to establish an appropriate context based on the very first two stages, i.e. formation and retention capability of collective memories, for the aforementioned bazaar. The research questions are: What are the stages of memory formation and retention in public opinions in the bazaar space as a place for the creation of collective memories? In the previously mentioned stages, what are the effective factors in the formation and retention of memories in bazaars, and how the context of memory formation and incription can be provided in “Bazaar Khan”? We utilize a descriptive-analytical survey, and document and field studies are used for the data collection. The research identifies that: Collective memory contains social, spatial, temporal, and emotional aspects. For these aspects, proper components, and for each component, proper indicators are identified. Also, different stages for the procedure of collective memory formation and incription are identified. Moreover it is found that these stages overlap and the beginning of one stage is not necessarily the end point of its former one. Additionally, it is determined that “Bazaar Khan” still has these two capabilities; therefore, some strategies to redesign its components are proposed in order to strengthen and preserve these capabilities.

Urban deteriorated fabrics form remarkable parts of many cities of Iran. These regions have many structural, social and economic problems and cannot do function as urban regions owing to these problems. In order to solve these problems or at least reduce the negative impacts, before doing any interference action, detection of these urban deteriorated fabrics and prioritizing intervention zones is vital. A review at existing related literature indicates the prevalent efforts are associated with the rules approved by the High Council of Architecture and Urban Planning of Iran. According to their criteria, only physical indicators are used for detecting deteriorated urban fabrics and prioritization. Many urban experts believe that considering only physical indicators is not sufficient and there are more factors that incorporate in this matter. Accordingly, some urban researchers started to use more complete and efficient factors in this topic in recent years, although most of them suffice to give some limited indices or give some suggestions. So in this article we try to have more detailed and precise considerations for recognition of urban deteriorated fabrics and prioritizing of intervention zones in our study area. For this aim, we consider socio-economic and environmental indicators as well as physical factors.This paper scrutinizes the effect of including socio-economic and environmental indicators as well as physical factors in prioritizing the intervention zones of our study area. It also examined whether the interference of these factors, in addition to conventional measures, priorities will change as distinct or only in their scrutiny and the possibility of utilizing them can be used as alternative indicators? It’s essential to be mentioned that in Iran there is no ability to access many necessary information for calculating socio-economic criteria so this limitation affects our analysis for sure, although there are more detailed indicators in evaluating our criteria compare to similar researches.Our study area was central urban deteriorated fabrics of Arak. This area is about 62 hectare with a population of 18478 people. The condition of this area is critical and about 85 percent of buildings should be demolished or repaired.For prioritizing vulnerable blocks of our study area according to above triplet indicators (functional, socio-economic and environmental indicators), at first some criteria were selected for every indicator. Then for creating prioritized maps related to every indicator and finally linking them and overlaying the maps, we used two methods of decision making, AHP and Delphi. In this way, we gathered our necessary information from master and detailed plans of Arak (standards of Council of Architecture and Urban Planning, approved in 1383), some related reports which has done in our study area by consulting companies and also some area visiting and filling questionnaires. As can be seen, in the final map, which resulted from overlaying all of criteria of triple indicators, prioritized regions are very similar to those according to functional indicators especially in the first and second priorities. So we can conclude if for any specific reason, information on functional factors is not accessible, socio-economic and environmental indicators for prioritizing of intervention zones can be replaced. Also by adding these information we can have more detailed and accurate view of the region which as well as improving prioritizing method of urban deteriorated fabrics, will help our managers in next steps that they should chose the action strategies for solving the problems in these prioritized regions.

Vulnerability of cities to environmental hazards in countries with high-risk environments has become a significant challenge ahead of urbanology, engineering management, and urban planning. One of these dangers threatening many cities around the world including our country is earthquake. Necessity to reduce vulnerability to earthquakes was considered as one of the main purposes of spatial planning, urban planning, and urban design. Tehran, as the capital city of Iran with an important and critical situation, has a large zone of distressed areas most of which are located on a major fault and are considered as a serious threat to the city and its inhabitants. Therefore, it was necessary to study of vulnerabilities in old neighborhood of Imamzade-Hasan. The purpose of this study was to develop strategies for organizing these textures and to reduce their vulnerability to earthquakes using SWOT model and QSPM matrix. It is an applied- strategic research conducted by a descriptive- analytical method. In addition to several library studies, it has also taken advantage of a survey. To collect and evaluate information of the survey, Delphi technique, questionnaires, and interviews with experts and officials have been used. The findings suggest that the worn-out urban fabric of Imamzade-Hasan neighborhood needs to be pushed out of the status quo, that is, its weaknesses should be recognized, and its threats need to be addressed. Several strategies such as renovation and improvement programs, special attention on crisis management, creation of a central agency to regulate programs related to rusty textures, establishment of appropriate contexts for increasing economic activities in the neighborhood, providing infrastructure to attract investments to modernize the neighborhood, and increasing green open spaces were identified as the high priority strategies, and implementation of reconstruction and renovation programs for providing adequately wide roads necessary for ensuring improved mid- and post-crisis services was determined as the most effective strategy for addressing the problems of this neighborhood.