مطالب

Sustainability is observed in many aspects and elements of traditional Iranian architecture, planner and landscape architecture, and this method was used to solve many problems for many countries. The aim of this article is to achieve a sustainable approach in planning urban renewal projects to identify the relationship between urban design considerations and the sustainable development objectives. An experimental model of stability testing of the modernization projects in three economic, environmental and social dimensions was evaluated in District 11, Municipality in Mashhad. In this article, the questionnaire used to collect data from sample size of 380 and various statistical analyses such as Independent T-test, Pearson correlation, multiple regression and path analysis were used. The findings show that the variables in all three "economic", "social" and "environmental" dimensions had related rate of sustainability of urban renewal projects. The variables, Built Environment and social factors were more effective in increasing the sustainability of urban renewal projects.

In urban planning, access to public spaces provides social relations for citizens. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the elderly's requirements in public spaces (case study of Sheet Bazaar, Zanjan, Iran) in order to recognize and classify their strengths and weaknesses and present more appropriate and effective strategies for their improvement. In this research, the related literature on old age and requirements of the elderly in public open spaces was reviewed and the factors affecting their use of physical places were determined at the first stage of the study. After reviewing the literature, some observations on the elderly were made and questionnaires were given to 80 users with the age of over 65 years old to serve the purpose of this study. The results of the questionnaires indicate that the frequent problems of the elderly in public open spaces were identified as follows: pollution (24.8%), pavements and roads (24.6%), traffic (14.4%), safety (12.2%), insufficiency of maintenance and management (9.6%), and socio-cultural problems (5.3%). In addition, the result of the observations in the main research area shows that the design properties had the highest and maintenance-management services had the lowest success percentages. In the end, some solutions were presented for designing new public open spaces and developing the existing spaces.

Park design in Iran has followed the traditional European style since the Qajar dynasty. The familiarity of Iranians with the spirit of Persian gardens and the low quality of the newest parks is such that users prefer ancient geometrical Persian gardens. Today, those responsible for the design of urban green spaces lacking examples differing from the traditional and thus they are in need of an adequate set of guidelines for how to design for present conditions, users, and their needs. This research focuses on the relationship between park design components and users’ psychological restoration regarding their preferences and perceptions to increase the quality of parks, diminish vandalism, and increase user agency. Psychological restoration is the likeliness that people will be able to rest and recover their ability to focus. A random sample of 100 Tehranian residents was taken by presenting them with images depicting 6 urban parks from around their city. The results were analyzed by grouping into categories: 1-similar activities and 2-by counting and categorizing the individual descriptions of components (frequency of words) contributing to restoration likelihood. Findings showed that the categories mentioned most frequently for high levels of restoration were natural categories including trees, shrubs, grasses, flowers, and water. Findings with low levels of restoration and recovery consisted of negative contextual conditions and the absence of nature such as high rise buildings around the parks, lack of trees, and crowds of people. The activities imagined more frequently were playing and other physical activities, social activities, and relaxation.

The success of urban spaces is proportional to the extent in which that space is being used and to human presence. In fact, architecture and urban planning should attempt to enhance social interactions and human soلیداrity rather than differentiation and separation. However, today what is witnessed in most of urban spaces is reduction of relationships and social participation of those residing in these spaces. On the other side, in recent decades, with the increasing progress of technology most of traditional patterns have been changed, and these changes have altered culture and life appearance in Iranian community. What is observed in today’s societies is the reduction in level of people’s social interactions. Regarding the role and function of cultural complexes as a space for improving social interactions, the physical structure of cultural environments should play a significant role in boosting people’s social interactions. The purpose of this research is to identify social interactions and effective physical components affecting promotion of social interactions among people in cultural complexes which provide an opportunity for individuals to take a relief from daily tensions, to gather together and interact. The methodology used in this research is descriptive and analytical, exploiting library studies in order to achieve the desired results. Finally, after studying various theories and effective physical components in promotion of social interaction in public urban spaces such as cultural complexes, appropriate architectural strategies have been provided. The results of this research indicate that six components of stagnation, aggregation, integrity, vitality, spatial determination and flexibility are among most important physical factors affecting the promotion of social interaction in cultural complexes.

The expansion and growth of cities is a remarkable phenomenon in urban planning literature, so that unpredictable developments have become more evident in recent decades, especially in cities that have undergone changes in their physical structure following the promotion of their political role. The present paper seeks to identify the factors driving growth in the developed areas of Ardebil city and extract basic factors and variables by investigating development of Ardebil. In this study, 27 variables have been tested in 920 expansion blocks during the years 1996 to 2011 using GIS and factor analysis. Four main groups including congestion factor, external factor, access factor and facilities are identified as driving forces of growth. The final combination of four factors in the Arc GIS environment show that the north, east and south east blocks of Ardebil had a higher score than the other blocks; in other words, these factors have the most effect on the growth of these areas. In addition, the Southwest blocks with the lowest score of between 0 and 2 have had the least impact from among the factors mentioned.