public spaces

Today, the quality and quantity of urban spaces has become one of the most important developmental indicators in the cities. The management of citizenship relations and increase of social interactions level and presence of people in urban spaces have been considered as the backbone and capital of a dynamic and vibrant community. The purpose of this study was to determine and evaluate the effective indicators on promoting social interactions in urban spaces with a happy city approach. Sampling method was determined by multi-stage comparative stratified sampling and the number of samples was determined by using Cochran formula about 384 people in Qaemshahr. Data collection tool was a research hypothesis questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data. Inferential statistics were used to analyze the hypotheses by SPSS and LISREL software. Four effective factors for promoting social interactions were extracted. These factors are as follows: the first priority is the sense of belonging to the place (5.10), the second priority is security (3.95), the third priority is the urban pedestrian (3.67) and the fourth priority was urban furniture (3.60). The results show that all the components affect the promotion of social interactions in the city's public spaces.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the bazaars and shopping centers as public spaces. Given the weakness of public places and consequently the weakness of social interactions, today’s societies are in dire need of social spaces to increase social interactions. Therefore, the review of these two as then and now’s urban spaces could help solve some problems. Bazaars are among the oldest Iranian urban spaces, which are deemed to be the palpitating heart of the Iranian cities, playing different social, economic, and other roles. Shopping centers are adopted from the 20th Century’s models and are considered as an appropriate alternative for Bazaars for the modern human of the 21st Century. Descriptive-Analytical research method is of the case study model, and Space Syntax Software was used for collection of data by library method and analysis. The results show that shopping centers cannot be appropriate alternatives for Bazaars and can be considered as centers for meeting economic needs. Therefore, these centers could not be considered as appropriate collective spaces and as appropriate places for meeting social and recreational needs.

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.

Network of public spaces composes of a network of interconnected land use and various elements of the city, such as synthetic and natural which shows the city as a whole. Network structure of public spaces is important because understanding this network as a structure presents us the formation of the city. This paper attempts to define the status of the network of public spaces in the city structure and to accomplish goals which leads to integration, interconnectedness and cohesion of public space network. For this purpose, a descriptive-analytic method was used and the standards and design principles were taken from the literature review. For collecting the data, Moalem Boulevard in Mashhad/Iran was investigated and analyzed with respect to the physical, functional, visual, social, and historical dimensions of public spaces. Finally, three conceptual options such as a linear pattern, a centralized pattern and a distribution pattern were presented. The results show the factors, criteria, characteristics, urban design framework, policies and strategies to integrate the structure of public spaces network in the area under investigation.

This Study has discussed the meaning of public space and has shown that public spaces are an essential part of people’s lives. It has also identified the key urban design and architectural ideologies that have influenced the shape of the built environment, and has discussed how each has perceived the value of public spaces. In the following provides an overview of the relationship between people’s behavior and experience of public spaces, from an environmental psychology perspective. Methodologies adopted for the study. A combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods of collecting data has been used. The purpose of this study is to explore how public spaces influence human behavior in order to gain an appreciation of the significant role that public spaces play in the daily lives of people. This Study has established that human behavior and experience of public spaces can be influenced by the physical and ambient features of the built environment. It has been identified that physical features may include buildings, streets, landscaping, land forms and architectural elements, and ambient features may include sound, smell, temperature and illumination. It has also been identified that other factors such as age, gender, culture and ethnicity are also capable of affecting the way people respond to the environment. In addition to identifying the perspectives of the users of public spaces through the focus group, the study also identified the role and perspectives of urban planners and consultant designers. These built environment professionals have a significant role in shaping public spaces.

Urban spaces are the heart of any city. These spaces play a crucial role in improving citizens' quality of life, welfare, and mental health. In recent decades, there have been growing concerns among urban experts over the widespread disregard for public spaces due to the dominance of capitalism and changes in citizens' lifes tyles due to their crucial needs being ignored. Despite the considerable efforts to develop urban spaces in Iranian cities, there are s till huge gaps between proposed plans and implementation processes. Due to limited resources and execution mechanisms, it is necessary to identify such spaces based on real-world needs and prioritize them in the implementation phase. In line with this, the present s tudy seeks to develop an efficient method for identifying potential public spaces in deteriorated urban neighborhoods through participative processes, reducing the cos ts and time of projects, and increasing the effectiveness of projects employing the urban acupuncture approach. The data collection and analysis tools used in this s tudy include semi-s tructured interviews, focus group discussions, analysis of documents related to the development of the neighborhood under s tudy, space syntax analysis using Depth Map software, prioritization of indicators using AHP ques tionnaire and analyzing them in Expert Choice software, and analysis and overlaying information in ArcGIS software. The findings related to the Pamenar neighborhood in Tehran sugges t that it is practically possible to identify and prioritize the public spaces through the urban acupuncture approach by s tudying and analyzing motion flows. Finally, 13 urban spaces have been identified and prioritized in the neighborhood. 

Over time, the use of underground spaces has changed and has been considered for various other purposes. Many US1 built for a specific period with a specific purpose have been left without a specific function today. The reason for this can be considered the lack of a clear and codified plan in the face of these spaces. Therefore, the importance of underground issues related to US jus tifies the inclusion of UUS2 in urban index sys tems. Hence, due to the depletion of activity, many US today have created bubbles lacking function under the skin of cities; with proper identification, it will be possible to use them in the service of cities and citizens. Thus, the main Goals of Current research are -Recognizing the characteris tics of US -The typology of the urban US, and -Solutions to reproduce the urban US. This research is a scientific review, and the information collected is documentary-oriented. The lack of reliable sources in the fields of architecture and civil engineering in the subject of US, geographical extent, and diversity of species of these spaces on the planet show the importance of this research. Therefore, typology and solutions for reproducing urban US are presented from two methods of inves tigating the theoretical foundations and known projects in the field of US. The present s tudy's findings based on the literature review and reproduction of US showed that these spaces could be defined into six categories.