One of the major concerns of the architectural design is what features make a place meaningful. My question is what features can transform space to place, to make it meaningful in terms of encouraging social interaction among strangers. Tehran as capital city of Iran, despite of having so many parks, restaurants, coffee houses and shopping mall centers, it still misses something; Real social interaction and passion.
Unfortunately, with passage of time, the passion of people to go to the parks decreased because of safety issues and therefore enjoyability has decreased. Parks became places for homeless and addicted people. On the other hand, restaurants and coffee houses in Tehran are typically designed in a way that they do not engage people in social interactions. This can be due to different design characteristics; for example, furnitures are arranged in a way that does not easily provide an opportunity for individuals to have informal dialogues with one another. In addition, furniture arrangement is mostly focused on separation of spaces, meaning that they provide a private space for groups of people and do not take into account the individuals.
Also, in these kind of places there are no special events to provide a foundation for connecting people with different backgrounds, cultures and thoughts. So, you can usually see individuals enjoy their privacy for relaxing by having a snack or a meal or groups of people who usually have history in between them from before. Therefore, it is unlikely to see sparks among strangers.
The focus of this study is to explore new methods and information about features that will support social interaction in public spaces in one of the significant historical streets in Tehran. Valiasr street is a tree-lined street which divides this city into eastern and western parts, which makes it one of the major paths for both pedestrians and motorists. Even though it is one of the major attractions of Tehran, lack of a decent public space is sensed. Although it has a lots of common public spaces such as parks, restaurants and cafés, as a developing country there is a lot of room for improvement.
To achieve this goal, multiple methods of gathering data such as archival information, observation and surveys will be used. A part of this study relies on social science to find trends and patterns in people’s behavior. Also historical research has to be used to study the past and present state of the area to develop a design for the future.
There are some questions that author is trying to find answers for them such as:
- What features can transform space to place, to make it meaningful in terms of encouraging social interaction among strangers in public urban spaces
- What factors of place can transform passive users to active users?
- What features of a public space can make passion for people who go there and spend their time?
- How is it possible to spark something among strangers who have no previous history from each other?
