Redefining Valiasr Street Public Space for the Youth, Tehran, Iran

Leilasadat Mirghaderi

Public space by itself does not form a community; rather, a community is built by people who participate in community building activities. Despite being the capital city of Iran with so many public and semipublic spaces such as parks, restaurants, cafés and shopping malls, Tehran is still missing a dynamic and active public space. The current public spaces of Tehran suffer from dysfunctionality of features and lack of coexistence among users which make them unattractive for the young generation. In this age of communication, youth are looking for new experiences and they are eager to expand their social circle. Despite the rapid changes in social trends over the last few decades, there hasn’t been any significant changes in the design of public spaces of Tehran. This study will try to address this issue by providing a public space that could improve opportunities for the youth to interact with one another more easily.

The main focus of this study is to employ leisure and amusement as architectural programs to encourage the youth to participate in social interactions that are based on cooperation and social exchange. These activities should be within the boundaries of Islam which is the official religion of Iran. Valiasr Street which is one of Tehran’s significant historical streets is chosen as the area under study. Valiasr Street is a tree-lined street that divides the city into its eastern and western parts. It is one of the major paths for both pedestrians and motorists in need of improved public spaces. To address this issue, there is a need for gathering information (through a literature review, and an exploration of obtaining information from social media, and archival sources) about how users interact with a major public street, and with each other.  From that information I would like to develop information useful for design that will support social interaction of the youth in public spaces. 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.

In this path, my goal is to find answers for the following questions: What kinds of activities encourage social interactions in young people? What factors of a place can transform passive users to active ones? What design features can prolong the duration of stay of the youth in a public space? The outcome of this study would most likely result in design features for a number of small scaled places that will make a dynamic environment to allow young generation pause for a few moments from their daily routines and socialize.