Study of Urban Spaces Problems in City of Kerman, Iran

Minaei & Tajalli, Interdisciplinary Themes Journal

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Interdisciplinary Themes Journal 1.1 (2009). © Negin Minaei & Mohammad Hossein Tajalli.

Readers of this article may copy it without the copyright owner’s permission if the author and

publisher are acknowledged in the copy and the copy is used for educational, not-for-profit

purposes

STUDY OF URBAN SPACES: PROBLEMS IN

THE CITY OF KERMAN, IRAN

Negin Minaei & MohammadHossein Tajalli

Islamic Azad University,

Kerman Branch, Iran

ABSTRACT: Although Kerman is a historical city with lots of green spaces but is known

boring by locals. We have studied the people’s behavior in 24 case studies in city of Kerman

during 3years ". The research is a case study research and cases were chosen regarding their

importance, uniqueness, expansion, and potentials. We collected our data with direct and

indirect observations, documenting people's behavior, mapping behavioral patterns, having

interviews with local people, neighbors, using questionnaires and people's comments about the

spaces; we derived a general view that helped us to have a better understanding of what people

want and need. We divided these open derelict spaces in three groups; 1. Ancient spaces with a

great identity, interesting and in some cases unique in our architecture in national scale but

forgotten and disappearing by destroying or ruining 2. Green open spaces or city parks 3.Mega

buildings in shrinkage process, empty for years without function making the image of the city unpleasant. In this paper we use maps, charts, tables, and photos about our observations and

present the problems, some solutions and ideas that we found out to regenerate the urban

spaces of Kerman and make them more attractive to people.

KEYWORDS: Problems of Urban Spaces; Kerman; People; Social behavior.

INTRODUCTION: Kerman is a city in south-east of Iran with nearly 570000 population in an

area of 11000 hectares and altitude of 1754. Its history backs to 220 before Christ and during

the past centuries it was called Karmania, Germania, Kermania, Gavashir and its known as a city of 6gates. As the city was situated in the way of India-Gulf region, it has had good

political-social statement. This resulted in creation of different land uses that city has to keep

them because of its importance. Although Kerman has a large number of historical places,

green open spaces (108 parks with nearly 850363.5 square meter) with a nice nature and lots of

urban public spaces , the first thing you may hear about this city from the local people is that

there is not enough entertainment spaces. Talking to people from different strata makes it clear

that most of Kermani people even don't know the city well and haven't tried to know it too.

They got surprised when we told them we have 108 parks in Kerman, some of them with

museums and ancient buildings.

Designed by: Negin Minaei

This made us to start a study in the city of Kerman with nearly 200 University

students under the course of "Urban Space Analysis" during 3years. I found it a good


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opportunity to find the most problematic spaces in Kerman. I tried to encourage the students to

be innovative and find good solutions. Therefore I gave them enough backgrounds and

materials about proposed suggestions and experiences of other countries. I presented them

some examples of urban design especially urban regeneration. We tried to find the places that

have enough value to work on them. In this paper I will illustrate briefly the way we did this

study and present our findings and also the solutions.

LITERATURE REVIEW: As Bastie and Dezert mentioned in their book La Ville,

"we should pay attention to the range of personal freedom and the quality of life. We should

stay away from similar or imposed structures. We should not eave cities on their own since

their residence will not like the city and they don't feel happy in it." (Ashrafi1998, 455)

Giddens believe that:"If we want to have a better understanding of people as active and alive

human beings, we cannot look at the urban spaces as excess spaces. In his idea designing

particular spaces for specific activities can have a major effect on the behavioral patterns of

people and can change their level of social acknowledgment among their interrelation and

improve the culture in the process of the time."(Behravan1998, 213)

Nowadays what is common in developed cities of the world is using financial

motivation to encourage private institutes to participate in process of recycling , rebuilding and

renovating of old parts of inner city areas for new functions as redevelopment .Sometimes it is

just a part of planning activity ,but most of the time constructing in older parts or rebuilding is

accompanied with well equipping inside of the buildings with needed facilities and also

necessary services like restaurants ,shops and so on that ends to increase the prices of the land.

Docklands is a good example in the city of London. Recycling the city areas could absorb

resources and it is always welcome. Unfortunately, in cities of Iran particularly Kerman we

cannot see this policy to improve the historical fabric. "In new organizing of the urban spaces

in Iran in recent years, urbanization and urbanity are not in the right track. Most of Iran's cities are now a composition of three main parts: the historical fabric divided in pieces and loses its

population day by day, new residential areas without mentioning the environment and wealthy

quarters with a special high class architecture without respecting the context." (Habibi2001,

210)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS: 1-What is wrong with these too many green spaces made

by municipality in city of Kerman that are not used for entertainment? 2-Why don’t people try

to know or experience city parks even once? 3-How can we make the urban spaces of Kerman alive and attractive to all groups of people?

AIMS AND SIGNIFICANTS: Our main aims were: 1-To make the spaces more vital,

attractive and memorable for people that could be obtained by designing some events in that

spaces.2-To make people more familiar with important themes of sustainability, environmental

perseverance, helping poor people. We designed some events for most sites even by exact time

of starting and we planned them all. We wanted to have some kind of gentrification of the

culture among low class strata. To be applicable, I wanted my students to use whatever that

exists in the sites.

RESEARCH PLAN AND METHODS: Studying the people’s behavior and the

chosen spaces during some years, I used a system for the first time in order to propose some

user friendly solutions for sites with least budget. I divided our study in two main aspects and

all groups did every steps of it:

1- Studying the physical aspects and the morphology of the cases in 2steps:1.1 -

investigating general information about them and their contexts including: Land use study of

the context, Quality of the fabric’s surrounding the site, Age of all buildings around the site,

Height limitation of the context, Transportation system and traffic of the site.

1.2- Studying the space in three scales

1.2.1- "Mega scale (seeing the sculpture of the park as a whole): Entrances and exits, solids and

voids, skyline, silhouette."(Mozayyeni1997, 55)

1.2.2- "Medium Scale (seeing the image of the park): Landmarks, Nodes, Paths,

Edges, and Districts" (Mozayyeni1979, 90-93)


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1.2.3- "Micro Scale (seeing the features of the park): Facades, Spaces,

Furniture"(Mozayenni1997, 26)

We used the field study as a main method, as we were confronting with people and

their reactions toward these spaces, we used: Tracking, Observation and interview.

2- Studying the socio-cultural patterns of usage.

2.1- Interviews: What do people think about the space? (Potentials and problems), How often

and what time do they use it? What do they like or don’t like about the site? What do they

recommend to improve the space? (Hafeznia1998, 152-159)

2.2- Observations: "how do people use the park? (How they choose their way? What kind of paths they prefer to walk on? Where do they like to sit?) , what do they use the sites

for? (Meeting, sitting, reading, walking…), who are the users? Are they children, adults, and

old retired people and are they females or males?" (Minaei2005, 36)

TOOLS OF COLLECTING DATA: Capturing videos, taking photographs every

some seconds in case of crowded spaces, interviewing and filling observation forms and maps.

We mapped all the traces and information of people on different layers of maps during

3months (Bahrainy1996, 15). Every space was under observation for at least 50 hours to 70

hours during the semester, of course in different days of the weeks and during different hours of the day, normally between 7am in the morning till 7pm in the evening. We did direct and

indirect observations, having some interviews with local people and neighbors of these spaces,

and asking people to write their opinions and their comments about the spaces, we came to

gather a general view and to have a better understanding of what they want and what they need.

In a way we tried to see the sites not just from a designer point of view. Architecture

students should experience that what they guess is needed may not be the one people want so it

may not work! Therefore I made them to be in the site for at least 50 hours and feel the

environment and get close to people to obtain the most comprehensive idea of what is going on in their sites, and to recognize different types of users.

Finally I ask them to present their attempt in this format: 1- A timeline who illustrate

the times, the number and types of users 2- A map to show the traces, to realize where are the

most favorable places, the ones people chose, the ones they like to stop and sit for a while and

the ones that are mostly empty 3- A poster to introduce their site and their studies on 4-

Proposing solutions to solve the problems of the site including social and physical problems 5-

Designing at least one scenario that best fit the space a general event , and finally to test the solutions they can introduce some of the unknown urban public spaces to people 6-Planing

everything about the implementation of their projects on the event, like the costs, the exact

timetable, the financial sources 7- Presenting all their physical and sociological studies

containing history, maps, tables of aesthetical studies, panoramas and all statistics related to

their observations in a power point format. I wanted to have a great event in Kerman in a day

or days to introduce the urban spaces and new solutions of using them to make them more

pleasant. We did all the process for all sites for the event. Unfortunately we didn't receive any

financial support. The good point was that students after some month's studying the place felt

responsible about it and they love their work and designing different alternatives.

RECOGNITION OF THE CASES: To choose the case studies, we first chose some

urban spaces randomly and study them for a short time up to 5 hours. The next step was the

recognition of the potentials and problems of these places by observing them. We only focused

on spaces that had important factors like uniqueness, expansion, large investments without

usage and environmental potentials like historical spaces, old tall trees, and mountains and etc.

We categorized our case studies: 1-Historical Places 2-City Green Spaces or Parks

3-abandoned Public Spaces


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Designed by: Negin Minaei

1- Historical places: Some unique ancient buildings that are just one in whole kind are situated in Kerman. Unfortunately regarding lots of different reasons the cultural heritage

do not pay enough attention to them and the buildings have serious problems with their

maintenance. They are ruining gradually and some of them are decided to be destroyed because

municipality does not have enough parking lots! These places can be divided in three main

groups: 1-1 Caravanserai(3), 1-2 Ice-Houses(3), and 1-3 Elements of the old city(4)

2- Green spaces or Parks: Asking my students to find an urban space to analyze,

they looked for and brought me lots of photos of parks in Kerman. In some case studies we had

the combination of historical places and parks that are divided in three groups: 1-Parks in City Scale (5), 2-Parks in Local Scale (3), 3-Parks in Neighborhood scale (4)

3- Abandoned Urban Spaces: There are some urban spaces left over and they made

the features of the city unpleasant and ugly. Those include inbuilt constructions or derelict

buildings. Kerman Darman Hospital is one of these cases. It was empty for years. They ruined

some parts of it because of widening the width of the boulevard so it is a huge element over

there, nearly 60percent of the people see it every day, because it is in the city center, in one

arterial road of the city. These spaces include two main groups: 1- In front of Hospitals (2), 2-Public Spaces (2)

As reviewing all the 24 cases with that amount of information is impossible in a

paper; we just briefly introduce 7cases of the 24s. Some are historical and some the

combination of historical places and green spaces in different scales. We tried at least one

example from each group.

Case 1, Historical Places: Haj Agha Ali Caravanserai: It has been built in the 19th century by Haj Agha Ali known as Zaeemollah and finished around 1878. In past, Iranian rich

Muslims built complexes for public uses for free. Normally these complexes have the main

elements of mosque, caravanserai, cistern, school and bazaar. This complex includes all the

mentioned spaces too. The Caravanserai is situated in front of the Mosque Chelsotoon and

close to the Cistern Entrance. The Cistern has 2 entrances, one opens in the street and the other

one opens in the main Bazaar.


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View of the Caravanserai from the street in 2005, Photo: Nastaran Ranjbar

At least in 2005 you could see the façade of this unique building when you were

walking in the street and there was a visual connection, but after renovating the street by city

municipality, the architect preferred to cover it all with a pure "somehow traditional wall", and

that is the end of the Caravanserai's life.

The entrance door of the Caravanserai just after entering the bazaar the bazaar entrance

from inside of it

Photos & Designed by: Negin Minaei

The organization of conserving cultural heritage has renovated (as you see it in the

photos above the arches are renovated in white) the entrance roof of the caravanserai inside

bazaar but hasn't paid enough attention to its more serious problem that is rising the water level

inside the cistern. Haj Agha Ali Caravanserai is unique because it has a cistern underground. In

pictures below you see the plan and two sections of it. Unfortunately the water level is rising

day by day and it's ruining the caravanserai above. Nobody does anything to save it so they locked the door of the building and it is closed. The cistern has three entrances: 1-from the

street, 2- from the Bazaar, and 3-inside the Caravanserai and all are reached by different

staircases.


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The ground floor plan of the caravanserai with the entrances and two perpendicular section of

the whole building. From :Nastaran Ranjbar's Project

The second Entrance of Cistern is situated in front of the Mosque entrance and as they

are parts of a complex, their architecture is similar and they formed a square space in between.

The Chelsotoon Mosque in front of one of Cistern's entrances inside the

Cistern

Photos by: Negin Minaei

Nobody visits inside the Caravanserai any more for the cistern is now unsafe

(structurally) and unsecure (socially). Shopkeepers of Bazaar Throw their garbage in it and

addicts hide there. Although just in meters from it, there is a very populated mosque used by

Sheikhi People every day, but nobody pay any serious attention to it. The Culture and Heritage

organization had some renovations just on its entrance but it needs structural renovation and

revitalization.


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Schematic Tracking plan from observations in 2005 by Nastaran Ranjbar

Our statistics resulted from our observations shows that users of Caravanserai are

mainly shop keepers that are working in bazaar and the second place belongs to researchers

who already know about the history of the building. The share of men who visit the building is

nearly twice as women. The age of the visitors in case of researchers varies between 21to 30

and it varies between 31to 40 for shopkeepers. The tracking plan shows that most of the

visitors just walk around the ground floor without paying attention to the first floor and the basement. Just very small number of the researchers went upstairs and experienced the views

of the city from the upper level.

Case2, Historical Place and City Park: Zerisf Ice-Houses in Asaye Sefid Park:

this Park which is a city scale park is built in 2002 with 4977 square meters area around the

historical Zerisf Ice-House and it is donated to blind people and that why it is called Asaye

Sefid which means the blind's sticks. The icehouse was built around 16 century and had three

ice-houses. One of them destroyed completely and the other one just has some traces on the ground. This ice-house had been used till 50years ago, that’s why it is still there. Ice-Houses

act as places to save ice for city in winter and use it in summer. Normally in winter they filled

it with water and because of the very cold weather it froze. The special form of the building

helped it to keep the temperature inside, so they could have ice for their summer time.

Panoramic view of the north side of Asaye Sefid Park with the Aardeshir Castle in the

background

Ice-Houses normally were built in the city near the fort. In historical architecture of

Kerman city, forms were tried to be homogenous to have a nice skyline and silhouette for the

city. All Ice-Houses in Kerman has a wall in their composition. The park was supposed to be

used by blind people but during observation we haven’t met even one blind in it. Although, it

was donated to blinds, but there is no sign to show it is designed for disabled people.


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Park view in winter 2005,By: Mehdi ArabSolghar,Mozafar Mohajeri Park view in summer

2009,By: Negin Minaei

No positive change happened to the site, just the background of Ardeshir Castle shows

more erosion and there are bad designed furniture like the black fountain in the photo below or

the three different signs in one view and lots of abandoned areas the park.

By: Atena Hasan zade & Ghasemi ,2009 3 Signs in less than 10sqm,

By: Negin Minaei,2009

Although it even doesn't have a good pavement and enough lightening at night,

neighbors' children use this park and its furniture. The municipality just worked on the spaces that are visible from the street like the painted wall below but the back of the park is really

forgotten.

Case3, Elements of Historical City: Enghelab Park & Daughter’s Castle: This

park has covered an area of around 38225 square meter and is built around the Daughter Castle

in 2002. The area of park belonged to a cemetery and a school and had changed to a park

25years ago. Daughter Castle and Ardeshir Castle are the most ancients places in east of

Kerman from 220 BC. The city called Gavashir when it was conquered by Ardeshir Baabakan.

Therefore these two castles are the origins of city of Kerman. Below you can see a satellite

picture of the area and the two castles.


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Following is a map of the park that visually introduce you the different spaces of it. In

addition to Daughter Castle and Ardeshir Castle, Enghelab Park has already some other

different elements like As you see in the list of spaces, a variety of attractions are gathered

together which are interesting for different types of people.

The historical Daughter Castle, the scientific archeological museum, a holy shrine

with religious activities, a poet's tomb for artist and even a center of helping addicted people

and a police station are all situated in one park. Even the park has a passage way around the

remained hill for jogging. The question is why people don't know it and why they don't even try to experience it once. They might see it many times when they are passing the street but not

paying attention to it. Here is a timetable designed by students who studied the park in 2008.

For each activity there is a color, the hours of observation are written in the middle of the

timetable, they started their observation from 8am till 8 pm.

Designers: Fateme Ghanbari, AmirReza Saee, Elham AnjomShoa


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According to questionnaires, during weekdays afternoons were the time that most of

the visitors went to park, but in weekends the number of people goes to park in the morning is

the same as the afternoon. Also in the right graph you see the groups of people attracted to

park.

Case4, Historical elements of the city: Pardis Park with the old Trench, Jewish &

Christian Cemetery: this park has built in 2003 around a mountain called Ardeshir King

Mount. The park's area is 26500 square meter and its cemetery backs to late 19th century.

In photos above number1 is the old trench that is visible in the left map too.Number3

is a very small ruined building called the Chelle Khoone we can translate it to house of 40.Just

40days after the New Year, women of the neighborhood are getting together in the Pardis park

and start cooking a specific traditional food and turn on candles in that small building and


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doing some particular rites who brings good fortune for them. They cook the food and

distribute it among all the women who are there and before the sunset they scattered around.

Number 2 is the Christian cemetery and Number 4 is the Jewish cemetery. The Hebrew texts

engraved on stones are visible in the photos.

There is a contrast between ordinary people’s desire and benefits of the city by keeping historical heritage of the city. These cemeteries with large number of graves from

Jewish and Christian people prove that the historical city of Kerman was a multi-cultural and

multi- religious city. Today there is no Jewish in Kerman and the number of Christians is very

less. While it is said that in a period of time Kerman ha 12churches, now there is just one

church that is closed for years and nobody knows where are the rest of them, probably they are

ruined completely. In photos below you can see different views of the Pardis park.

Photos by: Amin Elahi, Reza Anjomshoa, AhmadReza Jafari


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Questionnaires by: Amin Elahi, Reza Anjomshoa, AhmadReza Jafari

Timetable of Activities with separate number of men or Women in different Ages

Designed by: Amin Elahi, Reza Anjomshoa, AhmadReza Jafari

Case 5, Parks in City Scale: Shaghayegh Park: This park was built in 1998 and has

an area of 339.5 square meter. It is situated in one of the entrance way of the city in a


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conjunction of Sadooghi Boulevard and Yadegare Imam Boulevard. It is shape is section of a

circle and is very small as you the whole park photo below. It is in the cross of three directions:

1- to downtown 2- to North East Part of the country 3- to South part of the Country

By:Negin

Minaei

It’s a small space and very noisy because of the traffic. As a preventative of the city,

it’s the worst place to have the welcome sign. The Tourist office is all year closed but just

13day of Norooz (New Year Holiday).It is getting uglier day by day, in 2006 the tourist office in white was much better. Because of its situation, sometimes it’s occupied by transit

passengers and teamsters and plays role of a stop for them.

Tourist Office in 2006, By: Meysam Kordestai Tourist Office in 2009, By:

Negin Minaei

2005/Pink, By: Meysam Kordestai 2007/Green , By: Shima MohsenBeygi

2009/Blue, By: Negin Minaei

Useless Actions like coloring the furniture is doing frequently in all over the public

areas but nothing positive according to their need has done to improve the quality of facilities.


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Are you satisfied with the Park Facilities? (Asking by: Shima Mohsen Beygi)

Case6, Parks in Neighborhood Scale: Ghods Park: this park is a small park in

neighborhood scale that is built in 1988 in the middle of a residential area and covers around

1801.1 square meters of the land.

In this part of the city there is no recreational space, that’s why a local park can play a

role of it. According to the observations of the students in 2005 it had lots of problems like the

low quality furniture like benches and chairs; also there was no drinking water and washrooms.

Besides the pedestrians were not safe in the park, all of sudden they might confront with a

cyclist and that’s why there is no particular pavement allocated to them. As the park didn't

have attractions, wanderers were around in 2005.

Winter 2005/Green-Blue ,Photos by : Razye Shabani


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Summer 2009/Red-Yellow ,Photos by: Negin Minaei

It included Green spaces, Playground, and Chess center in 2005, but as you see in the

photos they have added some Sport facilities recently and removed some others like the tennis

tables and changed the color of the furniture but it is still empty even in the weekend.

by: Negin Minaei

Case7, Abandoned Public Spaces: Derelict Kerman Darman Hospital: This

hospital was built in 1974 and was closed in 2003.It is situated in the city center and near one

the most crowded areas.


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View from Somayyeh Cross to Hospital in fall 2005

(By: Pooya Kharazmi, Ehsan Karamoozyan, Hamze Doosti, MohammadAmin Kyani)

View from Somayyeh Cross to Hospital in fall 2009

By:Negin Minaei

(Photos and Questionnaires By: Pooya Kharazmi, Ehsan Karamoozyan, Hamze Doosti,

MohammadAmin Kyani)

1-What is the best way of renovation? 2-What is the best use for

regeneration of the hospital?


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It was a hospital since many years ago till Medical University decided to sell it, no

volunteer has come to use it buy it and use it again. Because they think it is not hygienic

enough. So it has been abandoned since 2003.According to questionnaires most of people say

the best way of renovating the building is demolishing and rebuilding another construction and

they think if they want to keep the building it is better nobody use it since it is an old hospital

of full of pollution and diseases.

FINDINGS:

1- Few numbers of people like to spend their free time in urban public open spaces

like parks. In most cases Kermani people prefer to go to parties (inside a house) or go picnics

at weekends (outside the city) with their families. They prefer to be inside an enclosed space.

Consulting with sociologists, from historicism point of view, they gave us this idea that these

people have an unconscious fear that is the result of cruel invasions to the city in the history of

Kerman. Lots of non Kermani use these public urban spaces freely and widely, they even know the recreational facilities of the city much better than Kermani people.

2- Deriving from interviews, we realized people don’t have a positive notion toward

being in an urban space. It can have religious or traditional reasons. In some cases mothers

were worry to bring their children to the parks because their husbands didn’t like them to go

alone in a public place.

3-From observations we realized the empty parks sometimes are resorts for illegal and

black jobs. In one case a suspicious group controlled people who were in the park, same group

every day at a particular time gathered together in the park and the entire park were empty.

They can be smugglers. In some case there were just good places for addicted people to hide

themselves and use drugs or exchange it and also for homeless people to spend their night.

Therefore neighbors and local people prefer to be far from all these for the safety reasons they

prefer not to interfere in their work. The only reaction they show is banning their children from

going there or passing the park alone.

4-The most important point about this behavior is that people don’t pay enough

attention to their surroundings. If they go to parks and don’t leave them empty, those kinds of

illegal groups or addicted people can’t show up there, thus the spaces will be safe and secure.

We can say it is a general characteristic for Kermani people that they don’t care much about

what is happening in their city comparing to the rest of cities in our country. People of other

cities have everything in their city under their control and they asked for many facilities and

when something wrong is happening to the city, they strongly protect their city.

5-We can guess the first day the park was made; it was not a resort for illegal usage.

At first probably it was left by people and then addicted people find it suitable place for their

misusage. Therefore maybe it is better we find the original reason; Why people didn’t use them

anymore? There are different answers in case of Kerman parks:

5-1 The Parks are mostly similar; they are covered sometimes by grass, some trees

and some furniture like other parks. Nothing interesting or new that can excite people to

experience the space is there.

5-2 They have ugly cement furniture that are not comfortable at all with a kind of blue

color and in some cases green all around the parks in city. Obviously it is the result of mass

product by municipality without any design and must be spent in the city.

5-3 Parks are not well situated in the urban fabric. People can do nothing in these parks just sitting and walking. All you see in such parks are ugly walls of houses around. As

these parks are mostly in residential areas as lunges of the district, they are surrounded by

houses and apartments. You cannot even drink water most of the time, because the water is not

drinkable, and you cannot find a shop or super market around to buy any kind of drink or food.

In most cases there are no washrooms or cafes around.

5-4 there is nothing new to see and experience, no place for interaction, for learning

and no information exchange. Most of the time lack of illumination and light is the main


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reason. After 6 or 7 pm most of the parks are completely dark, and as most of the parks are

large with tall old trees, it looks a bit frightening. It is understandable why nobody pass it.

5-5 Some parks have very positive points like: they are shaped around an ancient

building or a monument, but the problem is they are not introduced to people and nobody

knows about them. (Like the mountain of 1000 elephants, a mountain at the back ground of the

Darya Ghole Beyg Dais that has a lot of elephants on itself engraved on it by an artist many years ago). When the local people don’t know them; of course the tourist and passengers will

not know too. There were photos of Pardis Park & Enghelab Park as an example that has the

famous Daughter Castle (Ghaleh Dokhtar, a museum, restaurant, and a holy tomb).

5-6 some parks are not easily accessible; they are located in the middle of the street. In

a way they are left over spaces of traffic system, in triangle shape and you have to pass the

street to reach them, they are more dangerous especially when they are situated in a cross or a

square.

5-7 the budget of the municipality is spent on useless changes like changing the color

of the furniture not the furniture itself! Coloring the curbs every now and then and also

demolishing the former streets to make them wider that helps solving congestion problems.

Overall, Municipalities' clerks decide how to build the urban public spaces! In most cases there is no study or design for them. In some cases they ask an architect to design for

them not an urban designer and the result is not acceptable at all like what you saw happened in

case of Haj Agha Ali Caravanserai that was covered with a simple wall. Our historical city is

disappearing every day!

Now you can imagine when people enter an empty space without having any

information about it and they don't have anything to do there, just walking and looking around

particularly when they are strangers like tourists then it doesn't matter how old the space is.

Maybe the first time they find it new but they will never repeat their experience until they are sure that nothing is happening there. This is the major element that public spaces in Kerman

lack. There is no sign in other languages to give even short information about the space. They

don't have any commercial or entertainment center around even a café or a super market.

SOME SUGGESTIONS: There are some considerable points to be mentioned

regarding the solution students proposed. First, they had to design and propose solutions with

the least cost; I ask them to imagine they have to build their ideas just with the existing

materials. It means the idea should be practicable and easy to construct. Second, as each site located in a specific area with its own social fabric and urban context, and as the solutions were

a lot for each project, I just name some solutions of students and some of my suggestions for

the similar situations.

1-We have to give people some information about the place. To do this each group

had to design a poster to transfer all important data about the park or ancient building and also

their studies very briefly and with least text and most images. In order to help the progress of

Tourism in Kerman, in case of ancient buildings, they designed a brochure to introduce the

place with some nice photos and the exact address of the sites and the information in Persian and English. We were to present them to Tourism Organization. Then the organization could

just distributed them among agencies or give it to tourists visiting Kerman. Here is an example

of brochure designed by students to introduce tourist attractions of Kerman to visitors. It can be

distributed between visitors in tourist information desk in the Shaghayegh Park for example.


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Designed by: Mohaddese Khajooee

Here are some examples of posters to introduce different spaces of Enghelab Park by

students.

Designed by Rezvan Khalifehee, Asma Rashidi

2-Another example of solutions by one of the students in 2005 was designing an

event. Putting an introductory poster at the door of the Caravanserai in the main passage of Bazaar and leaving the door of caravanserai open, using inside of the caravanserai for an

exhibition with shiny contrast color. While people entering the caravanserai, a vocalic record

starts playing and reminds the people of the time that caravanserai was alive with all sounds

and noises of historical people. There are some pictures and photos of the building on the

exhibition panels that describe the building and every specific features of it.


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Designed By: Nastaran Ranjbar

But it is not applicable now because it is not at all safe to even walk on its floor which is the ceiling of the cistern since it may collapse and you may fall down inside the cistern. But

what I can propose just for keeping the memory of the building is to have its view in the street

to remind it to people that what a beautiful functional historical architecture is at the back of

this simple wall.

The current view of the caravanserai from the street, By: Negin Minaei

Putting a photo of the Caravanserai on the wall in the place that without wall it was visible,

By: Negin Minaei

3-Illuminating the historical sites at night help them to be more visible. Lightening

was another idea that most of the sites need it, not only most of the parks also the urban public

spaces and derelict buildings like Kerman Darman Hospital. Here are some examples of

illumination for the whole building at night by students.

As the hospital is dark at night, they propose to have some lights in it so people think

the building is alive and feel more secure when they are walking in the passage next to it. They

propose a big digital clock on the wall that is visible at nights (yellow arrow) and some

lightening for the passage under the construction.


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(Designed By: Pooya Kharazmi, Ehsan Karamoozyan, Hamze Doosti, MohammadAmin

Kyani)

They also proposed that it is possible to add some bands of colorful plastics around the building as you see on the following pictures, that during the day they make it a little

colorful and at night they act as illumination for the building.

(By: Pooya Kharazmi, Ehsan Karamoozyan, Hamze Doosti, MohammadAmin Kyani)

4- Designing some covers on the ugly walls or eyesore views was another approach

that many students prefer. Like some billboards to cover the old walls of the Shaghayegh Park

or they cover the walls of the buildings with another materials as for the information desk.

Designed By: Meysam Kordestani

5-Using the left over furniture to make a more pleasant space is another idea that

some groups used it. Left over tubes can be good sits and tables. In case of Passenger Park

behind the Kerman terminal, students used colored tubes to prepare cheap seats. The students

designed a small café in the park for passengers to rest there and have access to clean tee and

food. As some of the passengers may have to wait to change their bus to another destinations,


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the students designed a big picture to show all the visiting places of Kerman, it will be painted

on the ugly walls of the garages and passengers can have a small brochure and read and see the

information on the wall in front of them

6- In ancient sites some seat places were designed to give people the chance of sitting

and relaxing for a short time especially the ones that were not easily reachable like the one that

were on top of a hill or on mountain foot. In some cases they ordered the space by adding some shades and some benches under them like Shaghayegh Park. (The right photo above)

7- Designing monuments and nice colorful elements especially for parks was another

idea to give the city some landmarks to differentiate the similar parks all with same trees and

same furniture. Depending to the types of users, they chose the most suitable elements; if it was

close to a school they designed monuments more interesting for children.

8- Working on floors was another attempt to make the space different. Various colors

and textures to cover the floor and designing special pavements to give some directions to the

nicest views of the sites were done mostly in parks and in urban public spaces like in front of

the National Garden Square. Sometimes it can be helpful to direct people to the spaces they

haven't seen or haven't heard about like directing people toward the trench, the Christian

cemetery and chellekhoone.

By: Negin Minaei

10- Some designed edges for the parks that have no enclosures for instance hedge or a

line of trees even walls. Some recommend for the parks are in the outskirt of the city it is better

to have a small police station to give the people the feeling of security. Here is a design project

by one of the students. Some structures like colonnades or arcades added to the site.

Designed by: Ahmad Reza Jafari


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11- In order to increase the level of awareness of people in some sites we can design

some frames compatible with the surrounding site to get their attention to a special view.

Forms can be inspired by the furniture in the site like you see a frame that indicates the

Ardeshir Acastle and also the ice house in the Asaye Sefid Park.

Designed By: Negin Minaei

12-We can also have very simple frames that have obvious contrast with its context, like the frames on the top of the Daughter Castle to get the attention to the city fabric down the

hill.

Designed By: Negin Minaei

There are many other solutions regarding each space that was introduced, but it is not

possible to mention all the details about all of them in a paper.

References

1- Ashrafi, Ali, trans. La Ville, 1998, Tehran: University of Art Press.

2- Bahrainy, S.Hossein, 1996, Urban Space Analysis: In Relation to Users' Behavior Pattern,

Tehran: Tehran University Press.


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3- Behravan, Hossein, trans. Urban Sociology (Society, Locality and Human Nature), 1998,

Aastan Ghods Razavi Pubization

4- Chavoshyan, Hasan, trans. Designing social research: the logic of anticipation, 2000,

Tehran: Ney Press.

5- Eynifar, Ali Reza, trans. Architectural Research Methods, Tehran: Tehran University Press,

2002.

6- Habibi, Mohsen, 2001, De la Cite A la Ville, Tehran: Tehran University Press.

7- Hafeznia, Mohammad Reza, 1998, An Introduction to the research Method in Humanities,

Samt Press.

8- Minaei, Negin, "Regeneration of Old Urban Public Spaces in the case study of Docklands in

London", (paper presented at the World Congress of Architecture, Istanbul, Turkey, July 4-6,

2005)

9- Minaei, Negin, "'Frankfurt airport' in Transnational Spaces (research and project)", edited by

Bittner, Regina, Hackenroich, Wilfried and Cockler, Kie, Dessau: Bauhaus Dessau foundation

press, 2005

10- Mozayenni, Manoochehr, trans. the Image of the City, (Tehran: Tehran University Press,

1979), 90-93.

11-Mozayenni, Manoochehr, 1997, the Physical study of Tehran City from Visual and

Aesthetical view, Tehran: Tehran Municipality

Study of Urban Spaces Problems in City of Kerman, Iran

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