Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Ph.D. research student of Urban Planning, Department of Urban Planning, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad Branch, Iran.
2
Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Department, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad Branch, Iran.
3
Professor of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
10.22099/iuds.2026.56498.1230
Abstract
Contemporary cities need spaces that are the basis for people to be present and events to take place at various scales. Spaces that go beyond the mere function of traffic, provide the possibility of face-to-face communication and active participation of citizens. In metropolises like Tehran, the lack of these spaces causes events and gatherings to take place on traffic routes. This situation leads to disruption of the main function of the space and creates a negative attitude towards urban events.
Danish architect and theorist Jan Gehl, emphasizing the use of the capacity of micro-spaces, has presented “Life Between Buildings”, an operational framework for analyzing public spaces. He believes that a successful event location has four distinct edges: the first edge (direct participants), the second edge (observers with privacy), the third edge (traffic route), and the fourth edge (seating space adjacent to buildings). Although this model has been tested in European cities, its application in Iranian cities with high density and different cultural patterns requires examination and localization.
This study aimed to analyze Jan Gehl's view on "event place" and its adaptation to objective examples in Tehran. The research method was qualitative and based on field visits, in-depth observation, semi-structured interviews, and direct participation of space users along with systematic recording of behaviors. Field data were recorded in the form of notes, maps, tables, and text and compared with Gehl's conceptual model.
A study of 36 case studies in Tehran showed that the greatest similarity with Jan Gehl's proposed structure is found in local parks (with 0.85 similarity), mini-parks (0.80), and urban plazas (0.75), respectively. Finally, two general patterns of event places in Tehran were extracted, and it was determined that Gehl's view does not fully correspond to some spatial types of this city.
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