Ph.D

Amirhodaei Elnaz, P.H. D student will complete his P.H. D thesis on “Generalizability Evaluation of Transect in Placemaking-oriented Guidance of Form" in  November 18^th 2017, at 11:30 Am.

Abstract
Crisis of quality in built environment has always been a core issue for urban designers and planners not necessarily from the same perspective. Obviously, the subject has been studied through in various researches. In this research, urban design and planning procedures have been recognized as the main cause leading to poor quality. According to previous researches and practical experiences, due to these very procedures, on one hand urban form suffers from segregation in policies as its scale changes. On the other hand, urbanists and environmentalists interests are put as counterparts according to paradoxical policies of urban sprawl and sustainability considerations.
A most recent innovation in new urbanism called “transect” has become a common and trendy theory/ approach in urban design and planning specifically in America and Europe, although it is being used in a limited way in Middle East. The approach and theory described in this research is based on a publication known as the Lexicon, a multi-authored compendium of New Urbanist definitions and codes. Urban design and planning seek to create an immersive environment. This type of environment can be created by specifying and arranging the elements which comprise that environment in a way that is true to locational character which seems to be intrinsic to the place. To be immersive in urban environments is identified with their level and intensity of urban character. Therefore, transect has been known as a general theory capable of reconciling urbanism and environmentalism and as a basis in order to deal with different scales of urban form integratively.  Hence in this thesis, the concept of generalizability of transect theory in place-making oriented guidance of form has been evaluated in the case of Iranian cities.
In this regard, transect indices are identified by using three-steps research methodology that is characterized in determination of “dimensions”, “components” and “indices”. Principles of transect are categorized in “substantial” and “procedural” dimensions. This research uses “ecology” as a basic discipline for interpretation of “components”. In other words, “ecology” has been a reliable criterion to extract indices. In this regard, basic concepts of ecology conceptualizing transect are recognized—“ecosystem”, “community”, “diversity”, “succession”, and “coevolution”. Afterwards, critical issues and concepts that have to be redefined in order to interpret of “components” and “indices” are determined by comparative comparison between transect and ecology as basic discipline. In addition, it’s done to redefine basic concepts in macro level – scale and context – in transect in according to what they are meaning in ecology. Therefore, transect indices are extracted from these basic concepts as “components”. They are as follows: “juxtaposition”, “locational sequence”, “suitability between urban elements types and urban character of environment” that has been defined by “number of types been found” and “population of elements with specific type”, “suitability between urban elements compared to each other”, “diversity of transect zone types”, “diversity of urban elements types”, “climax”, “transition”, and “coevolution of urban elements”.
Besides, due to pragmatism of the research paradigm and inferential generalizability, urban sprawl was identified as generalization problem by a meta-study and was locally redefined. So, “population density” and “active land use per capita” were extracted as urban sprawl indices in Iranian cities.
Finally, it was evaluated the impact of transect based urban design and planning on urban sprawl indices in Bagh Saba neighborhood (District 7, Tehran) as a case study. It should be noted that, transect indices were used in order to characterize how urban form has been created in accordance with transect theory. In addition, this could be defined by quantificational framework. It’s been concluded that transect based urban design and planning doesn’t lead to significant change in urban sprawl index. In other words, it could be generalizable just as a procedural basis.