Abstract
The importance of open spaces to our environment and quality of life is increasingly recognized. Open spaces include public parks and recreation grounds, non-roofed-over urban land and undeveloped natural landscape, and neighbouring spaces between buildings. User surveys are significant sources of data to help the planning, design and management processes of urban open spaces and also important to identify users’ needs. This paper focuses on the users of Kalad open space, located in the east part of Tehran, in three different times for survey and evaluation purposes. To analyze the use of the open spaces, a literature survey and a questionnaire survey were carried out together. The former describes the distributional structure of the open spaces whereas the latter makes assessments by exploring the characteristics of open space users, user satisfaction, reported problems and requirements. Results were evaluated using chi square (χ2) correlation test. The findings suggest that the use of open space has its own characteristics although there appear some similarities within the studied areas. As a result, recommendations for future planning are suggested. Key words: Neighbourhood open space, Tehran, user survey, questionnaires.  
Highlights
The term “open space” was probably used for the first time in the year 1833 (Turner, 1992; Maruani and AmitCohen, 2007)
This paper focuses on the users of Kalad open space, located in the east part of Tehran, in three different times for survey and evaluation purposes
Open spaces include public parks and recreation grounds (Ward Thompson, 2002; Freestone and Nichols, 2004), grassed areas as open parks (Grose, 2009), non-roofed-over urban land and undeveloped natural landscape (Yang and Lo, 2003; Rietveld and Wagtendonk, 2004), neighbouring spaces between buildings (Chermayeff and Alexander, 1963; AbuGhazzeh, 1996; Ford, 2000), and urban space which is open for public access including retail bazaars, theme parks, streets and pedestrian walkways (Cybriwsky, 1999; Kayden, 2000; Tang and Wong, 2008)
Summary
The term “open space” was probably used for the first time in the year 1833 (Turner, 1992; Maruani and AmitCohen, 2007). Open spaces are dominated by a “natural” environment, composed of abiotic (soil, water and minerals) and biotic (plants, animals and microorganisms) elements The importance of open spaces to our environment and quality of life is increasingly recognized (Chiesura, 2004; Maruani and Amit-Cohen, 2007). Ward Thompson (2002) pointed out that urban open space must provide a place for the meeting of strangers and a place where one can transcend the crowd and be anonymous or alone. Great cities are known for their great public spaces, and one measure of any city’s greatness is its ability to provide recreation, and natural beauty for its citizens (Rogers, 2003). Breathing clean air was another popular demand (Lo and Jim, 2010)
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