Rethinking sustainable street design in hot arid zone cities

Abstract

Existing sustainable urban street design (or redesign) has mostly emerged in countries with cold or mild climate like Canada and the USA in which people use street as a dynamic urban space with sprawl or broad urban fabric. While in some countries whose significant parts located in hot arid zone the people's presence in streets is almost intolerable for them during hot seasons as today's streets in this zone is a place for the motorized transportation only. Since the main elements of sustainable development includes not only economic factors but social and environment ones, to achieve a sustainable urban street design guideline in hot arid climate, it is necessary to implement urban life in its street before providing routine solutions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and propose the most propitious design criteria adapted for the hot arid climate. The result will provide a bearable and livable street in cities of this zone. This adaptation will be done on the basis of recognized design options in North America and Canada. The adaptation may be done with the use of past local patterns such as ¿Sabat, Pirneshin and Badgir¿. Urban designers in hot arid zone cities may have the ability of revitalizing urban community to obtain livable streets before using another solution with the assistance of specified hot arid climate design criteria.