Temporal urban studies framework; How much is done in Iran already ?

Abstract

Temporal urban studies framework; How much is done in Iran already ? N. Charbgoo PhD Student, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran. Visiting Scholar, Department of Urbanism, Delft University of Technology,Delft, Netherlands. e-mail: n.charbgoo@tudelft.nl As the notions of place and planning have been changed in this era of globalization. It seems that it is inevitable for planners to change the way they look at and conceptualize places and the way they look at planning. According to this need, recent years have witnessed a burgeoning work on 'temporal approach on urban planning'. Temporal approach in planning thinking challenges by insisting on “spatial and temporal equity, temporal efficiency and such other concepts”. Clearly this approach brings about implication for a better and more temporally understanding of the existing condition, and a new approach to analyse, as it views the flows, the activities and the planning in a new light. This article particularly aims to determine an assessment framework in order to assess whether and to what extent temporal approach is embedded in existing urban comprehensive planning projects of Iran using a descriptive-analytical methodology. Basic attributes of time-oriented approach in planning have been extracted from the existing literature and combined in 'urban time studies framework'. We then traced urban time embeddedness in Iran comprehensive planning paradigm chronologically by applying this framework. Therefore, two resent Tehran comprehensive plan were chosen to be assessed against the proposed urban time studies framework. The results of the analysis indicate that all in all comprehensive planning system in Iran does not acquire or conform to an urban temporal studies framework, however there are some implicit cases of conformity consequently rendered as merely formalities, which deserve to be considered consciously and organized. However, comparing two cases as two stages in chronology of comprehensive planning revealed that in recent comprehensive plan of Tehran, temporal approaches is more considered in the form of temporal strategies.