Abstract Aims: The border areas are the most deprived ones due to their remoteness from the capital and marginality. Therefore, border development is essential. This development can be realized through establishment of custom and border marketplaces, which will provide convenient shopping and leisure facilities, along with other infrastructures for importing and exporting goods, as well as entrance and departure of passengers. The goal of the present study was to develop a conceptual model for designing customs and border marketplaces.

Participants & Methods: This qualitative study has been conducted in two steps. In the first step, the design qualities of border marketplaces were extracted based on theoretical literature and were evaluated by a semi-structured interview with 10 participants by using snowball methods. In the next step, the theoretical model was developed by a questionnaire, based on the principles of the Delphi method with the help of 10 experts in the field of design sciences.

Findings: The results indicate that some approaches such as urban tourism, passive defense, city branding, and urban design are effective in developing the border areas.

Conclusion: A conceptual model including economic, social, legal and physical dimensions with an emphasize on some principles such as passive defense, accessibility, variety, inclusiveness, vitality, infrastructures, legibility, identity and local architecture, context-museum, sustainability, visual character, continuity and coherence, compatibility with nature and environmental cleanliness, can be used by urban planners and designers in the development of border areas.

Abstract Based on the mental health comprehensive plan of development expression in 2015, mental disorders owned the second place of illnesses in Iran and residents of urban areas are the majority of the groups that most had been suffering from mental disorders. Therefore, urban living is a risk factor for residents’ mental health. While the issue of mental health and health is finding an acceptable place in urban design knowledge in global research, only in the last few years this study field has been considered in Iran with respect to the physical aspect of health and the psychological dimension of health remains neglected. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between mental health and urban environment and to propose a conceptual framework aimed at promoting mental health through urban design. In the present qualitative study, the data collection is done through desk study of related valuable scientific papers, and qualitative content analysis is used to extract the urban design qualities related to mental health. The validity of conceptual framework is done through interviews with experts in the fields of urban design and psychology, and completing the questionnaire and data analysis has been done using descriptive statistics. The results show that qualities such as "safety and security", "access to green-blue space", "permeability and walkability", "public realm quality", "place attachment", and "environmental cleanliness" in the substantive dimension and "social interaction and engagement" in the procedural dimension are related to residents’ mental health.

Abstract According to the development of Tehran and the joint of many rural contexts surrounding it, urban-rural contexts with special ecological and social conditions constitute a major part of Tehran. While the ecological and social qualities of these contexts are exposed to destruction, on the other hand, urban facilities and services are not properly received. The dominance of ecological, physical, social, and economic problems in these contexts requires the comprehensive plan to sustainable urban regeneration. This study aims to formulate the conceptual framework for sustainable urban regeneration in order to improve the quality of life and solving (social, economic, and environmental) problems in these contexts. Also, in order to make an equilibrium between development and environmental conservation and attention to the ecological nature of urban-rural contexts, the green network approach has been chosen to formulate the conceptual framework. This study is based on library studies, through qualitative content analysis on sustainable urban regeneration and green network, sustainable urban regeneration goals and green network design policies have been extracted. In conceptual framework, green network has been used as tools to create identity and sense of place, local economy, linkage and connections, multiple functions, placemaking and spatial arrangement of public and green space, climate compatible development, ecological integrity for landscape, compatible design with environment in multi-level of urban, neighborhood, green network and components of green network.

Abstract The item of livability is one of the closest concepts to the quality of life that through it an ideal environmental society can be estimated. Therefore, any increasing or decreasing in the amount of livability is a means to evaluate staying inhabitants in the neighborhoods, regions, and cities. Also, it is a measurement for estimating the quality of life. While the city is developing, at the same time, all its traditional, new and periphery neighborhoods are facing to variety of physical, cultural, etc changes. So, due to existence of some challenging issues and necessity of livability to inhabitants, this needs to be assessed. In this study, three different neighborhoods including Haji, Etemadieh, and Mazdaghineh are investigated. It is interesting that all of them situated in 2 region municipality in Hamedan. There would be four components including physical-spatial, social-cultural, economic, and environmental items. The analytical-comparative methodology is used and in order to data analyzing and final evaluations, SPSS 19 and Expert Choice 10 technique is implemented and finally AHP method is used. To gather data observing, completion questionaires by residetial neighborhood and interviews with experts are used. Final results exhibited that the amount of livability in the neighborhood of Etemadieh is the most, nearly 0.431 points, and Haji and Mazdaghineh respectively are the second and the third livability neighborhoods with 0.322 and 0.246 points. The physical and economic components in Haji neighborhood are more favorable than other neighborhoods, but the social component in Mazdaqineh neighborhood is superior to the other two neighborhoods. The Etemadiyeh neighborhood is also a priority in the environmental component over other neighborhoods.

Abstract Almost all western theorists in the field of urban studies pointed to urban vitality in their books and articles. Also, vitality is a fashionable word in the lexicon of urbanism in Iran, but in fact, it received little support from urban planners, urban designers, and geographers. During the years of confrontation with western achievements and modernism in Iran, people experience the incorrect manner of using imported terms, theories and inventions. Urban vitality is another example of such experiences, and the exact meaning and position of vitality in Iranian urban contexts is still unclear. There are lots of articles and projects focusing on urban vitality without clarifying the situation on which people can pursue vitality for an urban context. In the present study, the meaning and position for urban vitality, and the misuses of this concept in Iranian urban contexts is discussed.

Abstract Since the national symbol is the most important urban element in terms of nationality, analyzing the influence of time on this symbol seems necessary. Less attention has been paid to the concept of time in the initial comments regarding urban issues. However, it was considered a serious matter after passing of time and observing its influence on urban and identity issues. The current study mainly aims to study the influence of time in the formation of the complex of national monuments, the direct and indirect influence of the time dimension on qualitative indicators of space and its influence on the appearance and semantic dimension of the national symbol and its immediate field. Thus, after reviewing the theoretical basics, many case studies of the world have been reviewed due to the lack of sufficient information and specialist investigations. Only nine case studies have been randomly selected and addressed in the present study. These studies are in line with theoretical basics and the thinkers’ ideas and they led to the final output. The descriptive-analytical method was used to gather the information and the outputs were analyzed by the survey method and Delphi tool for validation. The results show that the influence of time on the appearance dimension generally includes structural and apparent changes, erosion, deterioration, and ruin and the influence of time on the semantic dimension mostly includes semantic, identity, and revolutionary changes. In the qualitative indicators of the national symbol and its immediate field, the time dimension indirectly influences on some of indicators such as diversity, readability, permeability, visual richness, and vitality. In some indicators such as permeability and visual richness, the influence of time is associated with the appearance and in some indicators such as diversity, readability, and vitality, it is associated with appearance and semantic dimension. It is also influential in the quality of sustainability and efficiency in time dimension. Since there are two types of the national monuments in general, the influence of time dimension on them is different. Time triggers memory, meaning, layer structure and accessibility in the monuments built in the passing of time but it triggers patterns of receiving feature and lessons about designing such as observing flexibility and designing a timed and dramatic place in space.

Abstract Forming urban heat islands is a serious challenge of the present age and a concern of academic communities. Attention to this issue has increased tremendously in scientific articles and researches, particularly in the last decade. With regard to the importance of the issue, the aim of this study is to form a systematic review and thematic analysis of articles and other researches in this field. Moreover, the content of the key articles was analyzed and the most important factors affecting the formation of urban heat islands were represented in a diagram and each of them was analyzed separately. As examined, urban heat islands are affected by climatic and urban construction factors. The climatic factors include sunlight, wind speed and direction, cloud cover, soil moisture, air humidity, precipitation, latitude, seasonal topographic variations, and the proximity to the river and the sea. Although these factors are almost uncontrollable in the existing cities, they have enormous importance for deciding new towns location and making the decision for city development direction. The second group of factors mainly related to the design of cities is controllable. Among these factors, the most important one is the amount and quality of vegetation in the city. Other factors such as land use, urban density, type of materials used on the facade of the buildings and streets, form and geometry of the city, and also transportation mode could influence the intensity and extent of urban heat islands.