Presenting Development Regulation for Hillside Areas (Case Study: Bagh Shater District, Tehran)

While there are some successful hillside architectural patterns in rural areas of Iran which have been adapted to surrounding environment through the time, no special design regulations have been pre­sented locally to tackle with new hillside developments. In Tehran, developing urban texture towards hillside Alborz (northern mountains) together with threatening the existing rural settlements are con­sidered as future challenges for next generations. This article is presenting development regulations for hillside areas from viewpoint of a new approach. This research aims at conserving hillside identity and landscape by means of introducing new method for classification and codification in such areas. Presenting a comprehensive and smart process in managing and developing of hillside areas is cen­tral to this paper. Therefore, the main goals of this research would be: (i) protection of hillside areas as natural identity of human habitats and (ii) provision of spatial linkage between urban and natural areas. To achieve proper knowledge, the literature review has been done based on investigating exist­ing local rural and urban hillside areas of Iran. These types of settlements are mainly located in north and west mountainous part of Iran and their architectural typology considered as “out-arrangement” in contrast with “in-arrangement” which is more popular in central and desert parts of Iran, which both have been developed in response to climate and so called cultural characteristics. At the very first stage, the research process starts with investigating steep site areas characteristics together with de­sign principles of residential complexes. The next step would be dedicated to analyzing urban design guidelines particularly on hillside areas. In this step a conservative approach has been adopted in order to define how to protect the natural views and hillside landscape through investigating regulations and codification process in New York and Isfahan. Then there would be a comparative study of Tehran and New York guidelines which leads to presentation of local hillside development framework. Finally there is a pilot study to apply the research results in one of the urban hillside areas of Tehran: “Bagh Shater”. This area is a former rural and country-side settlement which has been surrounded with new urban development and now can be considered as a part of urban sprawl in north of Tehran. While exceeding the limits on highland development (land development in areas higher than 1800 meters) is threatening the environmental assets and landscape of Tehran, lack of proper regulations has tend to be inefficient and disharmonized building types can be seen in the area. The applied methodologies of the research are based on investigating capabilities and obstacles of hillside settlements, comparative study of various design guidelines, collaborating them with local land characteristics, and presenting local standards for hillside areas which leads to land developing regulation for hillside areas in north of Tehran. Finally, GIS has been used widely as a major technique to classify different urban typology of “Bagh Shater” hillside area, and to present it with new zoning regulations and design guidelines.