Behaviour Obsarvation Method in Analyzing Public Spaces

Public spaces were known as the arena of expression of life and social sphere in urban environments¡ but these spaces in the 1960s¡ faced trauma of World War II in urban environments. In this period¡ critical urban planners and designers such as Jane Jacobs and Erwin Goffman criticized public spaces from the point of view of lack of interaction between life and urban space.
Following this issue¡ the systematic study of behavior is carried out by research theorists such as William White and Jan Jehl and tools are provided programmatically to study human behavior in urban spaces. Jan Jehl¡ by providing behavioral observation as a policy tool¡ shows changes in behavior patterns in public spaces. The main slogan of this method actually is seeing and learning. In fact¡ it tries to control a variety of behavior patterns to reach a clearer image of the situation in urban environments.
In this paper¡ first the principles and standards of behavior observation method in urban situations have been reviewed¡ then an experience of using behavior observation method in an urban space is showed. Finally¡ a systematic framework of how to utilize this method in terms of public spaces will be presented.