Developing a Conceptual Model for Planning and Designing of Customs and Marketplace: The Border Areas of Iran

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.

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

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.