Assessment of Using Color Capabilities in order to Improve the Quality of Urban Streets, Case Study: Sepah Street in Isfahan

Colors can affect human beings in different aspects which are reflection of people’s feelings, behaviors, beliefs and cultures. They also can be considered as effective elements that play important roles in forming Urban-scape in people’s perception. The forms of buildings and the combination of their colors are the attractive elements in the first impression of a city. The method of using color in a city depends on different factors like climate, history, local culture. Citizens’ images from urban-scape and spaces will strengthen city identity and colors, which are considered as intangible elements along with deep perceptual effects, should not be forgotten; therefore, in order to employ colors appropriately and create responsive urban spaces and environments, recognizing colors qualities would be essential. When the colors are chosen without studying and paying attention to their effects on human beings, it will consequently result in creating spaces in cities that do not meet people’s needs. Heterogeneous setting of building, using inharmonious colors and neglecting psychological specifications of colors creates an unpleasant environment which is not adapted to human desires. Also, changes in traditional constructing and not utilizing indigenous materials are the things that have been ignored concerning the use of colors in cities and urban spaces. Moreover, today’s spaces have less perceptual richness compared to traditional ones. The purpose of the present study is to present a way for evaluating the amount of enjoyment which urban spaces receive from colors, potentials success in considering the level of needs, the level of human’s contact with colors and expected qualities from urban spaces. Through this assessment, it would be possible to reach appropriate solutions. The main aim is to find out the relationship between the level of colors effects on human and environmental qualities and how given colors capacities can be used to improve the quality of the environment. In other words, we try to understand if colors qualities can improve expected qualities of space. In the next step Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs model is used for both its importance in categorizing different levels of human’s requirements and its employment by "Lang" as a basic model in classifying environmental qualities. In this research, "Kill Hong" model is also employed in which there is a matrix that its rows consist of hierarchy human’s needs in six levels and the columns are different functions of colors in eight columns. Each element in the matrix can point to a collection of colors in colors management system which have been collected according to the special function of the colors and the level of human’s needs. Next, considering the existing models related to urban design qualities, using Lang’s model, and relating this model to Kill Hung model, the adaption levels of color effects on human has been taken into account according to different color functions and urban design qualities. Then, by making theoretical framework, Kill Hong matrix levels have been classified in four different categories: level 1, biological needs. Level 2, security and safety needs. Level 3, social independence needs, appreciation, creativity and prosperity. Level 4, cognitive and aesthetic needs. For each level, the assessment criteria and parameters were defined. Finally, the relationship between colors and environmental qualities in Sepah Street in Isfahan was evaluated using Delphi’s technique considering the valuable historical, cultural and functional aspects of this street in urban structure in Isfahan. The findings show that the first level of needs (biological needs in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) is ranked first among these cases with greatest points received from experts and the interviewee’s answers to the amount of space enjoyment from colors potentials in different levels (from very good to very poor) with the average of 20 percent. In this study, considering two important points in space including human beings and hierarchy of humans needs, and stated qualities in urban design the different aspects of colors potentials as well as the weaknesses and strengths of colors existence in space were investigated and compared. If the urban spaces want to be responsive to human’s needs, we should not only consider different qualities, but also try to make a balance and sensible relationship between different levels of these needs and how to meet them. It is also suggested that studies on citizen’s perception and comprehensive plan for environment colors are the basis of knowing colors as indispensable elements in recognizing the identity of places.