Assessing the Aesthetic Qualities of Pedestrian bridges in Urban Landscape of Tehran through a Context Sensitive Design Approach

Tehran due to rapid urban development, confronted the lack of appropriate guidelines in design and planning for urban areas. Generally, in Tehran presence of inharmonious qualities in urban elements is obvious and consequently it causes the lack of functional efficiency of urban spaces. However according to the references, aesthetic comes from harmonious qualities. On the other hand, the facilities for adapting to new situation and then pedestrian bridges in modern urban areas that provide such a linkage with a high level of safety for both pedestrian and cyclists are as urban elements that can play an important role in creating a new visual image for a city. Today, unfortunately due to neglecting their aesthetic potential during design and construction process, faces many issues. In fact, they could play a determining role in depicting the aesthetic qualities of the urban landscape, especially when they meet certain critical principles. According to the literature, one of the most important factors that can play a role in determining the aesthetic qualities of pedestrian bridges relates to the setting where these bridges are located. In fact, the most successful bridges should be designed in accordance with their surrounding environment (Context Sensitive Design). Therefore to help urban designers, bridge engineers, and planners to improve the aesthetic qualities of pedestrian bridges in the urban landscape, base line data is needed regarding people’s perceptions of similar forms of pedestrian bridges in different urban landscape settings. Since urban environments are generally shaped by people’s preferences, perceptions, and attitudes toward over time and also through studying their perceptions, people can indeed indicate what is important to them and what they need in this situation. As such, this study attempts to provide new insights into how people view pedestrian bridges in an urban landscape and further reveal new details and information on people’s reactions to similar form of pedestrian bridges in different urban landscapes. In summary, this study conducted a preference survey with 384 respondents in Tehran and entered the data into SPSS. The results provide useful information first for considering the visual characteristics of the urban landscape where the pedestrian bridges are located. The results indicate first that people don’t care about the aesthetic qualities of the pedestrian bridges and second they prefer the similar form of pedestrian bridges in different urban areas differently. Thus, it could be concluded that first the visual characteristics of pedestrian bridges in urban areas in Tehran is neglected and then the visual relationship between the bridges and their settings is important for perception of aesthetic qualities for pedestrian bridges in urban areas.