Investigation of Beautification and Improvement of Environmental Quality effect on the Urban Vitality Case Study: Maragheh Historical Garden City

Peace of mind, exhilaration and existence of vitality are the most important requirements of spirit which indicate the quality of living spaces. Due to the heterogeneities and visual pollution, most of the cities are observed as a gloomy and senseless spaces, while from the beauty point of view, they do not transfer any kind of concepts. Nowadays, city views have become undesirable as a result of visual heterogeneities and no attractiveness and beauty are behind them. The most important factors for making human life more pleasant are: “creating peace, beautifying the spaces, reducing the pollution and regulating urban graphics and visual arts” besides protecting the society against psychological harms. The main objectives gain to feel the beauty, attraction, peace of mind, exhilaration and vitality in all aspects of urban design and also combine them in the urban space, especially in public spaces while transmitting the same feelings to the people. This study aims to investigate the effect of beautification and promotion of environment quality on urban vitality. The primary researches and theoretical studies are led to the following hypothesizes:1. There are some relationships among pollution, heterogeneity and visual turbulence of urban view and vitality.
2. The beautification, improvement of urban quality and identifying the public environments can increase the urban vitality.
Within the theoretical framework, the concepts of city view, beautification, urban art, different aspects of visual pollution (color, light, visual and symbolic) and the quality and vitality of urban life were explained. By establishing cause and effect relationships, the analytic pattern of this study was set up, then the case study namely Maragheh Garden City, was investigated and the study areas were selected. The obtained results, after designing a questionnaire for investigation the research objectives, hypothesizes, research questions, and their analysis revealed that there was a relationship between visual pollution and urban vitality. Moreover the quality of the study area was quantified using the maps of the Statistics Center of Iran. The output was produced in the form of GIS maps, then the amount and the intensity of visual pollution in urban areas were specified, and finally the areas experiencing visual pollution were determined based on GIS data and according to these maps the considering range were selected for planning and policy making. After reviewing and recognizing current situation, SWOT table was used to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the case study area. The analysis of the study area was conducted on the basis of direct and indirect assumptions. In direct assumption, according to the current situation, the pollution and visual heterogeneity of urban spaces were presented in the form of images and physical analysis. In indirect assumption, the questionnaire was used for a better recognition of the visual characteristics of the study area, which has been established according to the proposed criteria in the theoretical framework. After finalizing, the analytic pattern of urban vitality was set up based on the visual comfort components. The research was studied in order to organize the visual pollution and increase the quality of aesthetic environment and the vitality, in the form of objective design, strategies and policies in three micro, middle and macro levels. Moreover a sample of policy plan was presented in the case study area. At the micro level, suggestions have been made to organize and eliminate the pollution and visual disturbances in city view, particularly in urban public space in various aspects (visual, color, light, symbol). At the middle level, on base of GIS data, the Beheshti Street located in the historical center of the city was identified as an urban space with the high visual pollution. In order to improve the quality of vitality and eliminate the visual pollution, constructing pavement was proposed within the case study. At the macro level, a Beautification Master Plan as a unifying and comprehensive factor encompassing all of the visual comfort components was proposed, a pattern that is not only concerned on the city view but also the quality of it. While, it connects the case and cross-sectional designs of beautification to each other and establish a logical and fundamental relationship between them, as well as extending to all areas of the case study which is used for different levels. The final outcome of this plan creates the high quality, attractive, beautiful and vitality urban spaces. Consequently, the citizens will get the pleasure and find themselves in a historical, cultural and urban identity while they will sense vitality in all aspects of urban spaces.