Identifying Effective Events, for Improving Quality of Life in Built Environment

The advancement of science and technology has contributed to the richness of cities by providing the citizens with a wide range of educational, health-therapeutic, cultural-social services and etc.; however, this trend has led to excessive levels of environmental pollution in these cities which threaten the health of citizens in comparison with the past and increase the risk of various types of mental and physical illnesses. This also can be viewed in statistics provided by the World Health Organization. This urban life exists with all its dimensions in the urban spaces, and there has always been a mutual relationship between these two. In this way, urban life of the citizens builds the city and on the other hand, the city builds the life and current interactions in it. In this way, as degradation of life quality among urban citizens leads to degradation of urban spaces, the picture state of this issue can also be true. This means development of the built environment of the city and its spaces can be a ground for improving the urban life of citizens and reduce the different dimensions of urban life problems. Furthermore, it is important to note that improvement of city built environment quality depends on the promotion of the hard and the soft infrastructures in the urban area; however, addressing soft infrastructures in urban spaces design is often neglected by specialists in this field. This is because the factors shaping it are hidden and are non-physical in many cases. They are also defined at various levels. This study aims to study life-giving events as one of the soft infrastructure that shapes the space as well as improving quality of life in built environment. The main question of this research pertains to what events are considered as effective events, and what are the efficient factors in their formation. In this regard, a qualitative analysis method has been selected for this research in order to study and analyze the visions of theorists about different levels of life manifestation in space via a literature review. The results indicate certain factors in defining this category of events, which are “features,” “capabilities,” and “providing the possibilities.” The results show that there are three levels of life-giving components:(1) Features that include dependence on the natural process of everyday life and its spatial freedom, diversity, impressive atmosphere, forming a chain of actions, and meanings organized in a whole, associations and symbols, as part of society; (2) capabilities that include inclusiveness and synergies, coherence-giving capability, growth and place making and; (3) providing active participation of different social and age groups and social interactions among them, the active physical presence of the human as an interface between subjective and objective worlds, active use of the movement element for shaping space, sensory perception, and multifaceted perception. Effective events (Life-giving events) can be reached if the events are defined in accordance with the levels.