Developing a Conceptual Model for Promoting Coherence and Interactivity in Historical Neighborhoods (A Case Study of Historical Fabrics in Neighborhoods of Kerman City, District 1)

Coherence and interactivity are considerable features of historical fabrics that can lead to formation of an integrated city known as a dynamic system. During historical epochs of time, the city was recognized as an integrated whole which comprised a wide range of structures form internal neighborhood structures to communicative and interconnected neighborhood structures in terms of a whole unit known as the city.
Statement of the problem: The lack of criteria for formulating neighborhoods coherence in new urban development and the emergence of segregated and discrete grains, as well as ignoring the neighborhood connections in major urban planning regulations are the main studied problems in this paper; since numerous research have focused on urban coherence in neighborhood scale, disregarding of the neighborhood interconnectivity. Moreover, urban coherence can be studied ubiquitously in geometric, physical, functional and social aspects that are all reflected in this paper regarding the functional and structural coherence and interactivity.
Research aim: This study aims at scrutinizing the criteria for coherence and complexity in neighborhood connective structures in order to achieve a conceptual model explaining neighborhood coherence and provide a flexible model for neighborhood adjacencies.
Research Having analyzed the contents that are related to urban coherence and unity, this paper adopts the qualitative research method in order to explain the relation of these contents to the realities of the existing fabrics. The decision-making process in this exploratory-explanatory research is completed using comparative analysis. The intellectual basis of the research is also founded on the basis of content analysis and deductive reasoning. In addition, ANP model has been adopted in the practical stages of this research. Therefore, 18 residential districts have been chosen to be evaluated and ranked according to a formulated check list. Finally, the proposed conceptual model is tested in District 1 of Kerman city according to the mentioned model.
The studies of this research reveal that if the 5 indicators of spatial organization, continuity, physic, sociability, and meaning of neighborhoods are combined with 11 indicators of spatial coherence, a matrix will be formed that can offer a coherent network of neighborhoods through the interaction of the indicator .