Public spaces liveliness indebted to Commercial function Case studies are the cities of Marrakesh and Meknes

Public space is a place for amusement and passing leisure time, accessible to all at all times, and a place to initiate social interactions. A lively urban space contains the presence of considerable number of people in most of the day; So people should be able to come voluntarily, stay, spend leisure time and socially interact with others.Contrary to Europe, public spaces in Moroccan cities have similarities with street fairs in Iranian cities. Field research about public spaces in Moroccan cities, arises these questions: what is thriving of Moroccan public spaces depended on? Is the importance of public spaces depended on physical factors, beauty of appearance, ease of access and the level of openness in area or the activities taking place there? Does removing the commercial function results in the death of the spaces? The study ahead, a product of observation and analysis based on field observations, attends to the major part of the commercial units in the definition of city public spaces and their liveliness.it seems that Moroccan social lifestyle has a major influence on the definition of city spaces including public spaces. Despite the presence of numerous tourists in Morocco, especially Europeans, natives have been adhere to values of their past and their public spaces has still preserved their traditional structure. The result of observing several of public spaces is that prosperity, success and liveliness of the public spaces in Morocco is mainly depended on activities (commercial) and not form. Confounding land-use in city space provides the possibility of wide range of simultaneously activities, and attracts more people. On one hand, the presence of an active crowd in a space results in strengthening the sense of security and on the other hand, it makes the space, a place with originality and identity which people can feel more belonging to. Eventually this comes to liveliness of the public spaces and more prosperity. It is important to pay attention to the course of forming and the activities of public spaces in the historical textures of Moroccan cities; because it is a pattern for reviving the present cases and also, designing and building contemporary ones of that nation and even similar historical textures like Iran. Recognition and utilization of native patterns, present in reproduction of lively collective arenas and preserving the identity of cities justifies the necessity of proceeding with the following study.
Theory:The success of Moroccan public space which forms with creation of openness in the city’s shape, depends on the presence of commercial units, specially retail sales and results in active presence of people in those spaces. The present study looks to prove the theory that plurality of land-uses and activities in public spaces, especially commercial function and buy-sell activity, results in liveliness and prosperity of public spaces in historical textures of the cities.