Analysis Meaning Quality of Place, with Special Focus on Yazd Urban Public Places

Analysis on Meaning Quality of Urban Public Places, with Special Focus on Yazd, Iran

The discussion below can be read as a call for more rigorous and transparent explication of philosophical commitments and implications of one’s chosen methodological standpoint.Physical structure, function and perception is led to place. Place by imagination and memory is defied. Nowadays, urban public spaces are in the lack of meaning they cannot perfectly be percepted by citizens. The purpose of this research is proposing, effective indicators in perception of citizens in urban public places. Meaning quality of urban public places is a big concern. Various indices shape meaning quality of urban public places. Some indices have more roles in perception quality and some of them less. Finding these indices could help planners and designers to improve meaning quality from the perspective of citizens.

Studied area The studied area is Yazd city in Iran country. So, Yazd province is located in the center of the country, and its center is city of Yazd. This city have about 582682 population. The city of Yazd is the economic and administrative capital of the province and therefore the most heavily populated. Yazd is one of the best Iranian Architecture samples. It is one of the major and historical cities in the world and this city is preparing a historic texture portfolio to register in UNESCO. This research done on Yazd Materials and methods The aim of research is, introducing indices in perception the quality of urban public places in the view of Yazd (Iran) citizens. So, the research method is "descriptive- analytical". Also, survey analysis method was used. At first, the literature was reviewed due to proposed indicators. In order to analyzing indicators the sample size is 384. So, the questionnaire was used. On the other hand, T-test and Friedman test (Non Parametric Test, K Related Samples), in SPSS, used to analysis data.

a. Proposed indicators Based on research method, at first scientific studies has been reviewed. So, indicators have been concluded from some ideas such as: Lynch (1981), Violich (1983), Bentli (2005), Coleman (1987), Alen Jacobs & Appelyard (1998), South worth, (1989), Greene(1992), Haughton & Hunter (1994), Punter & Carmona (1997), Carmona (2003), Also, National and international institutions such as PPS, theoretical issues about the quality and the quality of the survey have developed during the past few decades. Table 1 shows, the components of urban space quality in scientific ideas. According to this table twenty two indexes select for analysis in the semi Delfi process. These twenty tow indexes are: Eco-friendly form, Visual compatibility, Visual character, Accessibility, Walk- ability, Environment for all, Social reaction, Variety land use, Customizable, Efficiency, Happiness, Richness, Friendly, According to past values or historical, Eligibility, Learning, Personalization, Security, Sense of time, Culturally, Meanings, manifestations and spiritual themes, Permeability.Table 1: components of urban space quality in scientific ideas

b. Descriptive findingsIn terms of gender structure about half of the respondents were male and half of them were female. Also, more than half of them were single and others were married. The average age of the subjects was 34 years. In terms of education, about 40 percent of respondents had a master's degree and 30 percent of participation had bachelor degree. The birthplace of half respondents in this study is Yazd city and others were born in other cities. The participants were residing in Yazd city.

c. Analytical findingsMeasuring the perception of residents (In terms of divided squares)The participants were asked to express their judgments about the quality of urban public places in order to evaluate the effect of the 22 indicators on the perception of respondents and their judgment about the meaning quality. Answers were analyzed using one-sample t-test and the results are presented in

Table2

Table 2: analyzed indicators The values more than 3 for each indicator represent significant effect on the quality of judgment in the perception of citizens. According to this analysis, these indicators i.e., variety of land use, Social interactions, Sense of time, The environment for all, Welcoming and friendly, Culturally, efficiency have average above 3 and have been effective to understand the meaning of place quality in Yazd city. The results showed that other indicators are not effective on respondents' perception of the quality squares.Respondent’s prioritization of the meaning quality indicesAchieving to the importance of each indicator in shaping the perceptual quality of the squares was important result of this study that will be used in the future by others. To prioritize the respondents' perception of meaning quality indicators, Friedman test was used. Table 3 shows the results of this analysis.Table 3.The results of Friedman testThe results of Friedman test confirms that there are significant difference between twenty tow indicator’s impacts on meaning quality of spaces perception. It should be noted that the most important indicator in the formation of meaning quality are Environment for all, accessibility and efficiency.Conclusion Analyzing the meaning quality of urban public spaces by means of quantitative methods and experimental models is an approach that is used to identify the overall level of quality. Meanwhile, access to reliable results, close to reality, can be used to planning and decision-making around proceeding strategy and physical, non-physical intervention on public places. This study was done based on using these approaches of measuring environmental quality. This paper indicate that among the indices for all 22 indicators, three indicators (Environment for all, accessibility and efficiency) have the most effect on percept meaning quality. Amir Chaqmaq square has the best quality between Yazd squares. According to past values or historical was the main index in meaning quality of Amir Chaqmaq square.