Social Regeneration of the Historical Bazaar of Zanjan Based on the Recognition of the Physical-Spatial Dimensions Affecting the Sociability of the City's Public Spaces

Iranian Bazaar, as one of the most prominent public areas of the city, have always been a platform for establishing citizen interactions and forming social activities. Following the developments of modernism, the architectural system of the Bazaar, especially the historical Bazaar of Zanjan, suffered much damage in the physical-spatial dimension, in such a way that the structural integrity of this historical complex is distorted to a significant extent and as a result, the level of sociability of the users of the space has also decreased. In order to regenerate the social relations and exchanges of Zanjan Bazaar, this research has tried to explain the solutions for organizing its physical-spatial system, and in this way, it has used a mixed methodology approach based on library and field studies. Field data was prepared by distributing a closed questionnaire and conducting semi-structured interviews with businesses of Zanjan Bazaar with a volume of 297 and 21 people. The results of measuring the significant relationships between the physical-spatial dimensions of Zanjan Bazaar and the sociability of the environment with the Pearson correlation test in the SPSS statistical analysis show that there is a direct and significant relationship between these two variables. This means that if the physical-spatial structure of Bazaar is improved, the level of interaction and social activities of the users will also be improved. The findings of the interview in order to understand the physical-spatial damage and challenges of the Zanjan Bazaar indicate that the most fundamental challenge of Bazaar is related to physical access indicators and aesthetic factors and the lowest amount of damage is related to factors of location, form, geometry, and flexibility. Considering the obtained results, solutions were also suggested in the direction of the social regeneration of Bazaar based on the existing physical-spatial challenges.