Evaluation of Aesthetics and Place Identity

The shortage of theories and research in the field of urban design aesthetics have caused that the creation of beautiful landscape in cities to be regarded as a marginal and selective subject, depending on individual and personal tastes of the clients and designers. In related literature, the studies about the evaluation of urban aesthetics have been focused on the experts’ opinion about the beauty, and thus people's preferences of urban aesthetics are usually ignored. Galindo’s research (2005) is one of the few studies which establish connections between environmental meanings and urban aesthetics by using the people’s opinion about their environments. He introduces variables such as visual wealth, light, originality, and place memories as the most important variables of beautiful urban landscapes. This study is an attempt to demonstrate the people aesthetic preferences and its relation to the identity of place. In evaluating people’s preferences we are looking for the “beauty in the eye of beholder”, and thus the evaluation is involved in the perception of beauty and the emotion people have for their living places. Four hundred residents of the district of Navab (old and new fabrics) interviewed according to a visual test (Q-sort). The findings show that there is no considerable differences between the criteria regarding beautiful landscape and those involving sense of place; it is also recognized that for both beauty and identity the objective criteria are cited more than subjective criteria by the respondents. In detail, the result of people preferences about beauty can be summarized as below:• Objective variables related to the physical appearance of the landscape are more effective than subjective variables such as beliefs and values about the place. The design of the building façade has been the most important criterion in evaluating beauty.• Beautiful landscapes are mostly selected from new designed fabric of Navab.• There is a public consensus in selecting desirable landscapes. Characteristics of the best three selected landscapes are their clarity of form, function, and structure. They all have a strong social context. The results about preferences for identity shows that: • Objective criteria are more notable than subjective ones. Familiarity with place is the important criterion of identity; it obtained the highest rank among other variables.• Three higher landscapes which constituted the highest percent of preferences have special characteristics. All are landmarks with distinctive social context and hold clear forms and functions. •According to the opinions of residents of both old and new fabrics, the new fabric is more identifiable. Although the reason for this selection is residents’ familiarity with space (place identification instead of place identity) but it demonstrates how much the designed environment (as an expert product), influences the people’s preferences of place. It comes to the conclusion that a professional work holds an inherent value for people. This issue should be regarded by those who participate in designing and making decisions about cities. It seems a participatory place making, supports and enhances the compatibility between built form and the people’s preferences.