BACKGROUND PROJECT

This area has been defined in many different ways as a lost space, waste space, dead space, and urban void. However, these neglected abandoned areas share some common aspects, often referred to a fraction of neglected, unutilized or useless area of a city that has different physical characteristics from the surroundings and the city’s overall areas. These abandoned areas look different from the public open space, such as parks, walking streets, and footpaths which are empty spaces outside buildings and their coverings, serving as useful spaces for public activities for different groups of people in the city. The significant reason of these abandoned areas is the spread of transportation network quantitatively and qualitatively, which results from the city's growth. The greater the city has expanded, the more expanded of transportation network will likely be from the city’s original areas in order to connect between areas of the city or between cities more efficiently. Nevertheless, these elevated transport structures overlap on the city’s original areas, which are often the city’s public areas, historic districts or commercial communities. As a result, the areas below became deserted useless areas which have led to several problems such as the deterioration of areas, the occupation of homeless people, and unsafety for pedestrians all of which cause negative impacts on the environment both at the community and the city levels (Transik, 1986).

 

Public space is one of the city's most important elements, which promotes the quality of life and responds to a wide variety of public needs in cities. With regard to public areas, it has been questioned and defined in different related sciences including social science, geography, architecture and urban design, covering cultural education of the areas. The main objective of this present study was to review theoretical concepts relevant to public spaces that play an important role in public lives in cities. The term “public” was defined by Oxford English Dictionary and Longman English Dictionary as the relations of all people including general people and communities, which is opposite to the term “private”. In the opinion of Jodhpur (Madanipour, 1996), the term public is connected with people at all levels ranging from the city, country, and state, which is meant as a global community. In terms of “public space”, it is generally described as areas that are connected with everyone, open, accessible, or shared with all members of  communities, and it is established by public sectors for public. Therefore, public space is an accessible physical area that can be seen by everyone and more accessible than a private space such as footpaths, roads, parks, community areas, all of which city’s areas are public areas that can get accessed without permission. Yet, these definitions are not enough to describe the characteristics of public areas in modern cities. In a social dimension, public space is a meeting area for many different people. According to Francis, (1989), public space is a meeting area of a diverse group of people to interact in a society that reflects the characteristics of each community. To define the term public, therefore, it is necessary to consider more about the development of the area, the utilization of the area, the presentation of individuals’ identity through the area, social value, and the nature of the place at each era. According to the abovementioned backgrounds, a question has been raised as whom public area is established for. Moreover, this research aimed to study and understand the concept of public space in terms of access, agency, and interest of different physical characteristics between public and private areas. Private space can be more than either a footpath or a empty space under a cross-junction bridge. It may be able to function more than being an empty space where anyone can access. Besides, it also plays roles in stimulating lives in nearby communities and allowing people to ‘have a conversation’. For a small community, having a learning center is like having another public space that provides an opportunity for people over school age to have access to the knowledge to improve their life quality.

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Therefore, the study of guideline for architectural designs to improve public space under expressway aimed to find develop a guideline for solutions for visual pollution, the deterioration of areas and unsafety for pedestrians.