The Role of the City's Natural Structures in the Human-Nature Relationship: Tehran and the Seven River-valleys as a Design and Planning Case Study

摘要

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relationship between human beings and nature in an urban context by benefitting and reviving the existing natural structures of the city. This research has an interdisciplinary approach integrating the environmental and sociocultural aspects of sustainability. In other words, the purpose of this research is to investigate how the socioculture of Iranian-Tehranian residents can be applied in the design and planning process of the natural structures of Tehran's seven river-valleys. This provides the sociocultural aspect of sustainability as well as the environmental one. The term socioculture in this paper focuses on two aspects, including the daily life and activities of Tehranian residents and specific cultural traditions of specific days in the Persian context. The applied methods include the combination of analyses through the literature review, direct observation, and interviews. The direct appraisal and 130 interviews have been carried out in the mountainous recreational areas and the linear parks executed on specific parts of the seven river-valleys so far. This is required in order to consider the needs, problems, and potentials in interaction of citizens with Tehran's river-valleys in present Tehran. The findings are then applied in the design and planning process of the case study of the river-valley called Darband.