VITALITY IN TIME: THE USE OF URMIA BAZAAR

Abstract

Bazaar is the most liveable part of any city in middle east. Mostly covered (less uncovered streets or Rastehes) public space which was the most interactive part of the city specially in the past. Bazaar not only is as answer as economic centre in the city but also is the most socio-cultural attractive space in the city to serve people in different levels of accessibility. Spatial characteristic of Bazaar besides its role during the time in the inner city and how it affects the socio-cultural aspects of public space; is one of the scopes recently interested many researchers, professionals, and decision makers. Meanwhile, Urmia Bazaar among the others is one of the samples in northwest of Iran, experiences various transformation through the time mostly in last 100 years, specifically changes in inside and enclosed spaces layout. Pedestrian movement through the public space is a key issue to find out how they develop and grow through the time the main spatial characteristic of the public space such as vitality and socio- cultural-economic interaction in it. This study developed with comparing the pedestrian natural movement as it was addressed by Hillier (1993, 2012) with some syntactic and topological measures in different periods to fulfil how streets were used through after and before changing in the layout of the public space in one side. On the other hand, it tries to clarify how visual characteristic of the form of the space can invite further participants to the space in different layouts for Urmia Bazaar.