Identification of Prone Areas of High-Rise Residential Buildings and Architectural Alignment of Existing Towers (Case study: Mashhad Municipality-District 1)

Abstract
The high-rise construction as a one way to create and construct compact cities, has attracted a lot of urban managers attention due to the maximum use of space and required minimum resources. However, lack of attention to the essential criteria for correct locating of these buildings can cause many problems in the urban areas and in the future of cities. The present study attempts to identify suitable areas for high-rise residential buildings in Mashhad Municipality at district 1 and evaluate and compare the constructed buildings. This research has selected 13 criteria in 4 categories including social, economic, environmental, and physical factors to identify suitable areas for high-rise buildings. Thereupon, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used as a tool to determine the weight of criteria; so that the data and research information were collected in the form of questionnaires from  relevant experts in this field. The Geographic Information System (GIS) was used for integrating, analyzing, and displaying spatial data in locating process. The results reveal that economic criteria with impact factor of )0.512( is essentially effective in the study area when using AHP. After preparing the zoning map of residential buildings, it was found out that 67 percentages of total region (with equivalent area of 1000 hectares), which was categorized in three zones including perfectly appropriate, appropriate, and rarely appropriate, can be employed for constructing high-rise buildings. Finally, among eight high-rise residential buildings existing in the region, there are two buildings locating in perfectly suitable zones, so that Firoozeh, Yas, Dogholo, and Mehr Kohsangi high-rise buildings ranked at the top with respect to architectural aspects