Surveying the Users’ Preferences of Urban Public Entrance Spaces with Emphasis on Environmental Criteria Case Study: )Traditional Gardens around the Eastern entrance of Qazvin)

Planning regardless of the different dimensions of the urban entrances, has caused the aggregation incompatible land uses, scattered and worthless buildings, widespread and soulless streets in the main city entrance axes. Since the urban entrance is the first urban space that people deal with and creates the first image of a city among residents and newcomers; therefore, attention to the user preferences of the urban entrance spaces and its qualities with emphasis on environmental criteria is very important and needs to be regulated. Considering the capacity of the traditional gardens around the eastern entrance of Qazvin and the visual significance of the city entrance axis, this research, is specifically looking at the effects of environmental criteria on the users’ selection and preference of the city entrance axis. This research is applied in terms of purpose and in terms of descriptive-analytical nature with matter of survey.

In this present study, 30 expert questionnaires were distributed in urban organizations and finally, by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), overall criteria and sub-criteria were weighted and prioritized.

The results show that the most important criteria in terms of urban experts in order to increase the users’ preferences from the urban entrance spaces is related to Readability criterion. Subsequently, the Vitality, Sense of invitation, Individuation, and Environmental Health criteria are respectively in the users’ preferences of the urban entrance spaces.

The status of each qualitative criteria of user preferences from entrance space in traditional gardens of the eastern entrance of the Qazvin has been surveyed and finally, some suggestions have been made to improve the quality of entrance through entrance sequences.