Design Yearbook 2017

Shared Identity: Buildings, Memories, and Meanings
Stephen Grinsell
News stories about either the decision to save or demolish many buildings of
the 1960s and early 1970s regularly use the noun monstrosity, usually prefaced
by the word concrete. However, not all concrete buildings create animosity.
The recently demolished Birmingham Central Library, whilst derided by
Prince Charles as looking like ‘a place where books are incinerated, not kept’
(Birmingham Mail, 2014) is also commonly and affectionately called the
‘Ziggurat’, a reference to the stepped terraces of ancient temples. David Parker
and Paul Long in their article ‘“The Mistakes of the Past”? Visual Narratives
of Urban Decline and Regeneration’ write ‘For all their faults, the buildings of
the 1960s and 1970s currently being destroyed supplied Birmingham with an
identity’ (Parker and Long, 2004 p.18). Buildings are given their identity and
meaning, or more accurately, given a multiplicity of meanings, by those who
gaze upon them and allow the building to impact upon them. This impact,
or the experience as a result of that gaze, stirs emotions and evokes memories,
memories that heighten a sense of identity. This identity then becomes a shared
identity as people share their memories, and what the building means to them.
Parker, D., & Long, P. (2004). ‘“The Mistakes of the Past”? Visual Narratives
of Urban Decline and Regeneration’. Visual Culture in Britain, 5(1), 37-58.
The Impacts of Owners’ Participation on ‘Sense of Place’,
the Case of Tehran, Iran
Goran Erfani
A key aspect for urban designers and managers concerns how urban
transformation arising from regeneration of inner-city areas is associated
with ‘sense of place’. Although much academic work tracks individual sense
of place, little interrogates the community aspect and its link with urban
renewal. This study investigated how the urban renewal schemes in Tehran,
Iran have attempted to adopt the owners’ participation into their planning
and implementation. It concentrated especially on diverse ways that different
stakeholders perceived the methods of these schemes and the significance for
community sense of place.
The study examined the urban renewal projects conducted by the municipality
of Tehran which concerns these areas as deprived neighbourhoods with various
physical, social and environmental problems. Two cases were studied, namely
the Oudlajan bazar and the Takhti neighbourhood, which both are located
in the inner city (district 12). Despite similarities, they are distinctive cases.
Oudlajan, which has outstanding heritage value to the city, is a commercial
public space. The Takhti project was about the residential private space. In
addition, each case had diverse socio-cultural and physical transformation.
The selecting of the distinctive cases shaped a better picture of urban
transformation in Tehran.
The techniques applied seek to represent different types of participants, by
means of local observation and semi-structured interviews with a range of
stakeholders in these schemes. Additionally, to elicit what constitutes the
interrelationships between people and place, Photo Elicitation Interview (PEI)
was carried out. The photos captured by the residents were discussed with
them to reveal the potential impact of urban renewal projects on place-based
community attachment, identity and satisfaction in the eyes of individuals.
Concurrently, planners, managers and developers were interviewed. To signify
the intersubjectivity, the results and evidence from the previous phases were
separately discussed with other participant and non-participant residents in
the renewal schemes. Furthermore, the study considered the potential and
limitations for sense of place associated with the urban regeneration schemes.
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