Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Hamidreza Varesi

Member of Faculty, University of Isfahan

Abstract

Among human’s primary needs (food, clothes and shelter), provision of housing is the most difficult. Fulfilment of such needs is very expensive. Even the rich consider house as the greatest family investment. Recently even the most optimistic planners have accepted that the least expensive house with plainest design cannot be afforded by at least a third of urban families in developing countries. One of the plans proposed for solving this problem is development of apartments. This plan, applied in Iran since not-so-distant past, has not yet been utilized in Isfahan. In spite of the city’s former comprehensive plans (with a “horizontal” attitude) which avoids vertical appearance except in limited areas in the city where this approach is not in conflict with the traditional and historical texture of the city, recently in new comprehensive plan and in creating new cities apartment-based plans have been considered and used as a course of action.
In this study, conducted with the aim of recognizing apartment-based residence, six districts with significant apartment residences within the area of implementation of comprehensive plans in Isfahan have been selected and examined using questionnaires. These six study areas have differences in terms of cultural and social textures and geographical positions whose study has revealed interesting facts. It is hoped that this investigation will help solve such residential problems.
The aims of this study include: examination of correct manners of apartment-residence and its development in Isfahan, the connection between type of occupation and apartment residence, apartment lifestyle problems, interest of people in living in apartments, and proposing solutions for related problems.