Sahar Behravesh - M.Sc. Gorgan University of AgriculturalSciences and Natural Resource
Ali Homaeifar - Ph.D. Regional PlanningFerdowsi University of Mashhad
Hamidrzea Shahabzi

Large-scale urban projects are often presented as project-focused market-led developments and the primary means of interventions in cities. Despite promising great benefits to a number of people, such projects usually entail significant threats to some interests and values. Likely adverse effects of establishing such projects can jeopardize sustainable development. As the severity and extent of the impacts of large urban projects depend very much on local circumstances, the ways to make them more integrative into their context could give benefits not only for the investors, but also for local communities. In this study, we examined the role of new projects’ integration into their contexts in sustaining the urban development through comparing two commercial complexes with fairly similar physical and functional characteristics in different regions of Mashhad city (the second largest city of Iran). First, the likely impacts arising from development of each project on their surroundings are generally analyzed based on physical and functional features of projects. These features include the number of floors, height and massing type as well as their dominant usage. Then, the type and severity of impacts of the establishment of two projects on their context is compared based on the existing conditions in surrounding areas and also the degree of compatibility of projects’ physical and functional characteristics with their context. Comparing the impacts of the establishment of two projects on their contexts shows that the impacts of first Commercial Complex (Mehr) settlement are more severe and extensive. The root of this difference can be traced in differences in the characteristics of their contexts. Finally by comparing the extent and severity of the impacts of Mehr and Sadr projects establishment, having rather similar physical and functional characteristics, the importance of considering the context features in locating the projects would be concluded.

Suitability, Context, Urban Projects, Sustainability