Journal of Urban Studies on Space and Place

Abstract  
Over the past few decades, the urban fabric surrounding the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza (AS) in Mashhad has undergone extensive redevelopment. These transformations have largely prioritised infrastructural capacity, accessibility, and crowd management in response to the growing scale of pilgrimage. While such measures have improved logistical performance and service provision, they have also contributed to a progressive weakening of the experiential and meaning-laden dimensions of pilgrimage. Large-scale demolition, functional zoning, traffic-oriented design, and commercially driven development have increasingly disrupted the relational continuity between human presence, spatial structure, and the sacred meanings historically embedded in the pilgrimage environment. As a result, many of the spaces surrounding the shrine now operate primarily as corridors of movement rather than as places of gradual approach, bodily attunement, and spiritual preparation.
Within culture-oriented, place-based approaches to urban regeneration, this research proposes a meaning-based framework for regenerating the spaces and places surrounding the shrine, grounded in the theoretical concept of the Field of Appresentation. Drawing on phenomenological traditions, appresentation is understood as the process through which absent meanings—such as memory, belief, and transcendence—are made experientially present through bodily perception, spatial cues, and cultural practices. From this perspective, sacred urban space is not a passive container of symbols, but an active field in which meaning is continuously constituted through the interplay of perception, action, memory, and belief. Accordingly, the erosion of pilgrimage experience cannot be addressed through formal or aesthetic interventions alone, but requires reconfiguring the appresentational conditions that allow sacred meaning to emerge and be sustained in lived experience.
Methodologically, the study adopts a mixed qualitative–quantitative design with a phenomenological and context-sensitive orientation. The objective is not statistical generalisation, but an in-depth, situated understanding of how meaning is appresented along pilgrimage routes leading to the shrine. Data were collected through document analysis, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, sensory–spatial mapping, and GIS-supported analysis. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with pilgrims, shrine servants, long-term residents, and local shopkeepers, selected through purposive sampling to capture diverse experiential positions within the pilgrimage field. In parallel, nine key nodes along the main pilgrimage routes—primarily thresholds, pauses, and ritual movement junctions—were identified as focal points for detailed field investigation.
The analytical framework organises data around four interrelated experiential domains that structure the Field of Appresentation: environment, ritual, memory, and belief. The environmental domain addresses multi-sensory qualities such as light, sound, materiality, crowd density, and microclimate. The ritual domain examines embodied practices of movement, pause, prayer, and collective synchronisation. The memory domain explores personal and collective recollections, including perceptions of historical continuity, loss, and attachment to place. The belief domain focuses on subjective experiences of sacred presence, spiritual proximity, and moments of intensified or diminished transcendence. Through triangulation of interview narratives, observational records, video-based behavioural analysis, and spatial data, the study constructs a layered reading of how these four domains interact to present meaning within the pilgrimage environment.
The findings indicate that the contemporary crisis of the shrine’s surrounding spaces can be understood through four interrelated forms of rupture: sensory rupture, manifested in overstimulation, noise, and loss of atmospheric calm; performative rupture, reflected in the disruption of ritual rhythms by traffic flows and commercial pressures; temporal rupture, marked by the erasure of historical layers and weakening of continuity between past and present pilgrimage practices; and inner rupture, characterised by a reduced capacity for introspection, spiritual focus, and felt sacred presence. Crucially, the analysis demonstrates that interventions limited to physical form or infrastructural efficiency are insufficient to repair these ruptures, as they fail to engage the deeper appresentational mechanisms through which meaning is constituted.
In response, the Field of Appresentation model reframes the shrine’s surroundings as a multi-layered experiential field in which meaning emerges through reciprocal activation. Bodily perception appresents absent sacred referents; ritual practices synchronise individual and collective presence; memory anchors experience within a temporal continuum; and belief modulates the intensity and orientation of perception. Meaning-based urban regeneration, in this sense, is defined not as the restoration of a fixed historical image, but as the recalibration of appresentational conditions that enable these processes to operate coherently in contemporary contexts.
On this basis, the study translates the four experiential domains into a set of design-oriented principles applicable to urban regeneration and architectural intervention. These include reinforcing ritual continuity along pilgrimage routes, enhancing the legibility of collective memory through spatial and material cues, moderating sensory conditions within threshold spaces to support bodily and emotional attunement, and promoting forms of spatial justice that balance the needs of pilgrims, residents, and local economies. Rather than prescribing deterministic solutions, the framework functions as a flexible design logic that guides planners and architects in aligning spatial decisions with appresentational processes of meaning-making.
Ultimately, the research argues that regeneration in sacred urban contexts should be understood as a dynamic and adaptive process aimed at restoring meaningful presence rather than merely improving spatial performance. By foregrounding the Field of Appresentation as the core analytical and design framework, the study offers a systematic way to reconnect human experience, spatial structure, and sacred meaning in the spaces and places surrounding the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza (AS). Beyond the specific case of Mashhad, the proposed approach contributes to broader debates on sacred space, phenomenology, and meaning-based urban regeneration by demonstrating how experiential theory can be rigorously translated into spatial analysis and design practice.
 

Abstract Introduction
The historical fabric is an interconnected expanse of buildings, complexes, spaces, or urban facilities that contain valuable, irreplaceable remnants from the past, playing a significant role in raising community awareness of their history and cultural values. In our country, the historical fabric refers to that part of the urban structure formed before 1921 (1300 Hijri Shamsi). These areas, despite their significant identity value, generally suffer from physical decay, lack of safety standards, and inadequate urban services and infrastructure, leading to a lower status in terms of residence and location. Specifically, parts of Iranian cities formed up to the Qajar era can be considered historical fabric, representing a period before the transformative changes of the first Pahlavi era began.
Methodology
The research method is exploratory-applied. Data collection was conducted through library and survey methods. The sample for expert interviews (to analyze the driving forces) consisted of 30 individuals divided into two groups of 15, following the Delphi model. The Micmac method was employed to analyze and rank the key factors affecting the regeneration of the historical fabric. This method, rooted in foresight studies and strategic planning, aids in identifying and analyzing the drivers and dependencies related to overall decision-making.
Results and discussion
After screening the research variables, 38 variables were selected as initial influential factors for the regeneration of the historical fabric, categorized into five main factors (economic, social, physical, environmental, and managerial-institutional). These variables were analyzed using the Micmac software. According to the results, the distribution and dispersion of variables influencing regeneration in Kashan on the scatterplot indicated system instability. Thus, five categories of variables (influential variables, two-dimensional variables, regulatory variables, dependent variables, and independent variables) were identified and elaborated upon. The variables that had the most significant impact on regeneration development, as well as those two-dimensional variables (with both high influence and dependency on other factors), were identified as key factors. Therefore, the ten key and important factors for urban regeneration development in Kashan were determined to be: good urban governance, urban resilience, infrastructure facilities, timely budget and funding allocation, rapid and cost-effective construction technologies, ensuring residential security in the fabric, local organizations for participation, social capital, capacity to increase residents' income, and balancing and social justice.
Conclusion
The structural development of the city of Kashan for the current and future state requires considering key factors in planning. For structural planning of urban redevelopment in Kashan, all factors involved in urban redevelopment planning are regarded as an interconnected system with integrated elements, and their interrelationships are assessed to identify the superior factors with the most significant influence. These key factors are then employed in urban redevelopment planning to ensure that the redevelopment system in Kashan results in the most sustainable development for the city. To achieve this, all components of social, environmental, economic, physical, and managerial-institutional factors are incorporated as a system.
The factors that have had the greatest impact on redevelopment, as well as dual-impact factors (those that are both highly influenced by and have a significant impact on other factors), have been identified as key factors. Therefore, it can be stated that the redevelopment of historic urban fabrics is driven by a complex interaction of factors, including historical awareness, adaptive strategies, community participation, economic sustainability, and strong policy frameworks. Future research should continue to explore these drivers in various contexts to develop comprehensive models that address the unique challenges faced by cities undergoing redevelopment. By integrating these elements into planning processes, cities can create resilient environments that honor their past while embracing future scenarios.

Abstract The historical context of Isfahan in the Shahshahan neighborhood, in the vicinity of Isfahan Jame Mosque, has valuable historical elements that provide the possibility of culture-led regeneration in this area. Also, various religious and ritual cultural events, numerous handicraft workshops, and artists' presence in this field have given a unique structure to this context. However, the lack of a culture-led regeneration approach and physical approach to the restoration of historical buildings without taking into account the construction pattern of the entire structure and activity changes and the injection of new uses, the lack of consideration of the cultural and artistic values ​​of this area and the neglect of the requirements of the tourism industry have caused this. Historical context cannot attract tourists to the extent of its capabilities. Therefore, this research seeks to apply strategic studies to provide a network of interconnected tourism axes along historical elements and ritual and cultural poles in the Shahshahan neighborhood to transform it into a creative handicraft neighborhood as a target area for tourism development. This research is descriptive and exploratory based on the type of applied research, and in terms of method, it is among the qualitative research based on the research strategy. The research process was carried out to prepare the theoretical framework of creative tourism and culture-led regeneration. In the next stage, the studies related to the project "Redefining the Role of Tourism Target Neighborhoods in the Direction of Tourism Development" of the Shahshahan neighborhood were reviewed and based on the theoretical framework of research, analysis, and The goal achievement matrix was presented based on the regeneration components with creative tourism approach. Finally, the action plans were presented as a network map of creative tourism routes and a list of proposed projects in restoration, functional, urban space, and beautification projects. The results show that this neighborhood, with its many historical elements and buildings with architectural value, the activities of handicraft workshops and artists, and a variety of religious and ritual activities, has unique capabilities to become a creative neighborhood of handicrafts and a tourist destination of the historical context of Isfahan city. As Isfahan is a part of the network of creative cities in the field of handicrafts, the design of the network of tourism routes is an excellent opportunity to create a suitable space for presenting capacities, abilities, workshops, and handicraft works as creative industries in the order of experience-oriented touristic routes with a particular theme in this area.

Abstract Population growth in urban areas, especially in areas with organic structures, has led to problems such as traffic caused by narrow passages and difficulties related to intervention in its structures. Many of these problems are solved through planning at the neighborhood level. One of the approaches proposed in the last few decades to solve urban problems is the smart city approach, which affects the urban system. Therefore, the current research aims to evaluate the sustainability of the historical context based on the smart city approach. In terms of methodology, based on the nature of the goal, it is of an applied type, and based on the nature of the method, it is of a descriptive-case and analytical-prescriptive type. We have used library, document, and field methods and questionnaires to collect information. We used confirmatory factor analysis in SPSS software and quantitative strategic planning matrix QSPM for data analysis. The research results also show that, finally, after analyzing and discussing the characteristics, the Sanbulistan neighborhood has the potential and necessary infrastructure to become a neighborhood that conforms to the indicators of a smart city. Among the essential solutions proposed in this field are the revival and economic productivity and the promotion of intelligent business through encouraging entrepreneurship and the development of startups, as well as the expansion of neighborhood online businesses related to the services needed by residents, the development of the intelligent bicycle plan and the provision of superior facilities to bike paths