The Role of Place-based Social Space in the Development of Rural Landscape (Case Study: Villages of Kuhdasht County)

Abstract

The village experiences a different type of social life due to historical, identity and meaning interactions. This local relationship doubles the need to pay attention to social spaces in the villages. Since the social space is a valuable platform for experiencing the place in the village, it becomes important and necessary to investigate this issue and analyze examples in the rural development plan. The purpose of this research is investigation the role of place-baced social spaces in the development plan of the villages of Kuhdasht. And the main question is; What is the role of place-based socail space in rural development plan? This research has been done by descriptive analytical and qualitative method and based on library studies and a significant part based on field studies and observations. Hadi’s plan is a small version of the city’s comprehensive plan, which by ignoring the concept of social space and reducing it to physical and functional features in planning, has weakened the dimension of place and meaning in these spaces. According to the findings, the social space of the village is formed on the basis of meaning, and then it goes in the direction of function and fabric, contrary to what is expected in the city. In addition, ignoring the unique features of the village, removing local patterns, ignoring people’s participation are other problems that are expected to be seen in future development plans. In addition, re-creation of rural social spaces is required to recognize and consider place-based characteristics.

Keywords

• social space
• place
• rural development plan
• hadi plan
• kuhdasht villages