Hidden in Plain Sight: Tehran\u27s Empowering Protean Spaces

As a recent citizen I noticed Tehran\u27s urge for new kinds of public spaces. So, I initiated a dissertation that outlined a call for protean space. Cities need protean spaces as a means to empower people, places that offer social interaction and support--spaces that are safe, accessible, and intriguing. Protean spaces empower people to create places for personal and interpersonal relationships, make social connections, gain information, and build trust across varied networks. My dissertation examined how planning and design practices can enhance the possibility of protean spaces and therefore increase their number. While my research concerns Tehran, all cities benefit from their creation. Professionals can foster the creation if they could consider the ad hoc ways people--over time and within a given site--create opportunities for self-growth and human contact. Tehran lacks accessible and welcoming public spaces and suffers from inadequate, inflexible, and expensive housing. To renew Tehran\u27s public spaces, my dissertation mapped Tehran\u27s marginal possibilities in unconventional urban territories, in the natural residues, ordinary streets, and domestic zones. There, I suggest alternative ways of recycling the city\u27s fragmented space to foster protean spaces. I studied alternative processes that could enhance and increase protean spaces there. The process draws inspirations from how Tehranis have made places, for example, in patoghs. The process can accommodate Tehranis with better protean spaces for future adaptations. Protean space opportunities exist at the intra-city residual natural landscapes: the leftover green patches on the Alborz Mountain ridges, half-erased river-valley corridors, and underground matrix of abandoned qanats. These sites are currently disconnected from the city\u27s structure and its people. Mundane sidewalks--readily available, fully public, and free of charge--are opportunity sites. Due to the deficiency and hostility of public spaces, people appropriate sidewalks as ad hoc meeting places, but most sidewalks produce uninteresting and clichéd experiences. Average houses are private sites with public space design possibilities. Tehran\u27s housing crisis has produced inadequate and pricey homes, often poorly constructed and of singularly uninspired design. Despite being unexciting and lacking identity, they offer leftover space possibilities between, below, atop, and inside that could be repurposed

The Opportunistic House for Tehran: A Design Prototype

This article is an advocacy research for Tehran, promoting an implication of architectural design as a tool for citizen empowerment and positive environmental change. In the article, I am offering a fresh look at Tehran's housing problems by speculating an "opportunistic house” typology as a residential style that would serve much more than just shelter. I am making a case for a new house prototype that applies socially-equitable solutions in design. My study finds applications and significance beyond plain housing design and, mainly, onto the design of ad hoc urban public realm spaces. This is in accord with my overarching mission of supporting new way of thinking about, and ultimately offering, welcoming, safe, and energized places for Tehran's citizens. These will additionally have important implications for inhospitable public spaces worldwide. This research is grounded in my prior, multidisciplinary doctoral studies. The article itself is an initial step in my ongoing research design, of helping to build and revitalize a wide range of urban communities by nurturing their relationship to their built and natural environments. The article is a discussion around the following questions. How can housing design inventions empower citizens? In what manner can design offer progressive living place options whose services go beyond shelter needs? Particularly, in what ways can domestic spaces be designed to also embody other-than-living capacities, for example, for new kinds of public spaces? And eventually, what could a prototype of the opportunistic house look like in the context of a city like Tehran? The article is structured to first present a brief survey of how Tehran house forms and functions have developed historically, with more emphasis on their current state. It will then offer examples of opportunistic uses of domestic spaces in Tehran. This notion is communicated through narrative analysis and photographic vignettes from a few Iranian films. Through the selection, I show, for example, how and where informal economies are shaping inside Tehran apartments. Next, the article will identify possibilities and spaces in current houses that are and have the potentials to be used in resourceful ways. Based on the steps indicated, analyzing people needs and artifact interpretations, I will conclude with a design proposal of a new infill apartment house. The final proposal will include theoretical statements about possible design interventions and a visual prototypical elaboration through imageries and conceptual renderings. The resultant prototype becomes one example of possible houses that could serve as catalysts for informative, inspiring, and state- of-the-art practices, a precedent in Tehran for others to build upon

A film studies approach in architectural research:: urban space in three Iranian films

Architecture and film studies are interrelated disciplines, and architects can take advantage of existent commercial, dramatic, comedic or documentary films for inspiration and historical research. As examples of how existent films can be utilized innovatively in architectural research, this paper critically examines three contemporary Iranian films: "Ten” (2002), a realist docudrama directed by Abbas Kiarostami, "Chaharshanbe-soori” (2006), a melodrama directed by Asghar Farhadi, and "Dayere Zangi” (2008), a comedic urban drama directed by Parisa Bakhtavar. Through this examination, the paper argues that the lens through which a filmmaker looks at buildings and urban settings is unique, and that in every film, from the most abstract to the least, and whether the film maker is actually conscious of it or not, there is an underlying exploration and documentation of the way architecture affects and (re)shapes society. In Iran, film has always been one of the few poetic, enlightening, and powerful ways to explore, among other social and cultural phenomena, the issue of power in urban public space. Contemporary Iranian cinema has proven itself able to depict the natural and built environments as the loci for both private and public presentations of self, and these films reveal many suppressed, typically unexamined, issues surrounding the multiple meanings of place and identity. This research shows the aptitude of these filmmakers, or any filmmakers, to present views of contemporary society, supporting a broader understanding of contemporary urban life than is officially permitted or can be academically achieved. Hitherto, no other media has been found to be as great a resource as film to "freeze frame” the flow of life in an urban setting, or time in a space. With their unique lens, filmmakers are architects' fellows, making possible the observation of potential topics of inquiry; for instance, ethical and socio-political themes related to space and power

Synthesis, characterization, crystal structure and HSA binding of two new N,O,O-donor Schiff-base ligands derived from dihydroxybenzaldehyde and tert-butylamine

Two new o-hydroxy Schiff-bases compounds, L 1 and L 2 , were derived from the 1:1 M condensation of 2,3-dihydroxybenzaldehyde and 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde with tertbutylamine and were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopies. The crystal structure of L 2 was also determined by single crystal X-ray analysis. The crystal structure of L 2 showed that the compound exists as a zwitterionic form in the solid state, with the H atom of the phenol group being transferred to the imine N atom. It adopts an E configuration about the central C N double bond. Furthermore, binding of these Schiff base ligands to Human Serum Albumin (HSA) was investigated by fluorescence quenching, absorption spectroscopy, molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods. The fluorescence emission of HSA was quenched by ligands. Also, suitable models were used to analyze the UV-vis absorption spectroscopy data for titration of HSA solution by various amounts of Schiff bases. The spectroscopic studies revealed that these Schiff bases formed 1:1 complex with HSA. Energy transfer mechanism of quenching was discussed and the values of 3.35 and 1.57 nm as the mean distances between the bound ligands and the HSA were calculated for L 1 and L 2 , respectively. Molecular docking results indicated that the main active binding site for these Schiff bases ligands is in subdomain IB. Moreover, MD simulation results suggested that this Schiff base complex can interact with HSA, with a slight modification of its tertiary structure

Cobalt(II), copper(II), zinc(II) and palladium(II) Schiff base complexes: Synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance in selective oxidation of sulfides using hydrogen peroxide under solvent-free conditions

International audienceAn asymmetric bidentate Schiff-base ligand (HL: 2-tert-butyliminomethyl-phenol) was prepared from the reaction of salicylaldehyde and tert-butylamine. Cobalt(II), copper(II), zinc(II) and Pd(II) complexes, CoL2, CuL2, ZnL2 and PdL2, were synthesized from the reaction of CoCl2•6H2O, CuCl2•2H2O, Zn(NO3)2•6H2O and PdCl2 with the bidentate Schiff base ligand HL in methanol. The ligand and its metal complexes were characterized by elemental analysis (CHN), FT-IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy. In addition, 1 H and 13 C NMR techniques were employed for characterization of the ligand (HL) and the diamagnetic complexes (ZnL2 and PdL2). The molecular structures of all the complexes were determined by the single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. The crystallographic data reveal that in all the complexes the metal centers are four-coordinated by two phenolate oxygen and two imine nitrogen atoms of two Schiff base ligands. The geometry around the metal center in the CoL2, CuL2 and ZnL2 complexes is a distorted tetrahedral and for PdL2 it is square-planar. The catalytic activity of these complexes has been evaluated for the selective oxidation of sulfides with the green oxidant 35% aqueous H2O2 under solvent free conditions. For all the catalysts, using optimized reaction conditions, different sulfides were converted to the corresponding sulfones. ZnL2 showed a higher catalytic performance for the oxidation of the different sulfides to the corresponding sulfones

Synthesis, characterization, crystal structure and HSA binding of two new N,O,O-donor Schiff-base ligands derived from dihydroxybenzaldehyde and tert-butylamine

International audienceTwo new o-hydroxy Schiff-bases compounds, L 1 and L 2 , were derived from the 1:1 M condensation of 2,3-dihydroxybenzaldehyde and 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde with tertbutylamine and were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopies. The crystal structure of L 2 was also determined by single crystal X-ray analysis. The crystal structure of L 2 showed that the compound exists as a zwitterionic form in the solid state, with the H atom of the phenol group being transferred to the imine N atom. It adopts an E configuration about the central C N double bond. Furthermore, binding of these Schiff base ligands to Human Serum Albumin (HSA) was investigated by fluorescence quenching, absorption spectroscopy, molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods. The fluorescence emission of HSA was quenched by ligands. Also, suitable models were used to analyze the UV-vis absorption spectroscopy data for titration of HSA solution by various amounts of Schiff bases. The spectroscopic studies revealed that these Schiff bases formed 1:1 complex with HSA. Energy transfer mechanism of quenching was discussed and the values of 3.35 and 1.57 nm as the mean distances between the bound ligands and the HSA were calculated for L 1 and L 2 , respectively. Molecular docking results indicated that the main active binding site for these Schiff bases ligands is in subdomain IB. Moreover, MD simulation results suggested that this Schiff base complex can interact with HSA, with a slight modification of its tertiary structure