Application of TOPSIS Technique in Ranking of Tehran Urban Design Projects with Implementation Evaluation Approach

 
Abstract
Along with the rest of the world, recently, some projects named “urban design projects” has been provided and is running in different parts of Iran, especially in Tehran. These projects aim to improve the quality of our urban environment and urban spaces. In the early 80s of Hejri Shamsi, city managers and citizens expressed more interest in these projects. In fact,our approach is changing to concentrate more on quality than quantity in urban projects. Urban design involves the arrangement and design of buildings, public spaces, transport systems, services, and amenities. On the other hand, Urban design  is about making connections between people and places, movement and urban form, nature and the built fabric. Urban design draws together the many strands of place-making, environmental stewardship, social equity and economic viability into the creation of places with distinct beauty and identity. The main issue of this study is to evaluate the implementation of urban design projects, as an urban development plans. The present study attempted to identify criteria that affect the implementation of urban design projects in Iran and to compare their success together and attempted to evaluate the implementation rate of Iran urban design projects identify, and prioritize the criteria and effective indicators in this process. Therefore, several documents and relevant literature were reviewed to initially develop a theoretical framework and then, identify primary criteria and indicators using analytical- comparative methods, reviewing documents, and related opinions of other scholars. These criteria and indicators were made precise and fulfilled through an interview with experts so as to localize and conform to Iran’s context. After considering experts ideas, and also adjustment and localization for Iran, TOPSIS technique based on the implementation plan was carried out to rank their implementation. The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is a multi-criteria decision analysis method, which was originally developed by Hwang and Yoon in 1981with further developments by Yoon in 1987and Hwang, Lai and Liu in 1993. TOPSIS is based on the concept that the chosen alternative should have the shortest geometric distance from the positive ideal solution and the longest geometric distance from the negative ideal solution. It is a method of compensatory aggregation that compares a set of alternatives by identifying weights for each criterion, normalising scores for each criterion and calculating the geometric distance between each alternative and the ideal alternative, which is the best score in each criterion. An assumption of TOPSIS is that the criteria are monotonically increasing or decreasing. Normalisation is usually required as the parameters or criteria are often of incongruous dimensions in multi-criteria problems.The findings of the selected projects were ranked based on the organization and development of the project as the top project was Hassan Abad organizing and restoration project, and the weakest was reconstruction of TAJRISH bazaar based on implementation approach. This would indicate that the criteria and indicators for urban design projects implementation in reconstruction of TAJRISH bazaar Project has not been well attentioned.