Unravelling the essence of Other spaces of the city of Tehran (central district) with emphasis on cultural context

Accentuating the role of semi-public spaces (such as cafes, theatres, galleries) and the desire to create communities different from formal discourse in the hidden layers of society, can be a response to the weakness of the public realm in entirely public spaces of the city. The point that is overlooked in many urban studies is the seemingly small, simple and different utopian spaces that in the concepts of this research are examples of other spaces which had a less seen function in a city like Tehran, but have their own particular sets of fans amongst the people. Spaces that, apart from the leisure application for some, are not considered in the planning and design of the city. In such circumstances, presenting a new reading of them and identifying their features and types helps to present an appropriate theory to introduce different spaces in Tehran. The main purpose of this study is to identify the essence of these different spaces (other space) in Tehran (the central district) with emphasis on their cultural context. To achieve this goal, in the methodological process, a qualitative approach with Strategic basic objective and an interpretative/constructivist paradigm was employed. To carry out this process, abductive logic was used and the method of this research is a link between ethnographic methods and grounded theory which is presented as the “grounded theory ethnography” method.  Regarding to ethnography, its later approaches and the method of grounded theory refer to its constructivist type.
In the process of applying the method in the cultural context of the central area of Tehran, in addition to the researcher's observations, 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted. After employing the initial data coding process and generating 1610 codes in combination with the interview notes, with the help of memo writing, focused coding process was performed to create subcategories. In this path, 15 subcategories were identified which, by raising the level of abstraction, result in 6 main categories, which are: Cultural-artistic theme, being different, the existence of critical thinking in users, the importance of the concept of space, the place of contemplation and the meaningfulness of space. Finally, the concept of " contemplative - imaginative other space" as a core category was presented in detail and an ethnographic text, which is the consequence of an ethnographic research, was written. This is influenced by the cultural context that shapes these spaces which led to the development of a subculture with its own characteristics among the users of these spaces that has been increasing during the last decade. The result of this research is a micro-theory to introduce the essence of the spaces that were questioned for the researcher from the beginning. Despite the resemblance to similar terms in theoretical texts (third space and heterotopia), these other spaces do not fully conform to any of these concepts and have their own unique attributes (6 main categories). It should be noted that the findings of this study are appropriate to the context and existing conditions and more extensive research is required in order to expand it.