Planting Design 2013 Working Group 5 - Case Study A

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Gerdab (Gerdab-e Ben, Iran) گرداب بِن

Name	Gerdab-e Ben (The Ben lagoon)
Location	Ben, Chaharmahal Va Bakhtiari
Country	Iran
Authors	Majid Amani Beni

Rationale: Why is this case interesting?

Gerdab-e Ben (The Ben lagoon) is a beautiful lagoon in suburb of city Ben. Gerdab is placed near two mountains. Combination of lagoon, trees and mountains makes a beautiful landscape. Also interestingly, reflection of mountain on the lagoon makes an eye-caching scenery and many of tourists capture it. Gerdab is a very important tourist attracting site and has a significant cultural-economical role for city Ben. Gerdab was chosen as an outstanding tourism region of Iran in 2010 [4]. Ben is my hometown and Gerdab is a part of my everyday landscape.

Author's perspective

The city (Ben, Iran) is capital of a township Ben and is known as a cultural-historical city. Local and national managers try to attract more tourist to the city. Gerdab is one of the most important tourist attracting places of the township. Annually, considerable public funding is allocated to improve touristic situation of Gerdab. Meanwhile Management, maintenance and extending green spaces of site play a significant role for this target.

Landscape and/or urban context of your case

Gerdab’s lagoon has 38,000 squire meters area and green space around it that was established in 1950, is around 100,000 squire meters [4]. There is a strong interact between nature and culture in Gerdab. In the Norooz celebration (first days of Iranian new year) which that is simultaneous with beginning of spring, many of people go to have a recreation in Gerdab. There, They also do some traditional etiquettes related to Norooz celebration.

In the entrance way of lagoon, there is statue of Mirza Habib-e Esfahani as one of Iranian poets and writers in eighteenth century [1]. Near the statue there is an inscription that has mentioned his biography and book’s name. However,it seems that in Gerdab, nature has stronger force than culture. It seems because of natural aesthetics and combination of natural elements (lagoon, trees and mountains). Near the lagoon there are some facilities like supermarket, coffee shop, sailing camp, children park, gas and petrol station. They help tourists to have a more comfortable recreation.

Some human/cultural impacts are necessary for improving touristic situation of Gerdab. For example the problem of heavy traffic, specially in summer, should be solved (below: yellow area in Analytical drawing 3). Also with regard to tourist population, there is a great potential to construction some cultural centers for introducing cultural values of the city.

It is believed that an ecological approach to planting design in Gerdab can help improving the quality of landscape and creating sustainable landscape. It also declines maintenance cost [2].

There are a few problems in green spaces and landscape of Gerdab. Discontinuous trees line in eastern side of lagoon (A, in analytical drawing 4) and disconnection between green spaces of lagoon and city (B) are two bold problems in the site. A planting design with considering ecological principles (for example using native plant species) can solve mentioned problem and will cause more sustainable landscape.

Keywords: nature and culture, Ecological planting design, sustainable landscape.

Analytical drawings

• Analytical Drawings
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  Summer and Winter

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  Facilities and roads

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  Traffic problem

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  Green space problems

Projective drawings

• Please add four projective sketches/drawings (or montages/schemes) for your case and take the following aspects into account:
  • How would you like this case to change in the near future? (in 1-2 years)
  • And how could it look like in 10-15 years?

• Projective Drawings
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  Gerdab in 2 years

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  Facilities and solving traffic problems (In 15 years)

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  Gerdab in 15 years

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  connection between city and Gerdab in 15 years

Summary and conclusion

Please summarize your case and give arguments for your projective design (approx 150 words).

Although nowadays Gerdab is a very interesting place for tourists and citizens and it has many significant economical – cultural roles for the city Ben (Iran), It has a great potential for extending and developing in coming years. Gerdab can be changed to a bold place with versatile roles in urban landscape of Ben. So it seems that some changes should be made in future.

Green spaces of Gredab should be developed and be connected to the city. For this target, ecological principals of planting design, for example planting native vegetation, should be considered. Ecological approach to planting design would decline the costs of management and maintenance of green areas of the site [2,3]. Also the problem of discontinues trees line around the Lagoon should be solved with planting appropriate trees.

For future development of Gerdab, some facilities like hotel, museum, different sport grounds, walk road and telecabine can be added to the site. Furthermore, the existing street network of Gerdab should be extended for solving traffic problems.

Image Gallery

You may add a series of images/photos in addition to the sketches/drawings

• Image Gallery
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  image 1

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  image 2

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  image 3

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  image 4

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  image 5

References

• [1] Aryanpour, Yahya., Az Saba Ta Nima (From Saba to Nima), Zavvar Publication, 1971, Vol 1, Tehran, Iran.

• [2] Hitchmough, J., & Woudstra, J. (1999). The ecology of exotic herbaceous perennials grown in managed, native grassy vegetation in urban landscapes. Landscape and Urban Planning, 45(2-3), 107-121.

• [3] Kingsbury, N. (2004). Contemporary overview of naturalistic planting design. In the dynamic landscape, N. Dunnett & J. Hitchmough (Eds). (pp 58). London: Taylor & Francis.

• [4] Municipality of Ben, from: http://www.shahrdarieben.ir/fa/%DA%AF%D8%B1%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%A8%D9%86

• - Images: Personal photographs + Municipality of Ben (above link) + Google Maps: https://maps.google.com

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