The role of user preferences in urban acupuncture: Reimagining leftover spaces in Tehran, Iran

The article deals with the fragile connection that public spaces often have with their context. In this regard, the use of urban acupuncture in leftover space can be an opportunity to revitalize the urban fabric through small-scale interventions developed in accordance with community preferences. This study evaluates interventions in vacant plots based on both residents’ preferences and experts’ opinions. Using the example of leftover space in Tehran, this article explores public preferences and priorities regarding urban acupuncture from a social, design, and aesthetic perspective, applying a descriptive-analytical method. The opinions of six experts were examined and categorized in the first phase. In the second phase, the topics and subtopics extracted from the first phase were incorporated into visual questionnaires to evaluate preferences, from which 165 valid responses were obtained. Following the analysis of the questionnaires, twenty-two personal interviews were carried out. The results show which interventions are preferred over others.