Deteriorating Urban Walkability: Configurational Lessons from the Transformation of the Historic Core of Kerman

The incremental development of organic urban tissues is influenced by a multitude of interconnected factors. This study delves into the intrinsic complexities of these forms, highlighting human-scale qualities often overlooked in contemporary urban design and planning. Specifically, it examines historic urban tissues in the hot and dry regions of Iran, exemplified by the city of Kerman. These urban areas were historically characterised by walkability, accessibility, and passive thermal comfort—attributes that contribute to sustainable urban forms. This paper explores the patterns of access networks in Kerman, focusing on how primary public spaces like bazaars and marketplaces interconnect with secondary residential areas. It aims to analyse the urban typo-morphological patterns that link various city parts to the main public realms, along with the micro-climatic adjustments facilitating these connections. The research highlights how recent alterations such as top-down urban development, infrastructural changes, and the introduction of vehicular roads, have significantly transformed the configurational characteristics of Kerman’s once-walkable urban tissue. These transformations have obscured many micro-climatic solutions born from centuries of incremental urbanism, especially in the historic core. Utilising temporal mapping of the city’s access network from the first aerial image in 1957 to the present, the study employs Space Syntax and statistical classification to analyse each temporal stage. The analysis classifies access network elements based on the to-movement and through-movement measures and provides comparisons between different temporal stages of core transformations. The temporal stages are selected based on the introduction of significant new elements into the grid. The findings reveal the impact of new roads on traditional mobility patterns, showing a shift favouring vehicular over pedestrian movement. This disruption is particularly evident in transitional spaces, which are crucial for pedestrian flow. While significant historic buildings are preserved, the pedestrian access network has deteriorated. The outcome shows that the decline in walkability is a result of the formalisation of the grid, which prioritises the creation of longer, more connected vehicular pathways through the city, often at the expense of pedestrian-friendly routes. The patterns identified in this study offer valuable insights for future urban planning, especially in preserving and revitalising the remaining parts of Kerman’s historic core.