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The city of Tehran has been confronting major physical-spatial changes during the last few years. High rise building activities can be analysed as one of the major phases in the process of these changes. Although high rise buildings can respond to some of the city's problems, such as land and housing shortages, they may lead to other problems. Evaluation of high rise buildings can show the positive and negative aspects of this activity.
This paper explains the high rise building activities in Tehran, evaluates their physical-spatial impacts in Farmanieh and Kamranieh suburbs and introduces principles and criteria for high rise buildings. The evaluation is based on the following six criteria: (1 )Iandscape, (2)environment, (3)roads and accesses, (4 )urban facilities, (5)safety , and (6)economic.
It should be noted that although the density increase in Tehran can be justified, high rise building activities in Tehran have had distinguished negative impacts. The most importat reason is that necessary criteria have not been considered in the planning and design process.
High rise buildings activities ought to follow urban development policies. On the basis of planning and development principles, subjects such as urban identity, density increase principles, transportation and traffic, environment, infrastructure and public facilities must be considered