Historically, patterns of urban settlements and residential development have changed because of various reasons. In the post industrial revolution period, rapid urban population growth rate together with technological advancements have been the major factors affecting the forms and shapes of residential complexes. Beside the growth of apartment patterns, residential complexes are now a dominant pattern. This pattern is assumed that should consider residential developments as appropriate neighborhoods having enough green and open spaces to create sociable societies.Rapid population growth rate in Iran in the last few decades caused housing provision to be a key urban problem. To respond this problem, mass housing production has become a major housing policy for government, municipalities as well as planners and architects. As it is evident, mass housing production has many positive aspects, including economic efficiencies and technological advantages. In this process, however, consideration of planning principles and criteria become very important issue in the creation of appropriate living environment.This article considers the above mentioned concepts through a comparative study on two different patterns of residential complexes in Tehran, using several key principles and criteria. The first case relates to a complex of conventional high rise buildings, namely Eskan, built in 1960s. It includes three towers; each has 23 stories with the building area ratio (F.A.R) of 100 % and the floor area ratio about 1000%. The second case is Nour (Seoul) residential complex built in 1980s. It includes 12 walk-up apartments with 5 stories in average. Building area ratio in this project is about 35 % and its floor ratio (F.A.R) is 180%. These different characteristics have made different physical-spatial aspects in each residential environment from the viewpoints of creation appropriate living space and providing adequate urban public facilities and services. In order to compare these two different residential complexes regarding the quality of housing and residential environment, a comparative study was undertaken using six basic urban planning principles and criteria, including roads and quality access, urban public facilities, physical principles, environmental and socio-cultural criteria. A questionnaire method was used to consider the residents viewpoints. The findings of the study reveal that in the low rise pattern (the case of Nour project), a higher quality of residential environment has been achieved. In the scoring process, lower density and the existence of open and green spaces have been major factors made the low rise case project gaining more score than the high rise case. In contrast, the second case, (Eskan project) have not achieved the principles and criteria for an appropriate environment. The study shows the importance of consideration principles and criteria in the planning process of residential buildings. The findings reveal that density increase in residential complexes does not necessarily mean that mass housing production is appropriate. The most important goals and objectives in the process of mass housing production must be creation of appropriate living environment through the consideration of urban planning principles and criteria, including quality access, access to public facilities, physical principles, environmental and socio-cultural criteria.
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