Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Habitat International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/habitatint Using information and communication technologies to create learning urban public space. (Case study: Central part of Tehran, Iran) Zahra Nouri a,* , Mojtaba Rafieian a , Kimia Ghasemi b a Faculty of Art and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University (TMU), 14115-111, Tehran, Iran b Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University (TMU), 14115-111, Tehran, Iran ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Urban public space Information and communication technology (ICT) Learning environment Tehran ABSTRACT This paper addressed how urban public spaces equipped with ICTs could be proper places for their users to learn. To find out the strategies of physical interventions for creating learning urban public spaces, the preferences of their users were derived by conducting interviews in the urban public spaces in the central part of Tehran. The results obtained from a deep survey with open (ended) questions suggested that the users of these public spaces were eager to learn in those spaces via ICTs and were more interested in displays than in any other types of ICTs moreover they gather at Wi-fi zones. The most important thing to learn in urban public places is knowledge, rather than skill or training, the knowledge which is related to the selected urban public spaces, their historical and cultural facts, and their management and participation issues rather than any other types. The most facil- itating environmental conditions for learning are the places which have areas to seat or are equipped with seats, where users can gather and socialize easily, and which are not so crowded or empty, and the meeting points. Also, pre-experienced situations effect users’ interest in the use of a especial type of ICTs rather than the other types. These findings inform urban designers, planners, policy makers and local municipality that some practical strategies used for physical interventions in these places for the purpose of creating learning public spaces would be the use of displays on the facades of buildings at different levels of pedestrian views, the installation of Wi-fi zones which have a supporting role to increase the number of learners, and the preparation of suitable seating furniture in the meeting points for long lasting learning. 1. Introduction Today the present educational system cannot satisfy the demands of education, therefore, it cannot be deemed as a proper system which can guarantee flexibility and meet specific local exigencies quickly. Moreover, the issues of access, equity, and resources pertaining to learning processes oblige us to reconsider the current modes, times and places of teaching/learning which, for being actively efficient, cannot follow the traditional forms of knowledge transmission within the in- stitutional bodies of schools and universities any more (Di Sivo & Ladiana, 2010). It has been reinforcing the idea that nowadays the traditional and consolidated contexts for which any forms of training have been developed and carried out, can not sufficiently nor efficiently satisfy the present and future needs for knowledge, so these institu- tional bodies have to be developed within environments closer to the citizens’ existence and work (Di Sivo & Ladiana, 2010). In recent times, such a condition has drawn attention toward the necessity of an evo- lution or a reform in “learning society”, “learning community” and “learning city” (see, for example Campbell, 2009; Candy, 2003; Di Sivo & Ladiana, 2010; Faris, 2006; Kilpatric, Barret, & Jones, 2003; Unlocking the Potential of Urban Communities; Case Studies of Twelve Learning Cities, 2015). Thus, over the past years there has been a growing body of research and literature on learning communities, so- cieties, and cities, where learning is widespread and lifelong (Di Sivo & Ladiana, 2010; Faris, 2006). There are many more facets to the construction of a learning society in cities, towns and regions, which makes it easy for all people to learn and to continue learning in a variety of ways (Faris, 2006; Longworth, 2011)."Learning communities of place” is introduced as one of the concepts, with an expanding scale of learning environment ranging from learning neighborhoods and villages, to regions, towns and cities; in such learning communities, learning is considered to be specifically https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2019.04.002 Received 16 July 2018; Received in revised form 9 February 2019; Accepted 8 April 2019 * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: Z.nouri@rocketmail.com, Zahra.Nouri@modares.ac.ir (Z. Nouri), mrafiyan@gmail.com, rafiei_m@modares.ac.ir (M. Rafieian), k.ghasemi@modares.ac.ir (K. Ghasemi). Habitat International 87 (2019) 91–98 0197-3975/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T