Designing public space can take an interdisciplinary approach to urban space design by highlighting the relationship between urban design research and practice. This research attempts to educate students as 'researcher-designers' by applying practical techniques such as Place-check and Gehl's public life-tool in a review of how public space design is taught in a studio course on our Master's degree in Urban Design. This study uses action-research to engage 30 students attending the course entitled 'urban design studios' which focuses on Tehran's historic neighborhoods. The results indicate that applied 'evidence for design' based on soft and hard evidence can provide improved practical understanding of environmental quality issues in urban space design. Findings indicate that inviting citizens' opinions during the design phase leads to more reliable and useful design and planning processes. These initial steps in encouraging designers to solicit citizens' feedback could prove the stimulus for further participative action research which builds on students' improved understanding of design contexts.