BAGH-E NAZAR
Year:2015 | Volume:12 | Issue:32|Papers Count:12

Participation and its application in different fields of science, especially in urban planning and urban development projects, are two issues which have been the focus of experts and scholars for decades and are considered as the basic elements and components in the success of urban projects. Yet, the issues of participation and its application are limited to a specific group of people in society, and women who make half of the urban population have not been comprised. Taking this into consideration, the necessity of women’s participation in urban development projects can be considered as an opportunity in today’s urbanism. Nevertheless, the use of this opportunity and the existing potential in different communities need to be treated scientifically and locally. Therefore, this study offers different viewpoints related to the two issues of women and citizens’ participation in urban development in terms of feminist theories, cooperative urbanism, and gender in development and women in development. The study will, afterwards, analyze the basic roots of positive and active interaction between the two issues of women participation and urban development. Moreover, empowerment of women as one of the solutions will be analyzed, and finally based on an analysis of all the above-mentioned theories, pathology of women’s participation in urban development will be studied. Summing up the study, proposed policies and strategies will be offered to overcome the barriers, and to promote and execute corrective comments. Based on the summarized correlation between women’s participation, empowerment of women and urban development, the two questions are come up:· Which kinds of problem is the women’s participation in urban development projects faced with?· Through which mechanisms and methods would women’s participation in the urban development be promoted?According to different parts of this research two main hypotheses for this research are assumed. These two are:A. Women’s participation is a dynamic process which contains different stages and is affected by a variety of factors.B. The increasing of women’s knowledge is the most effective factor in the process of women participation. The process of proving these hypotheses with following steps are chosen in this research. First, the theory on women’s participation and its improvement is described. Subsequently, the research framework is provided based upon the different assumptions and opinions which are related to women’s participation. In the second part of this research, theoretical model for improvement in women’s participation is released. This model is summarized at a cycle diagram and there are four main elements for this cycle process. Each element plays a significant role in this cycle and they are depended to each other. These following elements are main parts of theoretical model for empowering women’s participation in urban development.· Figuring out women and society’s capacity to use them in empowerment process· Making active community as a frame work for improving women’s participation· Increasing social safety, knowledge and access for women· Controlling the stages of empowerment process by using feedback constantly· Each element in this model contains different part and subtitle. In the process of testing the hypotheses each subtitle is evaluated then assumed the percentage of its influence at women’s participation in urban development. We use Delphi method in this part of research. Thirty five experts filled out the questionnaires and ranked the effective elements of in women’s participation in order of preference. As a result of this part of research, two factors of making framework and increasing knowledge are the most influential factors in this process. This fact shows that the two hypotheses are right and we can release them as a rule in social studies.Also all results of this research show that focusing on women’s Knowledge improvement raises more expectation in women’s participation in the urban development projects. This improvement depends on government and the society ability and their action and co-operation. In order to answer the main questions and prove the hypotheses, the research method that is selected for the first part of the study, which deals with the analysis of the related opinions, is descriptive and analytical. Using this method, the main ideas of participation and the role of women in urban development in terms of different approaches of Feminism and Women in Development (WID), and Gender and Development (GAD) are studied and analyzed. Then, the study evaluates the extent to which these theories interact and agree with participatory approaches in urbanism and proposes positive solutions, like women’s empowerment. As a final point, in order to answer the two key questions of the study, the issue of women’s participation in urban development is evaluated using the methods of inference and comparison. And eventually, the pathology guidelines and policies set forth as suggestions to improve women’s participation in urban development. It should be noted that most of these approaches have theoretical and conceptual grounds, and social and cultural features of the local community are of high importance and need to be considered in practicing them in a community.

Medieval European territories were the victims of barbarism, wars, rivalries and Competitions of knights and nobility in the tenth century and did not have the relative safety. They always tried to establish independent states and peasant movements to resist the invaders and defeat them in order to enjoy a stable condition. Historians remind the tenth century as the last period of “Recess”. Europe had adverse conditions economically, politically, religiously, socially, culturally and academically in these centuries. Since the Islamic lands spent Renaissance and their prosperity in the fourth century, this period is interpreted “Islamic Renaissance”. The period that the Muslims in all areas of modern civilization (such as science, culture, industry and the arts) were renowned and expert. Impartial researchers in the field of the history of civilization, especially the history of Islam and Europe emphasize on the impact of Muslims’ achievements on Europe in various fields such as art, in the fourth century AH. With this background, the paper sought to trace the artifacts in the museum’s works and books published in the field of history of civilization and history of art and faced with impressibility of Islamic art of the fourth century AD. Hence, the paper aims to examine the influence of Islamic art in Western Europe in the fourth century and answer to the question that what is the reason of the lack of European art works influenced by the characteristics of Islamic art in the tenth century. The works and research of scholars of art history and civilization is a witness of influence of Islam and its art on Medieval Europe. Although the impact and the impressibility are occurred in many centuries and there are many researches and articles that have focused on comparative study of them in particular regarding technical studies and Motifs of artworks, but there has not been a research about Islamic artwork and its comparison with Europe artwork in forth century and it has not been even mentioned. Studying the status of Europe in the tenth century AD that suffered from unstable and chaotic status, the imagination of the existence of art manufacturing workshops almost seems unlikely that artists want to resemble the basics in creating artworks from the another land such as Islamic lands. The authors of this article did not find a true example according to the available resources. The impact of Islamic works on Europe in the fourth century is mentioned in many books and articles, but these impressibilities can be utilized in the next centuries that will likely be associated with poor state of Europe in the tenth century and in contrast its stable condition of following centuries. In fact, there was the struggle over the superiority of the Islamic lands in various fields in the tenth century in Western Europe and only from the eleventh century onwards, the utilization of Muslims achievements in the creation of artworks is created. Islamic artworks from the forth century went to Western Europe by trade and many of them were kept in treasures of Christian churches and have remained until now. In addition, there is not any sign of resembling in studied texts in creating Islamic handicrafts between European artisans and the preference of kings, nobles and knights is to use the works that have created in Islamic lands. It is important to note that the Islamic works were transferred to the west by businesspersons and the gifts of Islamic caliphs in the forth century and other ways of transferring such as translation and war, especially the Crusades were effective in the eleventh century and onwards. Silk fabrics, Shroud cover, glass and crystal bowls and silver dishes are Islamic works in the forth century that were transferred to Europe I tenth century and were popular among the upper classes of Europe. Therefore, it seems that the Islamic works of the fourth century AH are moved to Europe in the tenth century AD by commercial and the gifts of the Islamic Caliphates to kings, nobles and knights.

Gilgamesh epic is one of the oldest human prose epics. This epic story is one of the bests among world’s epic literature masterpieces in its form. This epic story was carved on twelve clay tablets and is narrating the mythic hero, one of the oldest Orouk Kings, who eventually experiences a serious of events and comes to a self-scrutiny and surrenders to destiny while seeking for immortality and solving the mystery of death. This story is derived from a Sumerian myth which includes six disparate stories, the one that the Babylonians used to narrate another quotation about the very same epic. The perfect Babylonian text was discovered from the twelve clay tablets from Assyrian Banipal’s (Assyrian King) library in Neinava city. The history of the written Babylonian text dates back to the second Millennium BC. These clay tablets have been translated to different languages by different authors and translators in history and have always attracted the attentions of many authors and artists. This subject deals with the study of scenery images of sixth tablets which depicts the scene of divine bull killed by Gilgamesh and his friend “Ankido”, as the act of killing a bull was one the honorable acts done by the believers of Mithraism and since killing a cow was a sign of creation. As in Persepolis there are several images of divine bull/cow with wings carved on stones, this scene was chosen as the subject of this paper. Approaching this goal, the literary recreation of Ahmad Shamlou with painting of Morteza Momayyez (1960) and compilations of Hanibal Alkhas and painting of Manouchehr Safarzadeh (1970) were taken into consideration. Although the plot of the two narrations are the same but there are obvious differences in scenes of this epic piece which are indicative different factors. This essay aims to discover the reasons of the differences in these images of the epic (Gilgamesh) by descriptive-analytical and tera-textual and inter-textual methods. So that it could disclose the hidden relations among the texts visual arts and inter-textual fields and measure the convergence of these different texts in order to find a comprehensive way toward studying these imageries with new ideas. As though of the chief reasons of this study is to find out the effects of cultural backgrounds or personal ideas in imaging systems of the same epic or narration, so that it can provide a more reliable knowledge about profound structures of these images and reveal their hidden relations as well as discussing the reasons of visual differences of these imaging systems by analyzing the images of the same scenes (the scene of killing the divine bull). Having analyzed these images, it was obvious that although these images where about the same scenes but they were depicted on the basis of different cultural - artistic backgrounds of the artists with different fictional points of views. This essay proceeds by comparing the content and inter-textuality of the two images of Gilgamesh epic drawn on the scene of (killing the divine bull) chosen from the sixth clay tablet. Since the field of study is too broad, we just suffice to study only two images of two different artists. These artists are Master Morteza Momaiiez and Manouchehr Safarzadeh. Ultimately, this essay deals with analyzing the mentioned images to find out how they their essence was derived from the previous texts and how where they were painted based on the different understandings of their artists from Gilgamesh epic which led to different paintings on the same scene, based on the theories and specially inter-textual findings of tera-textualism and multi-textualism. (These elements are Meta-texts of the authors, the age of the readers, Paradigms and styles of artists). The most important sources used in this paper are issues related to the topics of "intertextuality", in particular the article of “transtexual study” by Dr. Bahman Namvar Motlagh published in 2008 and Allen Graham’s book, “intertextuality” 2007, and the articles of the Second and Third Seminar on comparative art compiled by Manizheh Kangarani in 2010.

To concentrate on formal analysis of artistic works in a society, it is necessary to know the culture of thoughts and situations from which artistic works are emerged. Study on art is comprehensive when the relation of culture with artistic faces is considered. In different forms of Iranian court art, there is a kind of continuity in using some concepts and principles regarding court ceremonies. Observing these principles somehow causes arrangements and ceremonies to change into basic rules in culture of Iranian visual tradition on rank. A clear example representing ceremonies as basic principles used in Iranian court art is the position of censer between the king and the man in a bas-relief called “motazallem maddi” from Achaemenid Era. Magnificent ceremonies held in Iranian court have been explained and mentioned in historical documents and travel books written by foreigners who visited Iran. During Qajar Era, when compliments and formalities was an essential part of people’s lives, photography entered Iran three years after its registration as an invention in Europe in 1842. The rise of this new media in Iran was simultaneous with the era when Naser al-Din Shah was the crown prince and king of Iran. He was a talented man with an extreme interest in photography, so he brought about its growth and improvement in line with the progress in Europe. In Iran, photography was allocated to gentry and the court on its early arrival due to enormous cost. This industry grew in such environments but after a few years it entered through society. Photography can be regarded as the court art because it has progressed in the court. Iranian court artists had to observe basic principles of visual tradition on rank in creating their works and with regard to the fact that photography can be a court art, observing Iranian visual tradition on rank can be found in photos related to Naser al-Din Shah’s Era. This subject actually provided an intensive to do the present study. According to previous words, the question is: how has the continuity within Iranian visual tradition on rank been existed in arrangement of figures in photos related to Naser al-Din Shah’s Era? And on the other hand, how have the other technical features of photography made changes into the way of representing Iranian visual tradition on rank in mentioned photos? The research hypothesis suggests that the evolution of photography in the court led it to influence on the court ceremonies for figures’ arrangement. Basic principles of Iranian visual tradition on rank can be found in the composition of photos related to Qajar Era. The hypothesis is proved by surveying figures’ composition in Iranian bas-reliefs and following similar portrayals in Naseri's Era. The bas-relief was one of the court arts to which the kings have always paid attention and while designing, it was controlled directly by the court. Therefore, it looks like the place in which photography has developed and it is a perfect example for the court art in this article. The research method is analytical that compares the figures’ composition in bas-reliefs with group photos in Naser al-Din Shah’s Era. Since the study emphasizes on the court memorial photos, selected photos are from the ones taken by photographers of Naser al-Din Shah’s Court. Because they were familiar with that atmosphere and ceremonies, admitting to observe specified rules in igures’ arrangement presented in photos. By studying on bas-reliefs related to four great kingdom eras in Iran (Achaemenid, Parthian, Sasanian and Qajar Empire) it can be said that bas-reliefs remained from these periods are designed based on principles of the court art. The principles include zooming on top figure at the center of photo as well as considering figures’ arrangement based on the order in which they are placed according to their posts and other matters. In this way, principles of the court ceremonies are appeared in the bas-relief which was known as one of top court arts before. The research results express that continuity of Iranian visual tradition in figures’ arrangement presented in photos is shown by a top figure seated on the chair or floor while others (including crew or lower-ranking officials) stand behind. People having high social position are placed at the center of photo and lower ones are at the sides. Photographers could not make the main figure larger due to limitations and technical features of camera so artists’ initiative made this principle possible in other way by placing the top figure at the center. Generally, it can be concluded that similar to works of art in the past, a kind of “perspective on rank” is seen in figures’ composition and arrangement of photos related to Qajar Era but technical limitations of the photography cause metamorphosis to represent it.

The issues of disparities, regional balance development and improvement of quality of life have attracted considerable attention among researchers, planners and policy makers. Balanced growth of all provinces with decreased disparities achieved in Iran has been considered essential for political stability, national integration and economic viability. Regional disparities are one of the main problems in Iran and Iranian provinces suffer from such disparities. The variations in regions economic performance has strengthened the debate on convergence or divergence in their growth rates to determine if initially disparate regions are converging to common steady-state levels. It is also pertinent to ask whether such divergence is occurring in the different aspects of quality of life. In Accordance with the research concerns, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate convergence quality of life indicators and coefficients on regional development and the decrease of disparities between provinces. Base on theoretical foundations in quality of life and regional disparities, human development index (HDI) and related indicators along with five indicators including access to clean water, employment rate, economic participation, average incomes in urban and rural areas over the period 1996, 2006 and 2011 have been chosen as proxies for measuring quality of life and economic growth as proxy for regional development. Moreover, the requirement data base was established and brief description about quality of life in Iranian provinces was presented. Eventually, the conventional cross-sectional unconditional b-convergence and σ-convergence analyses of the existing literatures on Iran provinces are extended and investigated to find out whether there exits convergence in quality of life indicators and regional development. b-Convergence in understanding whether the gap between the rich and poor regions is closing, implies that the variable increases at a slower rate in regions with high values and at a higher rate in regions with low values. This version of convergence is judged by regression in the rate of increase during a period on the initial value of the variable; while σ-convergence relates to whether the cross- regional distribution of national income shrinks over time. Description analyses of quality of life and disparities in Iran show that five provinces including Tehran, Esfahan, Khuzestan, Kohgiluyeh & Boyer Ahmad and Semnan have presented levels above the Iran average both in GDP per-capita and the HDI. In contrast, provinces including Sistan and Baluchistan, Kurdestan, Lorestan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Kermanshah, South and North Khorasan show very low levels both in HDI and GDP per-capita. Among 30 provinces of Iran, in all periods Tehran has been found at a very high level of development; four provinces including Esfahan, Khuzestan, Yazd, Semnan and Qom are at high levels of development; and other 25 provinces lie at the levels of medium-high, medium, low-medium, low and very low levels, respectively. Regarding all development indices, it is also notable that all 8 provinces located in border provinces including Sistan& Baluchistan (located in the southeastern region of Iran), Kurdistan (located in the west region of Iran), North Khorasan & South Khorasan (located in the northeastern and east region of Iran), Hormozgan(located in the south region of Iran), Ilam(located in the west region of Iran), West Azerbaijan and Ardabil (located in the northwestern & north region of Iran), are far lower and suffer from lower human development compared with other parts of Iran. Also the results of this study reveal that, within the analyzed period, generally the order of provinces in terms of quality of life has not changed, but quality of life indicators have been increased.Results of convergence analyses shows that over the last two decades there has been unconditional convergence and the rates of convergence are acceptable although is very different with highest b -convergence belong to HDI and least to Rural Income and GDP per-capita. Both b -convergence and s-convergence confirm the existence of process of convergence between 1996, 2006 and 2011 and this implies that the disparities in HDI levels and GDP per-capita across regions have indeed decreased. In other words, the relative convergence with both in unconditional b-convergence and σ-convergence analyses (excluded employment rate and economic participation) has been occurred while inequality still remains in quality of life and raised. Moreover, the results of this study imply that the convergence of economic indicators is most important issue and than other consistent indicators. Therefore, obtaining regional sustainable development and alleviating disparate polices requires a special dedication and consideration of economic growth in regional policies than other indicators across provinces.

In recent decades, theories of landscape ecology have offered new perspectives toward planning and landscape design. Development of ecological network concept is one of the findings of this topic. In general, the ecologists and designers use landscape ecology concepts to apply a developed spatial strategy to different urban areas. In order to analyze urban ecological conditions and networks, landscape metrics have been used widely by ecologists. Landscape metric also have been used in order to judge the heterogeneity of urban greenbelts, to construct a sustainable landscape plan, to assess and provide biodiversity conservation planning, to describe landscape patterns for agro-ecosystems and to quantify the changes in forest cover patterns. In addition, the current study also tried to has looked into the urban ecological network of Tabriz city in urban scale in order to provide rehabilitation of urban ecological network of Tabriz city. The city of Tabriz is one of the main industrial cities in Iran with a population of over one and a half million people (Fig. 1). Tabriz with cold winters and temperate summers is located in a valley to the north of the long ridge of the volcanic cone of Sahand.In this study, satellite images of Landsat with ETM instrument of 2002 are used to study the elements of ecologic network. To secure the results, land use maps at the scale of 1:2000 were also used. Meanwhile, in order to perceive and identify the structure of ecological network and its basic components, we essentially elicited the natural and artificial information-based layers such as the hydrological maps, green spaces and transportation network for verifying the natural and artificial patches and corridors. In such a way, we can best examine the ecological network of Tabriz city based on the basic elements of the patch, corridor and matrix. Thus, it is essential to analyze the ecological network through superimposing these layers and studying them based on landscape metrics (McGarigal et al. 2002) which includes MPS (Mean Patch Size), NP (Number of patches) and MNN (Mean Nearest Neighbor). The said metrics having been matched with the selective model (mosaic model) to study the network structures effectively. These metrics are analyzed using Arc GIS. By measuring the Mean Patch Size, large natural patches for conservation were identified. Number of patches indicates the level of fragmentation and the Mean Nearest Neighbor shows the level of isolation and fragmentation of patches. To map these metrics, a combined network of 100-ha hexagonal polygons is used. So the ecological network of the city was zoned and geographical data for each zone was defined. Size of hexagonal polygons was chosen based on the aim of this paper and quality and accuracy of data. Using hexagonal polygons helps optimal coverage of the whole city. With summarizing the features of Tabriz ecologic network, some zones can be identified in the study area. Then the functional approaches will be introduced based on landscape ecological approaches and the purposes assigned for creating ecological networks in urban scale. In this way, the protection and restoration of ecological connection in a system including the core areas, buffer-zones and the biological alternative connections are considered the main objectives of creating ecological networks. Such connection can also be helpful in providing social, cultural and aesthetic functions in urban environments. Some of the important ecological functions of such a network are providing a suitable habitat for the urban wildlife, built corridors to move and transport the species, food and wind and even creating some blocks for some transportation which consequently lead to a protected biodiversity. To reach the above mentioned objectives, the following approaches have to be considered:Increasing the consistency in urban ecological network through developing, distributing and promoting the quality of corridors;Maintaining the remnant patches and rehabilitating the spoiled natural patches to develop the balanced distribution in network level;Increasing the artificial green patches to create and maintain their balanced distribution;Increasing the size of patches or building large green patches to make a balanced distribution of large green patches. In general, some solutions can be suggested for each of ecologic zones defined by analysis of study area. In the first zone patches are few and small and the situation is adverse. Density of buildings and population is high in this area. So ecological rehabilitation in this zone is difficult and expensive and it is not possible in short-term. Therefore it is suggested to have a long-term plan for conversion of existing land use to green space. The second zone where patches are smaller and less coherent, conservation of green patches and their integrity is suggested. In the third zone because the patches are small and near each other, conservation value is higher. So conservation of this zone is in a high priority.

The city of Rasht and its surrounding as a result of the growing trend of physical expansion of the city and urban sprawl into its surroundings have been encountered with environmental problems associated with degradation of natural environment including problems such as destruction of farmlands and forestlands around the city, destroying valuable natural ecosystems such as rivers and wetlands, environmental pollutants emission and municipal solid wastes accumulation in natural habitats as well as horizontal growth and physical expansion of city into natural areas which are precious that these problems altogether have led to environmental degradation of this city. Due to inefficiency of traditional urban planning approaches in dealing with the problems associated with degradation of natural environment, applying the new approach of environmental planning and necessity of planning for environmental protection and natural resources conservation has been emphasized by some of the urban planning scholars. One of the most important action fields of environmental planning is identification of areas that are environmentally unique or are in critical conditions. Environmental suitability analysis is one of the main techniques used by environmental planners to identify valuable natural areas and ecologically sensitive areas. Land suitability analysis is the process of determining the suitability of a tract of land for some specific uses, as well as determining the level of suitability. Suitability techniques can enable decision-makers in a variety of ways to analyze the interaction between three factors: location, development measures and environmental elements. Suitability analysis may show land-uses that have the least detrimental effects on environmental processes, predict environmental impacts of the proposed developments or find the most suitable and the most unsuitable locations for specific development projects. Government officials and private sector developers can use suitability maps for formulating policies and decision-making about land uses. Suitability techniques are necessary to make informed decisions. Environmental suitability analysis can be used to identify areas that have important resources that must be protected and areas that are not environmentally sensitive and development will not have serious effects on their values.Land suitability analysis is a complex task due to the tension between the need to develop residential and industrial areas, and the desire to maintain biodiversity and heterogeneous landscapes. It is essential that conservation of biodiversity be the aim of efforts of policy-makers, ecologists and resource managers to maintain and rebuild communities, ecosystems and landscapes. The extent of the problem of destruction of natural environment is worldwide. However in areas of high ecological sensitivity has been increased. The case study of this research- the city of Rasht and its surroundings- is located in an ecosystem that have high ecological sensitivity and faced with problems of destruction of natural environment and horizontal growth and physical expansion of the city into the valuable natural areas. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach that integrates multi-criteria decision-making techniques and in particular the weighted linear combination method with GIS technology to address the issue of environmental suitability analysis for identifying areas which are naturally valuable and the most suitable areas for environmental conservation. This study in based on the premise that successful environmental suitability analysis can be used as a basis for decision-making and formulating policies in the framework of environmental planning approach. To achieve the purpose of this paper, the following process will be followed:First- Theoretical and Technical foundations related to environmental suitability analysis are reviewed.Second- The environmental problems associated with degradation of natural environment of the city of Rasht and its surroundings will be identified, analyzed and discussed by combining the results of two parallel paths: a) Field observations and applying documentary method of research for determining problems which can be found from analysis of the planning documents and b) using descriptive method of research, preparing and completing the questionnaires and analyzing them with the assistance of SPSS software to detect environmental problems in Rasht based on citizens’ views. 119 questionnaires were filled out by citizens about issues querying and surveying environmental problems.Third- valuable natural areas and the most suitable areas for environmental conservation will be identified by applying GIS-based environmental suitability analysis and considering environmental criteria for this analysis which could be considered as a basis for decision-making and formulating effective environmental policies in the context of substantive and procedural principles of environmental planning approach to guide physical expansion of the city and prevent increasing and accumulating problems associated with destruction of natural environment of this city.Achievement/ Value:The final achievement is to use the advantage of integrating multi-criteria decision-making techniques with GIS technology to identify valuable natural areas and then developing effective environmental policies in the context of environmental planning approach to direct physical expansion of Rasht and prevent from increasing and accumulating problems regarding degradation of natural environment of the city of Rasht and its surrounding. This framework can be helpful for natural resource management and urban planning in the areas which are ecologically sensitive.

Contemporary vernacular houses in different climates of Iran are similar in terms of external and internal characteristics. These similar constructions, while being built regardless of their context, do not correspond to their environment and have the least effect in moderating weather conditions. According to statistics, in 2009 Iran’s oil and gas consumption were 1.4 which is 3.1 times higher than the world average consumption. It is reported that residential sector accounted for 42% of the total energy consumption in the country during the period from 1998 to 2008. The southern Iranian marginal rim has one of the world's most critical climates; consideration of climatic components in housing design process is therefore essential in this area. Over the centuries, Climate consideration has been a fundamental principle in the design of vernacular Iranian houses, and application of these indigenous patterns in modern contemporary constructions of hot-humid region since it optimized the energy consumption and resultd in higher rate of thermal comfort. Climatic patterns of these vernacular houses not only affect the external characteristics of the building, but also are involved with the configuration and properties of the internal spaces.This paper is introducing functional spaces patterns in vernacular houses of Bushehr using by grounded theory parameters. This paper tries to clarify whether these patterns are in accordance with the climatic characteristics. Moreover, the extent to which the configuration of the living spaces is influenced by hot-humid climate has been investigated. This paper has applied objectives to establish the patterns and climatic solutions for classification of internal spaces in vernacular houses of Bushehr, so that it can be used in new-built dwellings to improve thermal comfort for building occupants in the mentioned region. The method of analysis and resultant in this research is qualitative based and answering the questions are found by grounded theory and data gathering from chosen samples, classification, analysis and finally choosing related data and their integration. Data gathering are conducted by the use of theoretical studies and analysis of vernacular houses documents and also in-depth analysis. Choosing the houses for further study, open and axial coding, and analysis by research pattern has was the first initial which was followed by the selective coding which leads to integration and introduction of vernacular house patterns. Final step comprises the study of typology and climatic pattern of vernacular houses in accordance with the climate and thermal comfort implications of the region; and the last step is research consequences. Climate calendar table according to Givoni indoors comfort zone of Bushehr show that using passive solar systems and mechanical heating are needed to improve the comfort level in cold months of the year. In summer time, mechanical dehumidification is needed from noon until midnight. In other times, the comfort level is provided or can be provide by using thermal mass and natural ventilation. Wind calendar table of Bushehr also indicates that sea breeze blows from north and north-west in every months from noon till 18:30 and sometimes in morning. Integration of the data in selective coding explains that the vernacular houses of Bushehr are introverted and all the sides of the courtyard have been used for summer and winter spaces. Courtyards have north-west to south-east alignment. Approximately 14% of the whole is assigned to courtyard, which provides shadow on the interior walls because of small size of it. Using shading devices and porches and tall walls of courtyard are the other preparations for providing more shadow in the courtyard. Semi open spaces are located in northeast, north-west and south-west sides and semi open staircases are located in four corners of the courtyard. The composition of semi open spaces and staircases, courtyard and their orientation toward open air acts like a passive system of ventilation. This system works as a solar chimney when there are no breezes. Windows around the house help the ventilation system. The houses are stretched towards the central courtyard due to the wide-open and semi-open spaces and also closed spaces. This paper indicates that the climatic typology of the houses is in accordance with climate classification of towns in meso-climatic scale by studying the characteristic of vernacular houses and the climate in Busher. Studies reveal that architectural characteristics of vernacular houses are compatible with meso-climatic and local morphology in Bushehr. In addition, this research shows that, architectural characteristics of vernacular houses will improve the level of comfort in summer and winter; however, there are times in which thermal comfort cannot be provided by these vernacular provisions. This research indicates that the application of the climatic patterns in each zone of the southern region of Iran can improve the comfort level in new-built dwellings. This paper reveals that vernacular houses in hot-humid climate of Bushehr are in accordance with meso-climate classification in terms of typology and in terms of patterns and living spaces characteristic and configuration of plan based on context.

Nowadays, one of the most important problems of urban areas is caused by confusion and visual disturbances. Heterogeneous structures with adjacent tissue, balconies fencing, arbitrary changing in public spaces and the building facade into warehouses and abandoned spaces and derelict, short and tall houses with shapeless windows and colored glass that are stacked next to each other with nothing in common, advertising posters and stickers to the highest elevation of the light poles and metal doors of homes, annoy the eyes. Increasing advertises disrespectful to the environment and neglected concerted practices in decorated and city beautification, turbulences in the design of the shop, and etc results in confusion and visual disturbances. Although security and urban landscape are both of the following associated branches of urban planning and landscape architecture, they may at first seem unrelated and far apart. However, several theories and experiences shows, many of the standards and the measures obtained in different studies leading to a sense of security to the citizens, direct or indirect contact with the principles used in the design of urban landscape can reduce or increase the mentioned feeling. In other words, the urban landscape should be a safe sanctuary of life of citizens. Security and urban landscape are two sub-components of the phenomenon of urbanization. In daily practice, the people should pass through the public urban environments and spaces and experience them. Thus the built environment, (that is impossible to separate it from landscape and urban landscape) should be designed and created in such a way that pedestrians and residents feel safe and secure in it. In fact, security is a concept that should be induced by such a powerful and effective tool like urban landscape in the users of urban spaces. There are different criteria in each section but what is important and decisive in the present study, are those common measures between landscape and urban security,This paper tries to extract the accurate security’s criteria which are associated with the landscape and its features to evaluate the role of urban landscape in citizens’ security and also to perform a comparison between different tissues in Qazvin as case studies. Therefore, at first with a review of the literature, urban security criteria have been extracted and those related to the urban landscape have been selected. The neighborhoods of the city of Qazvin were classified according to the old historic building. Then based on the cluster sampling a neighborhood of each tissue was selected and also some samples from each district were chosen randomly. Malek Abad is the oldest neighborhood, North Khayyam belongs to the middle tissue and Ghiath Abad is the new one. Having evaluated the neighborhoods based on model, finally, some operational strategies are offered to strengthen the role of urban landscape in citizens’ sense of security. Therefore, Analytical Hierarchy Process or AHP, as a top, efficient and appropriate model, is applied. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a structured technique for organizing and analyzing complex decisions, based on mathematics and psychology. It provides a comprehensive and rational framework for structuring a decision problem, for representing and quantifying its elements, for relating those elements to overall goals, and for evaluating alternative solutions. The AHP converts these evaluations to numerical values that can be processed and compared over the entire range of the problem. A numerical weight or priority is derived for each element of the hierarchy, allowing diverse and often incommensurable elements to be compared to one another in a rational and consistent way. This capability distinguishes the AHP from other decision making techniques. For data collection, questionnaires and observation has been used. To increase the precision of sampling, 130 samples were selected. On the other hand, another questionnaire was distributed among specialists and academic and professional administrative experts to determine the relative importance of criteria and indicators. The results show that urban landscape in the neighborhood of the old texture, Malek Abad, because of physical exhaustion, has a more minor role in providing a sense of security of its residents than the new neighborhood, Ghiath Abad and north Khayyam neighborhood, with a slight difference, since it is in a better condition in comparison with Ghiath Abad. However, the new one will also require more accurate attention in landscape design to achieve a more desirable level and to prevent the creation of unsafe spaces in these areas. At the end of the research, new ways to strengthen the sense of security in the new neighborhood and improvements of old ones are offered. The evaluation of the research shows that the need to pay attention to built factors and road hierarchy and environmental integrity is more necessary.

One of the main principles in designing a nuclear power plant is generating safety and preventive tactics to achieve protection of individuals, society, the environment and the power plant systems against disasters and severe hazards resulted from nuclear radiation. Different engineering disciplines contribute in improvement of safety standards for power plants which leads to various design requirements to ensure that the safety of the plant is provided. Architectural design contributes in enhancing safety as well. The kinds of design principle requirements an architect must be concerned with during designing in order to increase the safety of the plant is the most challenging questions for architectural designers.The goal of this research is to achieve tactics and effective principles in order to prevent accidents and dangers and decrease the side effects to improve the safety of the plant. One of the main methods on studying architectural design of the power plant is the analysis of the current advanced power plants. In other words, the research questions could be traced in design ideas, being expressed in preliminary phase of power plant design.In order to analyze the architectural design of the power plant, it is essential to describe the concept of the safety and main resultant goals and the main threatening occurrences which the power plant would confront. Based on this proposal, firstly the idea of the defense in depth would be studied and the related tactics in order to protect the power plants would be analyzed in the following.In this paper the EPR, an evolutionary pressurized water reactor in Europe which has been designed and constructed, is surveyed as a case study. Since the buildings and structures shaping the power plant are quite a lot, the study analyses the architectural design of the most important and sensitive buildings of this power plant in order to find all reasonably practicable architecture measures which prevent accidents in power plants to mitigate their consequences.The survey shows the architect-designer must always consider protection of power plant buildings against external and internal dangers and different aspects of danger and prevent the expansion of dangers. Regarding the research conducted, the architect-designer must consider the combination of reasonable measures and the following techniques in order to improve the safety of the plant:1. Physical arrangement and proper positioning of spaces and building to improve the safety.2. Designing multiple structures in order to protect the sensitive systems and equipments.3. Designing annulus between buildings in order to prevent expansion of dangerous accident.4. Physical separation of equipments, spaces and buildings in order to mitigate the consequences of danger.5. Designing efficient building regarding functionality and resistance against danger.Considering all those solutions, architectural designs could offer immense help in preventing accidents in power plants and mitigating their consequences as well as improving the safety of the buildings.