HOVIATESHAHR
Year:2013 | Volume:6 | Issue:12|Papers Count:10

The background of studies on social capital have been closely related to various aspects of development in a way that some researchers have even linked it with establishment of ’good governance’, emergence and acceleration of the activities of organizational networks, and lowering the burden of local governments.A positive relation has been found in other research works between social capital on the one hand and the level of success in development plans, taking more and greater advantage of shared lands, boosting the joint action potential, improving health standards, increasing the national income, and encouraging the level of public participation in urban projects.Just like the physical capital that contributes to reshaping the raw material relying on taking advantage of tools that facilitate the production, ’human capital’, too, changes the quality of the people’s conduct by improving their skills and boosting their capabilities.People are thus taught to behave differently and to do their jobs more effectively. ’Social Capital’, too, is in its turn accumulated when relations among the people would be subject to such evolution that they would interact more easily.Social capital is a concept without a long and detailed theoretical background. The concept was first used in academic texts and articles in 1990s and its usage has gradually increased up to the present day. That gradual increase in such fields as sociology, economy, politics, and education is indebted to research works by professors, such as James Coleman, Robert Putnam, Fukuyama, and Bourdieu. Coleman considers the ’social structure’ as the generating source for the ’social capital’, but reiterates, "Social capital is defined based on its functions." He believes the social capital is not a solid concept, but a combination of various factors that share two characteristics: 1) they are all different aspects of the social structure; and 2) they facilitate certain actions of the people within the social structure. Social capital, like all other forms of capital, is generative, and facilitates achieving certain goals gaining which would have been impossible in its absence. Social capital is considered as a hidden potential among society members interactions which causes most actions and behaviors in societies. The prerequisite of such phenomena is a space where social interactions are created.The present article aims on codification and analysis of social capital concept in urban structure and delivering a framework towards analysis based on documentary and descriptive measurement survey and studies on the proposed framework indicators.The result of the researches show that the social capital analysis indicators in urban structure can be considered in different fields such as citizens. sense of security, social interactions, public participation, community partnership and the amount of social interaction tension. Amongst all, the public urban spaces play the basic role in ground building for social participations and strength of social and community interactions through providing the possibility of public well-known religious and unreligious ceremonies and friendship interactions. Furthermore, the analysis of such indicators in case study provides the ground for delivering strategies in betterment and optimization of actions towards more social capital.

Urban spaces are domains for public and communal life. Presence and activity in public open spaces, not only provides place for face to face interaction between people, is also effective in creating vitality and contributing to mental and spiritual health of users. There are two main perspectives which are inclusionary and exclusionary perspectives to women presence in urban spaces.Modern society with the slogan of equality of men and women produced environments which was insensitive to different requirements due to gender difference. It took men's needs as the prototype of human needs and hence produced male responsive environments, of which women had to adopt themselves to it. The planning and design profession was gender blind in this sense. Zoning regulations and transportation policies all reinforced exclusion of women from active urban life and created additional obstacles for working mothers.This article studies the inclusionary perspective to presence of women in urban open spaces in relation to globalization theories as well as Islamic viewpoints. In this article, the necessity of women's presence in urban open space is discussed based on the requirements to respond to their basic needs which in turn require interaction in space. Here presence of women is an aim to itself.Also the necessity of women presence in space is discussed based on the viewpoints of civil society and citizenship rights which would emphasize their right as equal citizens to participate in and enjoy the urban life. Principle of pluralistic citizenship requires the presence of all groups including women as one criterion for civil society. In other words presence of women is not an aim to itself, but a means to achieve broader goals and basic principles In addition, there is emphasize on the significance and authenticity of family and through this perspective, presence of women is justified in the urban environment to respond not only to their personal needs but also to respond to the needs of people under their care, namely children, sick and elderly.There is a joint cause supporting women's presence in urban space and that is equity which is respected both by Islamic philosophy as well as contemporary global perspectives which justifies and aims for easing presence of women in public domain and urban space.This article also reports on a neighborhood study in Tehran. The results of the study shows that in general necessary activities are the major cause for presence of both gender groups in urban spaces, however there are gender differences. Women presence is significantly higher in urban spaces for conducting their necessary activities, such as daily shopping while men's presence for social and optional activities are much higher than women's. This shows that probably there are physical obstacles as well as social perspectives which keep women out of urban space for their social and optional activities. It is important in that sense that the most public of spaces are not suitable and do not respond to the need to perform social and optional activities of women proposing equity question.

Some factors such as education, profession, social status and income determine the structure of the new middle class in today's Iranian society. The present article attempts to analyze the relationship between city-dwelling and development of the new middle class in Iran. The urban environment has paved the way for inclination to stratification and development of a hierarchy based on criteria that are related to the social classes. The development of distribution of social work and the growth of socio-economic organizations and institutions, complex network of the spaces and social relations and the urbanization system and its rapid pace in developing countries has brought about vast influx to cities and the emergence of service, bureaucratic, and technocratic sectors, as well. The present research has been carried out taking into consideration the viewpoints of Ph.D. and M.A. students of Islamic Azad University, Sciences and Research Branch in Tehran. The present study has employed library research methods in order to identify the research variables. To produce a researcher-made questionnaire, expert opinion was obtained through Delphi method. The population of the study consists of 16179 people in 1388-89 academic year. Using Cochran formula, 443 people were chosen as the sample by means of simple random sampling technique. The study has been done using questionnaire and is based on the fuzzy logic, the Cronbach.s Alpha Index of which is 0.87. The research findings indicate that city-dwelling has paved the way for the growth of the new middle class in Iran through need for development of specialists and skill-owners, technological services, commercial and industrial capitalization, politico-urban institutions and educational systems. Therefore, it can be concluded that economic, social and cultural atmosphere has had an influential role on the development of the new middle class through attraction of population and through development of employment and need for specialized training.The findings of this article illustrate that urbanization provides an appropriate ground for the growth and development of the new middle class through creation of appropriate space for the development of specialized and service activities, creation of appropriate and inappropriate conditions in industrial and commercial investment, the transition of social relations from traditional to modern, and the development of higher education system. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the development of urban services, having the highest rate and ration, has the most important role in the development and maintenance of the new middle class (1.021). The second most important issue is the specialization of affairs in city (0.913) and the last is the overall structure of the city (0.913).The development of social urbanization has brought about a change in social hierarchies and people's lifestyle.Training the individuals in higher education and their employment in bureaucratic bodies causes structural renovation of the society.In addition, the findings of the present research are in line with Fialkov's view that dividing social work and urban techniques along with the activity of craftsmen and bourgeois pave the way for commerce and exchange because exchange with craftsmen gives birth to a new class.

Permeability is one of the basic concepts of contemporary theories of urban planning and design which as a qualitative index (in some aspects) has taken a great attention in decisions of urban planners. However a more connected (Permeable) road system provides a great number of route options and provides more direct routes but it is arguable that permeability is not always a good quality of urban fabric. A great number of samples can be found in historic cities of Iran that for defensive purpose or for cultural/religious reasons, permeability is intentionally decreased as shown in samples of article from Old Semnan City.In Iranian cities also assessing this measurement (permeability) has a great role in defining decays in urban spaces and an index is used for it. Reviewing literature on the nature of this concept (not only in urban planning and design field but in general) shows that what has been used in defining permeability is not pervasive.As a response to this deficient definition and index for measuring permeability, this article has reviewed and represented some other measurements (including Intersection density, Street Density, Connected Node Ratio, Link Node Ratio, Gamma Index and Alpha Index) that has been used around world as response to pedestrian safety, decreasing emergency services time, etc. Finally application of them in a sample urban fabric is showed. Many of these indices are based on the simulating urban street pattern to a planar graph and so some principles of graph theory (Like Euler Theory) is applied in order to define the best and worst samples. But looking at urban fabrics shows some differences in these two, so based on these differences Gamma (Ratio of the number of links in the network to the maximum possible number of links between nodes) and Alpha (Ratio of the number of actual circuits to the maximum number of circuits) Indices are reviewed and a new form of them is proposed. Finally for measuring permeability, a combination of three indices of Distance of parcel to the first entrance of district, adjusted gamma and alpha indices and Distance to first intersection is proposed.For applying this method to a sample urban fabric, the number of calculation for each parcel will decrease enormously. So a procedure for programming (automation) in GIS is proposed which makes this method in some aspects dynamic. Data and Information for applying in this procedure can be collected from roads network layer of each city and parcels in land use maps. Based on this, decision makers can modify both indices and proposed alternatives by considering the outcomes of the process. For the purpose of testing this procedure a sample of Tehran city which is located in southern part of it and as a historical area suffer from permeability problem, is selected and each index is assessed in it and then using the method proposed in this article an intervention process is proposed in the area and finally it is reassessed which shows whether the intervention is efficient or not.

The study of principles of architecture in Islamic cities shows that nature has an important role in forming the cities and consequently in architectural designs and residences.The tendency to minimizing the intervention in nature, and introducing the natural elements in buildings has ended to a type of architecture that shows this attempt to a great extent. The use of materials that shows the naivety of nature-based objects in one aspect, and the morphology and typology of construction elements concretize this tendency. It can be better understood when the traditional buildings are compared to those one of present time.The use of natural elements (light, water, air and plant), seems to be a conscious process that has affected the organization of spaces in traditional architecture.The relation between human, nature and architecture used to define a vicinity of human to the nature and also the integrity of architecture in the nature. This vicinity and the integration have mostly become possible via the permeability of buildings; the concept of courtyards fulfils the permeability factor the best. It can be described as the corpse of the building shelters the interior space against the natural hazards, and the wanted and unwanted natural factors are sieved together in the protection function; the negative side of natural factors like harsh sunlight, storm, flood or rain are desired to be limited in living areas, but at the same time daylight, ventilation, waterfront and plants are welcome.The typology of traditional buildings proves the high use of the natural factors by spatial organization, orientation of the building, and by applying some elements like ponds, gardens, wind towers.But the recent approaches in design of residences do not consider enough the nature and its integrity in residential spaces. The shift in construction industry, the price of lands and the density of buildings in cities have affected the use of natural factors. Constructing multi - level buildings has solved the housing problem in districts that high population density and high prices of land did not permit the provision of residence for al. Even providing the facilities for condensed models are a prioriless than the sprawled ones.But other factors like ecological, cultural, psychological and physiological and even economic ones rationalize the traditional architecture respond to these criteria.The experiences can be transmitted to the present for making the architects capable of fulfiling the most criteria, those who are in the center of attention today and those who could have provided a better life situation, but because of the actual constraints many of them has been set aside. A retrospect to the experience of using the natural spaces in the courtyards can inspire the design at present.In this study the natural spaces in courtyards are studied through question nairesin Kashan. For analyzing the application of the natural factors, two sides of the application are taken to account; the proportion of these spaces to the whole open spaces in residents, and the extent of satisfaction provided by these factors.

Post modernism period in architecture, is the period of joining several fields to architecture and having a diverse perspective of it. One of the fields which were mentioned in this joining with architecture, is the cultural anthropology approach toward architecture. Basically, cultural aspect of the architecture is depended on this definition that, culture is the human-built part of the environment. In one state, culture itself is derived from the human’s humanly act and his ecosystem, which in the next state, forms the social behavior and his physical environment. The result of such prospect of the culture, formed an approach called architectural anthropology in 1970’s. This propounded issues in this field such as how culture of different nations and groups of people can form different architectures.And today how can we consciously create an interaction between culture and architecture by realizing this point.Later on, achievement of this scientific branch in architecture created the “architecture without architect” approach by Bernard Rudofsky, and also expanded researches in world’s authentic universities. This resulted into formation of encyclopedias in the field of connection between culture and architecture. In our country, it seems necessary to analyze the cultural anthropology of Iranian architecture for three necessary aspects.Firstly, Iran is one of the world’s few countries which its history of civilization goes back several thousand years before B.C. It has rich architecture and culture which worth analyzing.Secondly, is that until now, basic researches on relations of architecture and culture has been very limited. This causes the lack of cultural richness in architectural designs.Finally, in today’s globalization issue, only countries with cultural representations and figures in their architecture can be in connection with whole world in cultural and Economical field.Because of points mentioned above, firstly this paper is about to answer this question, from the cultural anthropology aspect of architecture, what kind of relation does culture have with architecture and its formation. At first, the aim of this paper is to achieve a model for analyzing the relation between culture and architecture from the cultural anthropology aspect until now. Second, this paper uses this model in the context of Iranian culture and architecture to analyze the relation of nature and the architecture of Iranian houses and its cultural aspects. At this part, this paper is about to answer this question, was the use of nature and natural elements in Iranian houses only an answer to climate or it’s something above this and has origins in Iranian culture.The researching method used in this paper is qualitative and descriptive. The results shows that cultural anthropology, identifies cultural factors as basic factors of forming architecture and also provides a context to analyze different social-cultural variables together. The example of this point can be seen in the relation of architecture and nature in Iranian house, in which nature firstly was an answer to cultural demands of people. In other words, culture was a determining factor and climate was the effective factor in formation of Iranian houses.

Sustainability has been a. buzz. word for the last three decades in the environmental and planning literature, conveying a multitude of meanings, that are often divergent, to a variety of individuals, professions, interest groups, governmental agencies and political leaders, NGOs and grassroots organizations. As the broad concept of sustainability has evolved, one of its derivatives is sustainable neighbourhoods.Sustainable neighbourhood is a systematic concept, inter-relating the social, environmental, economic, and governance aspects. In urban literatures, many reasons describe as community planning scale importance such as community as a cultural infrastructure and social capital. Also this scale of planning is the one most important subject in environmental psychology. But how to apply these concepts from theory to practice, in a correct and efficient way, remains to be the essential question. In recent decades, spatial planning and master plans seem to develop to maintain neighbourhood importance in planning and directing local development in this way into the new century. What mentioned above is sensible in urban plans statements of developed countries such as political leadership in strategic planning to provide a context for effective development; or integration between regional, urban and neighbourhood planning, and between strategic planning, development control and master planning.Currently, we have also a new paradigm in urban development plan for Tehran as the biggest city and capital of Iran. This plan has entitled as Tehran strategic/structural plan. But government and urban management in Tehran may confess to inefficiency of that plan in future if they don’t consider to the issues such as neighbourhood planning, local context and public participation. On the other hand, despite numerous efforts by experts and governments, in Iran we face with much inefficient urban plans, due to lack of consideration for people needs and the role of different interest groups.In this article objectives are threefold: The first is defining sustainable community and its characteristics for opening view to major subject of paper; the second is trying to define the role and importance of sustainable neighbourhoody planning in hierarchy of urban development plans based on literature produced at the international level and new paradigm of spatial planning. Thirdly with regard to the role of sustainable neighbourhoody planning play in the future try to evaluate Tehran strategic/structural plan from point of view of its role to set sustainable neighborhood planning in its structure as a part of urban development plan.The paper concludes that governments must set and define appropriate role for neighbourhood planning in hierarchy of urban development plans. This is resulted from neighbourhood planning efficiency to improve qualitative parameters such as public participation, sense of place and identity. These parameters play important role in achieving sustainability of place and can be better sense in neighbourhood scale. Finally, in case of consideration of neighbourhood planning in a critical aspect about Tehran strategic/structural plan, features of this plan compare with new paradigm of urban development plans in the world. This comparison shows that there is not enough consideration for neighbourhood planning in Tehran strategic/structural plan.

Life thrives only in favourable environmental and climatic conditions. The ancient settlers discovered these conditions and they became factors, which affected the way they planned their buildings. Once these factors were clear and understood, then the principles were deduced and their designs were based upon them. For contemporary designers these principles, which were established on the basis of natural conditions and factors, and were supported by trial and error over thousands of years, could become significant decision-making constituents.Morphology, Density, Arrangement, Circulation, Roof Form, Surface, Openings, Shading Device and Material are preferred as the main topics for architectural principles and elements in different climates. The purpose is to identify strategies that would create more bio - climatically comfortable indoor spaces for the inhabitants, as they have been for many millennia. This paper will synopsize the results of a research on energy-conscious architectural elements and principles used throughout the history. The selected case studies were classified into historical eras regardless of their climatic or cultural diversity and were investigated by the date of construction, ranging from prehistoric to the current vernacular buildings, and they were cross-referenced and compared to each other.The three criteria that will define the entity of an urban centre are history, culture and climate. Each elements and principles according to its criteria is unique, however, many of their physical patterns are similar to each other, specifically patterns of elements and strategies influenced by the physical environment and climate. These criteria have been considered in order to include fairly representative examples of architecture from various historic periods, climatic zones and cultures, in other words, to have a homogeneous and balanced distribution of the selected buildings.The influence of climate on environmental and man’s evolution, on one hand, has affected the evolution of architectural and urban form indirectly, and on the other hand, climate has affected the architectural morphology and configuration directly. In other words, indigenous and vernacular architecture is mainly born out of the climatic conditions. The followings are the main concluding notes: The empirical accomplishment of the past and what we scientifically know now about climatic design are similar and complement each other. The regional recommendations in the study confirm the similarities and contrasts of architectural elements and principles for habitable climatic zones.The concentration of major urban civilisations was mainly in the habitable climates throughout the world. However B and C type human inhabited climates were the first to see established urban centres, as these two climates provided a better environment for the development of architectural styles. The investigation of buildings in the same type of climate or geographical proximity but of different cultures suggests that the same pattern of architectural elements and strategies was developed, and that they were planned with similar configuration and design, and very similar forms and elements. Conversely, in many of the expansive and known civilisations around the world, although the same culture or even religion was practised, different architectural forms evolved or were implemented in different climates.