Housing and Rural Environment
Year:2015 | Volume:34 | Issue:150|Papers Count:8

Providing appropriate rural housing in the country is a critical and ever- increasing demand. Solving current problems in terms of quantity and quality in the rural housing prospects of the country requires essential research and planning. The first step in any type of planning towards improving or rehabilitation of rural housing conditions in Iran demands comprehensive and macro level information and an overall correct classification in the territorial rural geographic zone of the country. Reconstructions and innovations of vernacular rural buildings in recent decades, beside importance of recognition of the sustainable values of these types of buildings have increased the need of documentation for them. This documentation is dependent on understanding the traditional and sustainable patterns of housing which can lead to “housing typology”. This paper’s effort is studying the concept of “housing typology” in the first step. In the next step, different methods of housing typologies in the world and specially Iran have been studied and a category of them has been provided. Accordingly, methods of housing typologies have been divided into the following three categories:- Categorizing building types according to one or more effective factors- Process and historical phenomenology of housing formation- Problem solving approaches in housing formation  In continue, dependent and independent effective variables in housing types have been provided and regarding to interaction between variables, an approach for categorizing building types in villages of Iran has been presented. This approach is in accordance with specific definition of housing typology.As the result, what is known as a sustainable housing “type” is the one that is in fair compatibility with the surrounding environment; it is only in this case that it will last and it may be named a noble housing type. Any physical differences in the housing form in a zone may not be considered as an “authentic type” and should be examined in conjunction with the factors affecting on formation.

“Flexibility” is generally defined as the ability to change in materials. In architecture and environmental designing, particularly in designing residential places that forms the main subject in this study, the term refers to spatial flexibility in man-made spaces and their changes to achieve new conditions, needs and activities. Although flexibility in architecture can be formed in response to climatic and structural changes, but in this study the main point referred to from the term, is the ability to react and respond to factual changes in life conditions. The origin of these changes is based on the changes of internal human needs rather than the changes in external forces such as environmental forces, energy and statics concepts.Flexibility points to the idea of conformity among different objects in the course of time. Therefore a flexible house is the one that is capable to adapt with the needs of people and attract their partnership. People’s adaptation with their needs increases with their partnership in the procedure that results in an increase in general satisfying feels from residential places.In the recent years, the shortage of housing and their low quality has been always considered as a socio-economic problem. Flexibility, if adopted with the structural changes in space and its various usages, forms one of the major concepts that lead to enhancement of the residential places. The way the designers look at this concept, results in different kinds and degrees of flexibility in designing residential places. As the definitions show, if flexibility is observed in architectural designs, many favorite enhancements would be seen in visual scenes. Although flexibility form the key concept of social and spatial elements in the traditional residential architecture, nowadays it is ignored in all the globe especially in Iran so that it is stopped in researches and canceled from designing plans either in managing or execution levels. Besides many concepts for the term “flexibility”, this paper is seeking to answer some questions like “which factors cause any enthusiastic trend to flexibility in contemporary Iranian architecture?”, “in what range these factors change?” and “how these factors tend to change to influence on the designs? Descending or ascending?” Thus, in this study we attempted to identify the causes of ignoring flexibility principals in contemporary Iranian architecture. To gain this objective, various economic, social, political and structural factors that are regarded as the obstacles of forming flexible housing, directly or indirectly, were identified and analyzed by the use of dynamic analytical systems, feedback management systems, economic systems, demographic researches, social systems and all types of the systems currently prevalent in the market. The results can be used by designers to put away the limitations, damages and the obstacles in the way to achieve flexible residential places.

One of the most important deficiencies in reconstruction studies in Iran is the lack of information or documents about the previous experiences of reconstructed areas; meanwhile Iran is a vulnerable country to natural disasters which has experienced different reconstruction programs during the time. It is obvious that the documentation of previous reconstructions programs and surveying them can be useful and prevent similar mistakes. But, it should be declared that most of these information or evidences which can be used for the similar future programs are not gathered and also not available.The town of Qir which is located in south west of Fars province in Iran, experienced an enormous destruction due to the disastrous earthquake occurred in 1972 in the region of Qir- Karzin. Reconstruction program was arranged and implemented by the government based on relocating and constructing new town in a distance about 1.5 kilometers far from the old one.  Evidences demonstrate that the government on this case had little studies to choose the location of the new town and also about the construction of the new houses. However; the residents moved to the new town and occupied the constructed units in the relocated town over the last forty years.Therefore, this study documents all evidences of the reconstruction process and surveys the reconstructed town in order to review this process and draw out lessons for future studies. This research is a combination of field- based study and analytical documentation using descriptive- exploratory research methodology. In this paper, information collection is based on surveying existing evidences like the reports of the reconstruction program or daily newspapers of the year 1972, in-depth and exploratory interviews with the authorities of renovation program and survivals as well as field studies with careful observation and sketching the built houses.Findings indicate that resettled town has little similarities with the old one. Residents of the new houses modified the built units due to space limitation as well as making gardens in the houses to make them similar to their conception of a house. It should be mentioned that some residents destructed the built units and some others accepted unfamiliar architectural forms of earthquake resident houses and kept these buildings in the region during the last 40 years.  In addition, findings suggest that providing facilities following the reconstruction program had significant role in acceptance of this relocation by residents.

The environmental crisis in the last 50 years has created challenging conditions for human life on earth. Consequences of mechanical and industrial life together with an ever increasing use of fossil fuels for comfort have raised serious issues in environments and resource conservation and critical disputes for the scientists.In architecture design, thermal comfort is one of the most important categories and providing thermal comfort for occupants of a building is one of the principal concerns in designing the living spaces. Today in our country, energy consumption level for common household appliances is relatively high compared to international standards. This High level is certainly related to different effective items and factors among which the importance of building external envelope and outer walls should not be overlooked.This paper tries to study the effect of building external walls on transferring or wasting thermal energy through the identification and analysis of the general wall details in vernacular architecture of regions with cold climate. Accordingly, the following steps have been taken in this research:1- The role and function of the external layer of buildings has been analyzed.2- With a look at thermal comfort concepts, the range of thermal comfort for people in closed spaces has been studied and specified.3. Climate and Climatic properties of the selected regions together with the relevant meteorological data have been extracted and studied. After the thorough definition of climate in these regions (which are among the cold regions in Iran) and comparing the climatic properties of such regions with range of temperature change in the thermal comfort limit, type of movement and energy transfer by building external walls has been specified.4. Methods of thermal energy transfer in walls, calculating process of the amount of exchanging this energy, the thermal indexes of unstable flow transfer has been studied and the required software was developed in order to reach more accuracy in calculation of thermal indexes.5.  Specification of all common walls in the selected regions were collected including the details of walls, common local material used in buildings and properties of the outer layers.6. Thermal indexes of buildings fabric in the selected regions were calculated and then compared with each other in relevant charts and diagrams according to their priority.7. With due reference to the obtained results from conducted studies and calculations, specifications and properties of common material in vernacular architecture of the region has been catagorized.Hopefully this study can be a positive step toward better and more exact knowledge of specifications and properties of common material in vernacular building envelope in cold regions of Iran.

A large part of Iran includes the hot climate and dry desert areas. Access to water has always been a concern of the residents for drinking and agricultural purposes in this area. Discovering Ghanat (aqueduct) as a natural organism by Iranians is an effective factor to reduce the critical need for water.Ghanat, in addition to provide water directly or indirectly, affects the social, cultural, economic, political and architectural structures. The universe is composed of numerous phenomena in the process of systematic and purposeful collection with different capabilities.This phenomenon is social, economic, environmental relations and cultural transactions that are generated due to the geography of each region. The world is made of massive regularity and irregularity in the form of organization to provide sustained foundation systems over time.The overall system of life is such a system which needs interior-organizational relationship between its components for survival. In this regard, an adequate supply of water is necessary to create and maintain different civilizations in different geographical areas.In this pathway, Ghanat, assuming the responsibility for water supply aqueduct, became as an inseparable part of the overall life system in the desert regions. Hence, Ghanat phenomenon as a guarantee of the survival of large-scale social systems has formed an organization and created the opportunity to develop and sustain communities in many parts of the world.This phenomenon has created a coordinated and efficient set for watering. Organizational and inter-organizational relations of the phenomenon balance the life system. This has led to develop sustainable habitable environments. The main goal of Ghanat is extracting water from the lower layers of the Earth. But over time, it became clear that the creation of Ghanat set up unexpected impact on urban-rural communities. These influences within the community have had a large share in shaping its structure.Over time with increasing population and decreasing water resources, communities needed drilling deep well to seek sufficient water. As a result, we have witnessed a proliferation of increasingly wells in the hot and dry areas, leading to loss of water and finally drying large number of Ghanats.This is because of the lack of sufficient awareness of the consequences of natural organizations and their role in the main urban - rural structural stability. This misunderstanding has led to the incorrect view to Ghanat, and has led to the momentary needs to this phenomenon and lack of attention to the future has made the efficiency of Ghanat to be diminished.In this study, organization and natural organization are defined. Then, it is discussed and investigated whether Ghanat can be considered as an organization? Finally, the effects of Ghanat phenomenon are discussed as one of the enduring values in Iranian architecture on urban-rural communities based on organizations theory. Initial studies begin from library and field information. Then, the Biabanak village located in Semnan, as an example, is discussed in relation to Ghanat influences based on natural organization.

Operating on the potentials of the local communities have fundamental role in the development and modification of relevant internal disparities. In spite of being the the pole of mineral reserves in the country, South Khorasan province with its large mineral deposits - has little share in the resulting economic development or the impowerments which may have been caused by it. In this paper, a suitable guides for regional development in framework of strategic programming is proposed. This descriptive - analytic study attempts to identiry the effective factors in the development of industry & mining through the analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). For the purpose of the study, government policies were examined through 65 questionnaires distributed among the relevant public authorities and academics.  Based on the SWOT model, strategies were then analyzed in the QSPM matrixin order to prioritize stages of execution.  Results showed that  opportunities such as the shared border with Afghanistan with the possibility of exporting industrial products, the distinctive prospect of creating the economic balance in the eastern regions of the country, availability of metalic and non-metallic mineral reserves, existence of towns and industrial zones in the province for the establishment of industrial units, and the possibility of agriculture with certain crops creates major capacities for programmed advances in the mining industry in South Khorasan province. Meanwhile, Lack of large industries and mining in the province, Lower productivity of labor, lack of capital, Water limitations and problems in the economic policies are the major obstacles to the development of the mining industry in South Khorasan province. Overall, the results formulate the plethora of weaknesses in the mining industry in South Khorasan. South Khorasan Henceforth, improvement strategies are presented in form of suggestion in the areas of necessary infrastructures, environmental considerations, mobility and transport systems, and demand-related distribution of capital.

Rural - urban broad and diverse relationships and interactions have important effects on human settlements in the form of population flows, goods, capital, information, innovation and ideas. Many of the developments that occur in towns and villages are results of rate and way of interactions between these spaces. The aim of this study is to evaluate the factors and mechanisms affecting rural- urban linkages of Karaj Metropolitan and surrounding villages and the impact of these links on rural spatial organization in the framework of regional network approach. The statistical sampling for this research comprised of 11 villages of Mohammad Abad district; among them six villages have been chosen as a case sample using estimation method. Also, according to the survey purpose, 342 households were selected as sample using Cochran formula. Research samples were selected (both village and household) using distance and random sampling methods, respectively. Collecting information in this article has been carried out based on library and field studies. In field studies, required data and information have been collected using questioning and observation techniques and tools, such as questionnaires and observation card. Descriptive and inferential statistics, TOPSIS technique and SPSS software has been used for data analysis. Research findings show that, spatial flows, especially those of capital and people (population) interactions in the rural - urban area of study provides strong, physical- spatial changes (system of land use, housing, etc.) .But these developments have not positive in all dimensions and in all the villages and negative developments have followed as well (including land use changes in pomology and olericulture farming areas, and urban stlyle housing patterns) In fact, the lack of spatial planning  for shaping organized and controlled flows and connections, as well as ignorance about the role of Karaj and its surrounding rural settlements has led to shortcomings is management of flows and connection modalities, and has therefore prevented development in the region.

Given the variety of environmental and ecological factors on the one hand, and the effect of social- economic and political conditions on the other, rural settlements in Iran have a particular spatial distribution. The natural parameters have been considered as influential factors contributing to the stabilization and spatial distribution patterns of population and rural settlements. These also play a very important role in improving the spatial development of rural settlements. In fact, the establishment and dispersion of rural settlements in Iranian plateau have been influenced by many parameters including natural, economic, social conditions and bureaucratic structures. Out of the parameters mentioned above, environmental factors and their elements including water, wind, soil, fault lines, topography slope, are of utmost importance. These factors also contribute to the improvement of spatial patterns of rural settlements. The spatial improvement of rural settlement system regarding land development is closely related to the structural patterns, as well as economic development.Obviously, the appropriate spatial patterns in settlement system generally and in rural settlements in particular, is a requirement for achieving a balanced development in rural areas. That is, the patterns and methods informed by objective knowledge of rural populations and rural residence locations. Thus, a thorough examination and knowledge of physical-spatial structure of rural settlements followed by their subsequent improvement is a principal way for achieving a sustainable development including spatial justice. Aiming to achieve a suitable plan for spatial distribution of rural settlements in Doroh district in Sarbisheh township, this study seeks to identify safe and unsafe locations for rural settlement establishments with respect to natural hazards and assessment of sustainable and unsustainable settlement. Doroh district is located in south Khorasan province in eastern part of Iran and west of Afghanistan.  Environmental hazards and natural parameters in many occasions have influenced the rural settlements in Doroh district. Statistics indicate that , environmental disasters such as flood, earthquake ,land slide and faulty mountains in some villages located in mountainous  areas and plains, alongside social and economic factors such as unemployment, illiteracy, weakness of infrastructures have threatened  the settlement and the life of inhabitants.This study is of descriptive- analysis type and is intended  to be applied. Data were collected through field study and documents survey. After receiving the data concerning natural factors influencing the formation and distribution of rural settlement, the capabilities and restrictions regarding the dispersion in the region as well as the maps of optimum locations for rural settlement were provided through spatial, statistical, and descriptive data. Finally, appropriate strategies and policies for spatial improvement were provided. They were used to classify the villages into four groups, from thoroughly sustainable to thoroughly unsustainable and their positions were located on the maps. All information analysis and their resulting outputs were based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), as a credible model, was also used in this study.The results show that the natural factors contribute significantly to the establishment and dispersion of settlements in the area studied. The results also show that the rural areas are divided into four groups in terms of risk management; a fact that needs to be taken into account for achieving a sustainable development.