Housing and Rural Environment
Year:2012 | Volume:31 | Issue:139|Papers Count:7

In the very early hours of 26th December 2003, a devastating and strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 on Richter scale struck Bam, one of the historical cities of Kerman province in the south of Iran. According to the official reports, more than 30, 000 people were killed and about 25,000 injured. More than 80% of buildings were also destroyed. After the disaster, Bam’s reconstruction management process confronted a lot of challenges and faced many fundamental questions. The number of human losses and related social issues, extensive destruction of the historical town, and also the lack of enough experience in reconstruction of a city or town made the reconstruction project of Bam more complicated. The essay tries to explain public participation in Bam reconstruction procedure. The research has been carried out based on descriptive- analytical method. Subsequent data has been collected from related documents of reconstruction and initial data has been gathered by field survey. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was used to check questionnaires accuracy. The coefficient obtained was about 0.98%. The result shows that Bam reconstruction has been carried out based on a model that emphasize on identity and resistance. This model tried to attract public participation in debris removal, housing units design and provision of construction materials. The participation in debris removal and designing was more successful than other domains. Although Bam reconstruction model prepared a suitable context for participation but it could not present a real one. Ideal participation is achievable if it is executed with capacity building and empowerment.

In the past, rural buildings were built with the limited natural materials which were found around the villages. But nowadays there are many choices available to be selected and used in the rural areas. This has occurred because of two important issues. First: production of many different kinds of natural and synthetic construction materials which have been provided these days, and second: the transportation developments which have caused the possibility of providing construction materials to any villages of the country.This circumstance has had two results. The first result permits the designer to choose any material. The second result provides the variety and unlimited kinds of construction materials in rural areas. These results both seem to be good and favorable, but there are other parallel issues to be taken into consideration. For example by using different kinds of materials on the facades of the buildings, the harmony and unity of rural landscape can be damaged. Some materials are not also consistent with the climate and natural conditions of the village and so on.To achieve the best result for using the new materials, it is necessary to increase their positive characteristics and advantages and find ways for reducing the problems and disadvantages. In this regard, the characteristics of different kinds of construction materials must be studied well and a comprehensive comparison to be done before choosing the best and suitable materials for the construction.In order to choose the suitable construction materials, some criteria are needed for assessment and comparison. The present article is intended to provide some explanations for this subject. It will introduce six criteria.1- Harmony with the form of building, 2- Presenting appropriate meanings, 3- Harmony with the natural environment and the rural landscape, 4- Compatibility with the climatic circumstances, 5- Suitability with the structure, 6- Availability and reasonable price for purchasing the materials.The article will also mention about different ways of using materials for the exterior walls and their joints.

khoor village is one the most tropic places in south Khorasan. This characteristic strengthens the necessity of cooling system in this village. Almost all of the existing old houses in the village have a very long history for using one or even more wind catchers. They were widely used in the past as the main cooling system of the buildings. But by the improvement of technology and focusing on Urbanization, they have lost their popularity and have been replaced by some new cooling systems like evaporative coolers or air-conditioning units.This article has been provided by combination of methods as case studies, field researches and gathering information from library documents. After preliminary explanation about the location and conditions of Khoor village, each one of the current cooling systems (traditional wind catchers, evaporative coolers and air conditioning units) will be scrutinized and also a combined system will be proposed and a quantitative and qualitative comparison will be made. In quantitative study, the expenses of each system during a life cycle of 20 years can be calculated by recognizing the function of that system and the extent of material and labor and may consequently be compared in a chart. According to the results, air conditioning unit is considered as the most expensive system in this village. Evaporative cooler and combined wind catcher are ranked as the next and the traditional wind catcher has the least expense. In qualitative study, beside the favorable condition and exploitation of air conditioning unit, the optimized wind catchers are also of high value in increasing the desirability level of defined quality criteria.

The criteria of quality in human settlements, which pave the way for evaluation of the settlements and spaces, have been studied for few decades in the literature of Urban Design. So many viewpoints are available in this regard. Rural settlement as a kind of human settlements has its own physical, environmental, social, cultural, economical characteristics. The differences between rural and urban areas mean that we should think about presenting different items for evaluation of rural areas and the settlements.The most important target of this article is to achieve the major quality components and criteria in the rural spaces and the settlements.The main reason for raising this research is lack of reliable theories about evaluation of quality in rural spaces and the settlements. The only choice is using the ideas of urban and landscape design to complete rural design researcher’s ideas. We used descriptive and analytical research methods and qualitative and quantitative analysis of the quality criteria in these various views in order to identify evaluation criteria of spaces and the settlements.The result is a hierarchical list of classified criteria for quality in an acceptable human settlement.Most of these criteria are true in rural spaces and settlements and a few do not fit with the rural character and environment. The most important criteria are the identity and sense of rural place, sustainability, durability, and paying attention to the natural and man-made context in the field of physical and aesthetic components; social livability and solidarity, and paying attention to social and cultural context in the field of social and cultural components; vitality and survival of native economy in the field of functional components; efficiency in energy and resources usage, connection with the nature, and avoidance from polluting the environment in the field of environmental components; participation in the design and implementation in the field of management components. The last point is: each village and every rural area has a unique character. So, presenting a general idea for a variety of these areas is so difficult. This article is accounted as the first step, and should be completed in the future.

Rural housing loan that are provided for villagers under the name of special rural housing upgrading plan, exert many constraints and obligations in terms of built up area, type of construction materials and design which clearly differentiate these houses from rural traditional ones.Therefore, this loan has positive and negative impacts on economic, social, cultural, physical, and livelihood aspects and to some extent affects the life style, livelihood of the villagers and farmers and their environment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changes that are made in the life style and livelihood of villagers as a result of implementing special rural housing upgrading plan and using rural housing loan. To do this, a qualitative research method has been used. Thus, the data have been collected via interview, participatory observation and reviewing documents. Families from Aghboraz village in East Azerbaijan province who have used rural housing loan facilities are considered as the basis of analysis.The result of the study illustrates that rural housing loans have had advantages and disadvantages and they have also had physical, economic, social, and cultural effects on life style and livelihood of the villagers. New houses are completely different from rural traditional ones and lack of specific characteristics of traditional rural houses. The built up area of new houses compared with previous ones has been reduced. One of the consequences of this issue is the tendency to shorten the family size and the separation of married members from family. This will lead to the reduction of agricultural lands and division of them among the children and fragmentation of rural agricultural lands. In new houses, the livelihood spaces have been completely ignored and only the living aspect of the house has been taken into consideration. The removal of livelihood spaces has caused some characteristics of agricultural economy like traditional animal husbandry and rural handicrafts gradually lose their importance in providing a significant portion of the subsistence needs of the villagers. The technology and architecture of new houses have also made some changes in the life of villagers culturally. New housing along with other factors has had important role in luxury life and the influence of consuming society values in the livelihood of the villagers. Nonetheless, new houses compared with traditional ones, due to the use of durable materials and structures against natural disaster; bring about mental and emotional relaxation. Attracting investment, creating job, increasing health level, and reducing migration are other positive aspects of new rural housing. Therefore, in developing a comprehensive program in rural housing section, it is suggested that the specific characteristics of rural life like life style, income, and rural culture to be taken into account.

Home is the initial need of human and settlement is a basic requirement in human communities.Since past times, it was the aspiration of human to meet these needs suitably and to some extent has always challenged human communities and has made changes in its different dimensions. These changes in from, design, material and knowledge of settlement construction are going to be investigated. The purpose of this research is to assess the adaptation of new construction with the indigenous architecture and also the satisfaction rate of the people for the new architecture. So, in line with approaching the objective of this research, the economic, sanitary, stability, cultural, functional and physical components of both categories for new and indigenous housing have been taken into consideration. Our statistical community is the villages of the central part of Delfan County. About 17 villages of more than 50 households where the new construction have taken place are accidentally selected. In the meantime, by using cuchran formula, sample volume of 133 heads of family was chosen. In line with assessing the adaptation of new constructions with indigenous architecture and also studying the people’s satisfaction of new architecture, the T test, vilkakson test and also way analysis model were used to investigate the direct and indirect effects of categories on new architecture. The results of Vilkakson test show that in all categories except for the compatibility with the social situation of family from cultural category, there is no adaptation in new constructions and local architecture. Also the T test shows that people have satisfaction with the physical, stability and sanitary categories in new construction but are not satisfied with the cultural, economic and functional categories. Finally, the way analysis test shows that cultural category has had the most direct effect and the economic category has had the most indirect effect on new construction.

One of the most important structural elements in the development of rural residential areas in support of the poor and reduction of rural vulnerability can be a special attention that should be paid to Physical aspects of human social, economic and environmental activities. Nowadays, rural Guide Plan as the first national comprehensive effort for organizing our country’s villages is counted as the most important tool for rural development management. Rural Guide Plan is one of the rural development projects that can have a fundamental role in an integrated development of rural areas. Thus, due to an ongoing implementation of these projects, the critical issue might be the assessment process. This will, on the one hand give an insight into the consequences of the project and on the other hand, provide us with necessary data for managing the projects by identifying the advantages and disadvantages of the plan. In this regard, the present research has been done to figure out the effects of Guide Plan on the life quality of villagers. The research has been carried out based on descriptive-analytical method and the data has been gathered by library studies (questionnaires- observations- and interviews). The statistical sample comprises of all the villages of Corani Rural District. Out of all the villages, with and without implemented Guide Plan, three villages have been classified as probable samples. Then 274 people have been chosen as the statistical sample by using Morgan table. The obtained data has been analyzed by the T test, Mann Whitney and path analysis. On the whole, the research shows that Guide Plan has had positive effects on the physical aspects but not much success has been achieved on the social, economic and environmental levels. All in all, among the quality-of- life aspects, the physical dimension with an average of 3/09, occupied the first rank and the environmental, social and economic aspects came later on the list. Finally improvements in the quality of life on physical levels were assessed as average, but on the environmental, social and economic levels were evaluated as poor.