Housing and Rural Environment
Year:2013 | Volume:32 | Issue:143|Papers Count:7

Global warming and the unquestionable role and share of the building industry give rise to a very serious and important question about the industry itself and where it is leading us. Considering the environmental pollution and therefore damage caused by the building industry, the immediate question is: what will be the future of architecture?Some of us of course believe that our future habitat will be extremely nature friendly and it will be in dynamic response and complete compatibility with its natural environment very much so like a living being.Buckminster Fuller once said: the best way to predict future is to design it. Indeed in the future, the houses we live in and the offices we work in will be designed to function like living organisms, specifically adapted to place and able to draw all of their requirements for energy and water from the surrounding sun, wind and the air.The architecture of the future will draw inspirations not from the machines of the 20th century but from nature and the beautiful flowers that grow in the landscape that surrounds them.In general we do not think that architecture can be deduced immediately from nature, since the design process and function of our buildings are quite different from what is found in most plants and animals. Nevertheless, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from nature, especially with regards to the efficiency, performance, adaptability, variety and tremendous beauty which most organisms display under close observations. Considering that nature has to obey the same physical laws as man-made objects, this should be seen as very encouraging for us, making it worthwhile to study its principles and mechanisms. Indeed nature is the ultimate art of engineering and perfect architectural and building model. The structures employed in nature are well tested. The shapes, compositions, configurations and materials used in nature are enduring and sustainable.Among many distinctive characteristics of nature, there are: nature’s vivacity and evolutionary character, layered structuring and amazing load carrying system, renewability and revival and diverse complex forms and geometry.Over the past two decades, our goal at the Art of Engineering Workshop of the School of Architecture and Urban Design of Shahid Beheshti University has been to try to study and understand these later mentioned characteristics of nature and to design and construct and create architectural forms using the research information obtained.This article is about our research activities; briefly describing our thoughts and findings, and overall design fabrication endeavor.

Rural regions have a significant role in preservation of environmental values, folklores and tacit knowledge of nations. Herein, the potentials of natural environment mainly the ways by which a rural landscape can be manipulated by applying natural elements is of major consideration. Based on past and current studies, exploring this area of research can clearly delineate some of the ecological aspects of landscape, while it presents the state of equilibrium and sustainability of natural elements in specific climatic conditions of each region.From a Landscape Architecture point of view, the article aims to present part of carried out studies and researches within the cognition of identity of specifications embedded in rural landscapes with a primary focus on aspects of natural environment and therefore, it’s relevant to specific ecological circumstances. Including both national and international case studies, the research methodology rests on the studies of creditable bibliographies penned in the field of rural areas and countryside regions. More, with respect to the significance of “Ecology”, geographical conditions and social customs in the identity and formation of rural landscape, the article has its main concerns on the land manipulation and the role of natural elements in doing so. On the other hand, “neo-naturalism” approaches were taken into account whereas they have caused documentaries, fundamental studies and re-cognition of vernacular patterns in manipulation of rural landscape. Furthermore, such considerations are of more importance in Iranian plateau due to its specific climatic features and unique vernacular methods; there are plenty of outstanding exemplars of sustainable habitations in central parts of the plateau confirming such claim.Accordingly, the study attempts to answer the following questions:• What is the rural landscape and what are its features in terms of habitation and environmental values?• What is the role of natural environment and geographical space in the articulation of Rural Landscape?• What are the lessons taken from tacit knowledge and the manipulation of rural landscape?The studies confirm the important role of tacit environmental knowledge and ecological tendencies of people in benefitting from natural potentials and cultural values in order to shape habitation clusters and manipulate the landscape of any rural region. Consequently, some of the definitions and specifications regarding rural landscape, as well as scholars’ viewpoints of natural environmental capacities, habitation; the geographical space of a village, economy, lifestyle and eventually the cultural aspects of rural landscapes have been presented in this paper. Some case studies from Kharaneq, Maymand and Al-kas have been provided as in order to support the theories and discussions.

Retrofitting of rural housing is one of the most important issues to improve the quality of villagers' life and prevent probable damages during a natural disaster. Therefore, the retrofitting of rural housing has become one of the focal points of concern in the agenda of Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution and other responsible institutions and agencies. Experts believe that budgets would be better spent for implementing fundamental changes in rural housing rather than dealing with the mental and physical damages incurred by natural disasters. As a result, many actions with the objective of establishing the culture of strong construction and also retrofitting existing homes have been taken. Educating the rural population is the most important one. Teaching how to make use of materials, suitable and durable construction, are some of the most important cases that have been carried out. But the main issue is how this training can be done with more depth and how to make its effects more durable. According to the hypothesis being considered, if instead of the general populace, families are taught (family-led training), the education would be more durable and stable. To test this hypothesis, four villages were selected randomly and two groups were evaluated in each. The first group included those who participated individually in the training and the second group was dedicated to those who participated as a family. The research method employed in this survey was descriptive-analytical, also known as the logical argumentation in novel research methods, since these methods are based on the ability of arguments and available data to prepare the required answers for investigational questions. The technique used for collecting data is field survey, in which the quantitative data is chosen from the archetypes. The general topic information and theoretical literature is based on studies by professional systems, especially the Housing Foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is collected by the library method. Processing data is accomplished by graphs and illative methods. Study results indicate that although family-led training does not show much success in the beginning, but after the end of the experimentation period and the passing of time, greater success was achieved. Family-led training, due to family interaction and the training system, strengthens the education and is more harmonious with rural life which is based on families. The aforementioned model can be suitable for rural education. This method of teaching causes the will for cooperation and the sense of self-help within the family and outside in the rural community. Although these cases can be seen in individual education, studies show that continuous education, which is a characteristic of successful teaching, is more effective in family-led education.

Housing and settlement are general concepts neither from spatial nor geographical point of view. They rather follow the economic, social, cultural and climatic conditions of each region. Therefore the problems, issues and settlement limitations of different income groups have their own unique features and characteristics. The nature, deficiencies and demands of settlement based on income of different social classes is different. It is obvious that each demands its own solution. One of these solutions is flexible housing. Modern building systems make certain types of flexibility possible in designing and as a result they make improvement possible. While common building systems have not been designed for change. Any change in the form of a building will be accompanied with the destruction of all or part of that building. In order to enhance the capacity for change in the buildings, construction should mostly focus on building’s productivity as well as the innovative methods of construction, so that it can create more flexible structures, the elements of which can be easily replaced, reused or recycled. The previous and current methods of mass-construction lacks a reasonable balance between the functional and esthetic aspects. They also lack the capacity for privatization for the residents of the building. Mass-construction can be developed and improved by applying industrial designing approaches. The present research studies prefabrication approach industry and modular in flexible housing. Flexible housing is designed in a way to easily meet the demands of the changes of life and adapt with the conditions. The advantages of such an approach in designing are significant. Such a design has a more capability of being used for a more period of time, is more adapted with the goal, adapts with the experience and intervention of the user, has a more economic and ecological perdurability and easily enjoys the advantages of technical innovations. Considering the demands of the users and time limitations, this advantage proposes the modular and pre-made industry. Pre-made housing is considered as an ultra-time and possible attraction for this task. Therefore, it is essential that a planned system acts along the pre-making in order to provide flexibility in housing architecture and prevent it from becoming monotonous. This is modular which provides the possibility of interventions or reductions in flexible housing.Thus the aim of this study which has been carried out by library and comparative method is to investigate flexible housing in the contemporary period using modular and premade property. In this way the architect finds an opportunity to produce creative icons with reduction in expense and time and meets the demands for life change of users during their residence. One of the main goals in applying the principles of modular coordinating system is leading the building toward a collection of basic standard scales. Compatibility causes the user to enjoy the same system in various situations. As a result; numerous systems are replaced with one system. Yet, the functions of compatibility have to be easily applicable by the user. Throughout its life, a compatible system is replaced with a great number of systems. This as a result will lead to saving in money, storeroom space and the charges of installation. Later, while dealing with housing design, the concepts of flexibility and compatibility are defined. Then by pointing out the advantages of flexibility in housing, the functional technologies and methods in construction and production with the origin of pre-fabrication and modular are discussed.

Housing is one of the most important human’s requirements and also one of the geographical phenomenon of a region. Geographical factors (which are different in each area and have special traits of the region) alongside with physiological, historical, and ethnical factors have important role in housing classification. Human has mutual relations with his surrounding environment in small or large scales and tries to improve it for profit or on force and innate flexibility to adapt to environmental conditions, and intends to show this improvement in different parameters of housing and help determining housing conditions. Providing suitable places for settlement is one of the most important problems in our country and is considered as one of the emergency and most basic issues in the society. For this reason, it has been on focus in the Islamic Republic Constitution to provide suitable housing for all classes of the society as an indisputable right for each individual.The use of housing indices is one of the important ways to be informed of the housing situation in rural planning process. These indices represent qualitative and quantitative condition of rural housing on the one hand and help improve housing planning for a long-term perspective on the other hand. The purpose of this study is at first step, giving an overview of the concept and status of rural housing indices and identifying the characteristics of rural housing of the country. Then, by using the most important components and indices of housing, the situation of rural areas in the counties of Ilam Province will be studied and finally the rural regions of the studied area will be classified by using of these indices. Therefore, the present research according to its purpose is analytical-descriptive which has been conducted by using documents and library studies. Among the variables that are related to housing, 22 indices have been extracted and reduced to 5 factors by using factor analysis method. Factors obtained from the factor analysis totally include 97.60 percent of the variance. Among the 5 extracted factors, welfare factor covers 25.406 percent alone which is the most effective factor in this study. In order to classify rural homogeneous regions, cluster analysis method has been used and Ilam rural settlements have been classified in 4 homogeneous groups. Based on the results, rural areas of Shirvan and Chardavol counties are ranked at the highest level and rural areas of Dehloran, Dareshahr and Abdanan counties are rated at the lowest level in terms of enjoyment of housing indices.

The new question which is raised nowadays is that how rural and urban developments affect one another. Until three decades ago, most of the people believed that urban and rural developments were separate and completed each other only for resources. However, a closer look reveals that this is far from the truth today. Rural and urban relationship and scope have many vast effects on shape, growth and rual settlement development. This effect is both internal and external. Considering these relationships in the process of evolution and development of rural and urban centers, it is necessary to identify the causes of relationship and recognize the effects and results of economics, social-cultural and spatial structure. Therefore it is important that the negative effects of this relation to be reduced. It helps preservation and sustainable development in rural-urban relationship. This paper aims primarily to discuss about urban-rural relationship and then identify the effective components in this field. This investigation also deals with the current spatial links in Homeh District of Harsin county (in central section). In this investigation, we took advantage of SPSS software for analysis (for example correlation and regression). This paper shows that the concept of urban-rural relationship does not necessarily cause relationship between these two and believes that the case study region has not benefitted from this relationship.This paper shows that traditional patterns of rural-urban housing have changed to new architectures. Land ownership has decreased too. It also shows that the agricultural production has decreased and there are variety of land use in the region. The cost of comodity and house has increased which has caused cultural changes. The lands have also been devided in the region.The Results show that rural-urban linkage make many changes in economic, cultural and skeletal pattern in Harsin.The cities effect on their surrounding areas as per following:Foodstuff and workforce are sent to the cities from villages. The cities are the consumer of foodstuff received from the villages and they send workforce to the villages in return.The exchange of goods, workforce and money are the most obvious signs of the relationship between urban and rural areas. Other influences are less tangible: standardized curricula and increased access to education; the growing reach of the mass media; commercial advertising and campaigns by service organizations; the influence of cultural and religious networks, and the spread of urban services to the rural areas all increase the strength and depth of the interactions between them.

Rural architecture is generally studied through a typological and climatic approach.Such an approach to rural architecture either as a single housing unit or texture, explains the interaction between rural skeletal feedbacks and climatic factors more than it studies and identifies rural architectural spatial qualities. So such an approach limits the understanding of design quality in rural architecture, especially for projects that aim to address the architecture of the rural buildings and textures. This paper aims to present or suggest a different approach in understanding of rural architecture to identify the truth of this architecture and its values and qualities with more worthiness.According to this approach, it is expected to achieve more comprehensive study, and consequently valuating and classifying dominant principles on the rural architecture. This theory is shaped through a close study of Ibn Khaldun’s thought, especially where he categorizes the architectural buildings of the traditional human societies that have abandoned their nomadic life and preferred to reside as Bedouins, Villagers, and City dwellers. Based on a critical application of Christian Norberg - Schulz’s architectural theories and building upon Ibn Khaldun’s thought, this study presents a new conceptual framework of rustic architecture, common architecture, and stylist architecture.In this paper it is considered to survey critically the Christian Norberg - Schulz's opinions, because the formative nature and local properties of examples doesn't necessarily adapt to features of Iranian villages. However, this matter doesn’t prevent studying and accepting Schulz's thought.Nevertheless, Schulz’s regard and consequently this inquiry have public view to the order of rural architecture. However, we can rely on Schulz's opinions to achieve an appropriate usage relevant to Iranian rural architecture. This criterion considerably includes rural features which can validate the credibility of the rural buildings. The other achievement of this approach is keeping and training the architectural tradition of each culture and civilization in villages. Thus paying attention to the rural architectural features and cognition of them is a necessity and protection of them is a basic principle.Based on what is explained in this article, traditional architectural buildings to meet the comfort of human needs, manifest three orders of architecture. So the rural architecture, rustic architecture, common architecture and the stylist architecture are the subjects which this article presents critically according to Norberg - Schulz’s architectural theories. The proposed criteria for each concept offer a more thorough understanding of the traditional architectural buildings in general and rural architecture in particular. For the first part of this paper, Ibn Khaldun’s theory for formation of oasis, village and city is mentioned. In continue of this paper the relationships between of Ibn Khaldun’s opinions and Christian Norberg - Schulz's ideas are investigated. A nontrivial simulation of these two ideas is derived from this comparison Furthermore, Christian Norberg - Schulz's opinion in valuation of rustic building is studied. This results in some criteria which are different from common ones.