ARMANSHAHR
Year:2018 | Volume:12 | Issue:28 |Papers Count:14

Lack of meaning in the modern functionalist architecture belittles the emphasis on the visual and physical aspects, audience’ s perceptional aspects, and his/her recognition of space and removes meaning from the place; the present study intends to pursue the concept of sense of place in today’ s architecture and underline its qualitative enhancement. The sense of place comes about following the creation of an optimal relationship between the audience’ s perception and the environment in such a way that it is found bridging the extreme modern functionalism’ s gap through spatial architectural space modeling. Following the inserting meaning and paying attention to the audience’ s expectations, the social interactions that are considered as the most essential quality accomplishments in the today’ s communities flow in the place and lead to the individual’ s presence; the present article investigates Sabzeh Meidan Complex in Qazvin and the historical buildings in its periphery as the case studies to achieve a sense of place; the study hypothesis posits that the pursue of the phenomenological concepts enables the audience reach a favorable sense of place in the space. The study method is seminally qualitative and the concepts related to the sense of place will be analyzed and described. Moreover, subsequently, the survey method is used for proving the hypothesis by analyzing the study data in SPSS Software, version 16. The data analysis has been carried out in the statistical population consisted of a number of architecture and urban planning experts. Based thereon, factors influencing the creation of sense of place in architectural space have been investigated. The essential variables in line with the study hypothesis justification is the quality of inviting and tendency to attend, achievement of the favorable social interactions and qualitative enhancement of the urban and architectural space each of which possesses its own specific indicators; following the selection of such structures for pursuing the current research paper’ s subject, the achievement of the favorable architectural spaces in qualitative terms depends on the recognition of the audience’ s perceptional factors in space; this aspect of research gives priority to and seeks achievement of the feelings and emotions of a space’ s audience in the place they attend.

Sahebqeraniyeh garden also known as Niavaran garden is artwork from the Qajar Period and it still continues to exist. This garden has undergone considerable changes. The construction of a vast part of the garden was commenced during the late 19th century AD and lasted till the 1960s. As a result of the constructions during the second Pahlavi era for making it also a residential place, the important parts of the garden were separated and some of the buildings were destroyed. The plan of garden has been extensively changed in the northern sections and, more importantly, its Qajar layout has undergone a radical change. Thus, the following questions can be raised: How has the authentic layout of the garden been during the Qajar Era? How has the garden’ s evolutions trend influenced its layout? The article aims at attaining the evolution and change trends of the garden as well as finding its overall layout and plan so that it can be used as a basis for conservation purposes and increasing its spatial identity. The present study has been conducted based on descriptive and historical research method. Meanwhile paying attention to the history of this artwork and through taking advantage of the documents, historical texts, historical and aerial photos and matching them with the garden’ s remnants, efforts will be made to reveal the garden’ s evolution trend so that its authentic plan in the Qajar Era can be obtained. The results indicate that the garden has passed through four historical periods. Accordingly, Sahebqeraniyeh garden has been formed before the Naseri Period; but, it has found its identifiable authentic plan during Naser al-Din Shah’ s kingship period and during the 1840s. In this period, the southern yard had been connected to the main palace in a stratified form. The whole complex consisted of three parts of the northern garden, the southern garden and the area in the periphery of the main palace. During the late 1870s, Sahebqeraniyeh mansion took the place of Niavaran palace and the mansion’ s transformation caused changes to the garden’ s structure. Since the late Qajar era, vaster changes occurred, northern garden’ s area and some of the buildings were destroyed and the southern garden was separated during the second Pahlavi era.

Amongst the spaces in which human beings attend, the house is the place where one affects and is affected by it on a daily basis. Each of the various spaces of the house possesses unique characteristics and various factors such as climate, culture, society, and others contribute in the formation of them. The establishment of these spaces at the side of one another gives rise to different spatial systems that lead to the formation of various types in this kind of architecture and influences the shape of the various patterns of using them in addition to bringing about shape differences. The present study aims at investigating and comparing the functional efficiency of the houses in three house patterns with large, small and micro modules using space-related mathematical relations. To do so, nine traditional houses have been selected for the aforementioned three spatial systems in the cities of Kashan, Isfahan, and Yazd as the case studies. The study method in this research is descriptive-analytical and the type of the inference applied herein is deductive of the comparative type. The initial data were extracted through drawing graphs related to the plans of each of the studied houses; then, these data were inserted into the mathematical relations of spatial syntax. This way, based on the indices “ spatial value” , “ mean depth of the space” and “ relative integration” , the functional efficiency of each of the aforementioned patterns was extracted. The results signified that the houses with a large module have the highest spatial value, highest depth amount and highest relative integration rate that altogether eventually result in the increase in the functional efficiency of such a pattern of the house in contrast to the small-and micro-module house patterns. Moreover, the investigation of the spatial difference in the nine studied patterns indicated the existence of similarities in the configuration and spatial organization of the houses in Kashan and Isfahan and their differences from the houses in Yazd in this regard.

Flexibility is one of the key concepts in the formation alphabet of architecture but it is less frequently taken into account in the area of physical body and it has more been dealt with of the diversity or free plan designing types in micro-scales. When the architectural spaces’ context needs flexibility, the structure, as well as the architectural form, should be both designed because the most important challenge in investigating flexibility in architectural context is structure and flexibility has to be granted to the body of structure and that in a macro-scale. The present article aims at investigating flexibility in the architectural context for which the structure should be coordinated with the behavioral architecture. Origami technology solidifies and renders flexible its structure to be followed by physical flexibility and structural stability and this is why it has drawn the attention of the structural and architectural engineers. In this regard, origami is utilized as a factor linking the structure and architecture. The diamond origami pattern possesses the intended properties in terms of architectural flexibility and structural stability and it was subjected to loading in the form of a model made of steel plates in finite element software. The findings indicated that the diamond origami pattern provides the required flexibility for adaptation to the various environmental conditions by blending architecture and structure in the building’ s physical body and that the diamond pattern’ s adaptability is feasible in all the sub-branches.

Every year, thousands of individuals leave their houses for studying in universities and experiencing a new environment. In the course of such relocation, one of the main challenges of individuals is the lack of adaptation to the new environment. The present study has been carried out with the objective of explaining the relationship between public open spaces in the faculties and the students’ place attachment. Based on the study’ s theoretical model, place attachment is an emotional, cognitive and behavioral bond between the students and the faculty. On the other hand, the faculty’ s public open spaces have been defined as the resultant of the physical factors. The study’ s theoretical model was subjected to test in the fine arts faculty of Tehran University using the survey research method. To gather the data, use was made of a closed-ended questionnaire. Moreover, Structural Equation Modeling was the method of choice for analyzing the answers. In the current research paper, the measurement model of students’ place attachment and the faculty’ s public open spaces were seminally tested; their fit indices were subsequently evaluated and the study’ s structural model was eventually examined. The study findings indicated that the public open spaces have a significant effect on the students’ attachment to place. Corresponding to the study findings, the favorability of the meeting spaces is the most important factor forming and strengthening the attachment to place in the university students. Favorable meeting spaces set the ground for interaction establishment opportunities so they can enhance the social interactions between the students that can per se effectively influence the students’ attachment to place. Therefore, according to the study results that indicated the main role of social interactions in the formation of attachment to place in the students, the designing of the faculties’ public open spaces should be conducted in such a way that it can result in face-to-face interactions amongst the students to the maximum possible extent. Furthermore, the study results indicated that the favorability of the meeting spaces significantly associated with the existence of artistic or architectural elements and suitability of the green spaces. Artistic or architectural elements play their role by the formation of a distinct and meaningful environmental personality for the students and the green spaces by creating visual fascination.

Autism spectrum disorder is a pervasive abnormality in nervous system accompanied by defections in thinking, emotion and feeling, speaking and the ability of communication with others hence leading to the reduction in the interaction level of individuals with autism. In order to create an integrated process for enhancing the social interactions in children with autism, the therapeutic interventions should be conducted by the assistance of proper architectural designing and through considering the role of environmental variables in satisfying the needs of children with autism. Thus, the recognition of the architectural indicators influencing the enhancement of social interactions in the children with autism and evaluation and prioritization of them in architectural designing of these centers seem important. The present article aimed at recognizing and offering an analytical model consisted of environmental indices influencing the enhancement of social interactions in children with autism for prioritizing these indices in designing of educational environments. a descriptive-analytical method was used in this study and the data has been collected in two stages: in the first stage, the study background and theoretical foundations have been compiled using library and documentary research following which the main scales and subscales were identified; then, using the scales found in the first stage, a four-level analytical model was offered comprised of the environmental indices influencing the increase in the social interaction in the children with autism. Afterwards, a questionnaire was prepared using Expert Choice program and it was administered to 15 specialists, including psychologists, occupational therapists and instructors of children with autism. Then, the obtained scales and subscales were rated using analytic hierarchy process and pairwise comparisons. In the end, the autism schools of Qazvin, Zanjan, and Tabriz were selected on which the criteria were evaluated. Finally, the study results indicated that “ spatial organization” and “ natural elements” , with weights equal to 0. 42 and 0. 32, respectively, had the highest effect inter alia the studied principles and scales on the enhancement on the social interaction level of children with autism in educational environments.

Zoorkhaneh (House of Strength) is one of the cultural-sport and original buildings in Iranian architecture and it has been the growth and instruction locus of a great many of heroes who have caused the enhancement of the society’ s cultural-ethical level through their moralities. In the heart of the Zoorkhaneh’ architectural context, there are latent symbols and signs that can increase their spatial qualities. The architecture of such a special building has been neglected in the history of Iran’ s architecture for many reasons. After the Islamic revolution and imposed war, the attentions were directed once again at the zoorkhaneh-based sports and zoorkhanehs’ physique. This study has been carried out in line with manifesting the importance of the symbols existent in the zoorkhanehs and the necessity for their continuation in designing the zoorkhanehs’ physique; the study is also looking for an answer to the question as to “ what are the behavioral properties created in the heroes by the signs and symbols in the zoorkhanehs? ” The present study’ s research method is qualitative of the descriptive-analytical type. In order to reach an answer to the study question, the chart “ the process of the environment’ s effect on the residents’ behaviors” and the significations of the signs existent in the zoorkhaneh were used. Then, the extracted information has been matched with the heroes’ behaviors. The study is qualitative research of the analytical type. The investigations show that some of the heroic properties stem from the physical signs and symbols in the zoorkhanehs. The entrance of the zoorkhanehs creates such a characteristic as humbleness in the individuals. The platform reminds attendants of such attributes as respecting the elders, paying more attention to the lower social classes and looking for virtuousness. The pit creates such moralities as humbleness, piety, and religiousness, simple living and unity in the individuals and the booth results in hospitality and paying attention to traditions in the athletes.

Learning process is of great importance in architecture courses, especially for the newcomers. The main issue of the present study is achieving an effective instructional pattern for teaching architecture and “ Architectural Design Basics” have been considered herein as the case study. The proper patterns of instructing preparatory architectural designing lessons were identified through exploring the various teaching patterns in the area of educational sciences and architecture teaching. Then, changes were made in line with these lessons’ goals to attain a teaching pattern and its specifications based on the intragroup professor-student collaboration (IPSC). The current research has been conducted to investigate this pattern in teaching preparatory architectural designing II and its completion and correction as well as its transformation to an effective instructional method. To do so, use was made of the qualitative research method of grounded theory so that the strong and weak points of this pattern can be better recognized. The study population included the students who had taken the preparatory architectural designing II lessons in two universities in Mazandaran. The reason for selecting this population is the familiarity with the environmental conditions due to the researcher’ s history of teaching in them. The information-gathering instruments in this study are observation, questionnaire, and interview. The study results signified the increase in the students’ motivation, meeting the need for the students’ approval and collaboration in this method and its effectiveness on the group activities. Amongst the other advantages obtained as a result of the professor’ s presence in the group, the importance of asking for the students’ ideas, the correct task division in the group and more importance of the learning process with respect to the product can be pointed out.

In the process of architectural expression, the idea delineated in the mind by the architectural expression tools should have qualities rendering its implementation feasible in terms of the proportions, volumetric properties, and spatial relations and so forth. The weakness and slack in delineation are one of the barriers to the mind’ s creative stream. The university students should know the methods of rapid, easy, correct and eventually systematic offering of the ideas so that they can be able to bring about innovations and creativities in their sketches and plans. This helps them confidently and peacefully deal with the plan’ s idea and its perfection in the process of architectural designing. The present study seeks to empower the architects in creating a suitable pattern for responding to the power of imagination and improving the designing process in the instructional works and even in their daily professional tasks. The study population of the present research paper included the architectural students in the lesson “ architectural expression 2” . The study sample volume consisted of two 54-individual groups one from the country’ s mother university as the control group and the other from the country’ s intermediate universities as the test group. The study method of the present research paper is semi-experimental because the independent variable is manipulated in the present study and, at the same time, there is a control group. The information-gathering method in the area of architectural perception and expression is a reference to the credible library sources the scientific part of which is presented to the students. The test and the evidence groups’ students are examined in two stages in the course of the semester. The results obtained from the present study can corroborate a novel method of architectural instruction with an emphasis on the theory of rapid designing of architectural imagination following which an appropriate pattern would be offered for enhancing the qualitative level of architectural designing instruction.

The process of the environment perception and recognition sets the ground for the exhibition of behavior in space and paves the way for the human beings’ experience of the place; resultantly, it is one of the most important and most essential dimensions that have to be carefully taken into account in designing environment. A descriptive review of the studies done in the area of urbanism shows that the space perception based on mental images has been so far assessed and in the following, the space syntax theory was helped. The present study seeks to use the qualitative content analysis of the studies performed in this area and achieve a comprehensive framework for environmental perceptions by the aid of the supplementary study domains. The results indicate firstly that although affective and emotional aspects of the environment are part of the perception process and dealt with in the area of aesthetics, they are not evaluated in the area of the spatial perceptions; secondly, although motivations, experiences, and familiarity with the environment are individual properties, they can be also envisioned as characteristics of the environment to be perceived and evaluated. Thus, the affective and motivational aspects of the environment can be added as a third domain to the researches on the spatial perception studies so as to apply the theories on the environmental preferences that constitute an index for motivational-emotional judgments of the environment in achieving an integrated framework for assessing the spatial perceptions in the area of urban studies. Comparison the proposed framework with the prior studies and researches based on the concentrated indices and by the assistance of evaluation matrix indicated that the framework takes advantage of three sets of properties, namely A) separate cognitive properties; B) spatial relational properties; and, C) emotional properties, to adopt an integrated approach towards all the environmental properties alongside the individual properties that can create a more comprehensive perception of the effect of urban environment on the users in urban studies.

Place attachment is one of the levels of the individuals’ relationship with the place and it leads to the improvement in the behavioral and scientific performance of the university students by influencing their behavior and controlling their negative behavioral patterns in an academic environment. This is while the environmental factors influencing this sense depend on the type of a place’ s performance and the recognition of these factors, especially in academic spaces, in addition to the contribution to the enhancement of the designing quality of the academic spaces, assists the universities’ officials, as well, in accomplishing one of their essential goals, i. e. the elevation of the university’ s academic level. Thus, the place attachment and its aspects were explained to identify these factors in the university environment using the correlation method based on the existing literature in this area and the assumed effective factors in the creation of place attachment in three aspects of functional, physical and social particularly in university spaces were studied within the format of the theoretical model. Then, to test the model, 373 university students were selected from the technical-engineering, art and architecture and basic sciences departments of Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, based on random-clustering method following which the researcher-made questionnaires were distributed among them. After verifying the validity and reliability of the measurement instrument using the fit estimation indices and Cronbach’ s alpha coefficient, the gathered data were subjected to path analysis using SPSS Software and the direct and indirect effect of each of the assumed factors on the sense of attachment to university was determined. The results of this study indicated that, amongst the factors influencing the artificial environment of the university, “ the proper proportion of the spaces’ dimension with the performance” as well as “ the number of their users” have the highest effect on the university students’ sense of attachment to the university. Moreover, paying attention to the color used in the spaces and the thermal comfort conditions in the building indirectly lead to the improvement of the quality of the university students’ relationship with the academic environment via influencing the performance of the administrative staff and the university-students’ interactions.

Various factors and elements can influence the identity of urban landscapes the most important of which is the old trees in the urban spaces. It is now for years that the researchers are paying more attention to the shells, walls, and details of the cities in line with the investigation of the cities’ identities and, in a smaller scale, to “ urban spaces” but they have neglected the importance of the old trees as a valuable natural heritage. The current study aims to emphasize on the importance of protecting and conserving the trees (the old ones) in the urban spaces and the relationship between old trees and such a subject as the identity in the urban landscape in the study area. In order to perform this study, there was a need for a proper geographical ground; thus, Shohada Street in Ilam was selected and the residents and the users were subjected to the study questions. The data required for this study were collected using observations, content analysis, and questionnaire. Shohada Street is one of the urban spaces in the city of Ilam and the existence of the old trees is amongst the factors that are effective and are of great importance in the street’ s identification. The investigations show that the green spaces in this city have undergone a substantial decrease in comparison to the past years and this issue has overshadowed the natural identity of the city. The present study tries to find answers to the following questions: is there a relationship between the old trees and the identity of the urban landscapes? Can solutions be found for the identification of the cities using the trees? And, how much and in which way do the old trees influence the identity of the urban landscape in Ilam? The results signify that the green space and, particularly, the old trees are amongst the most important elements parallel to the creation of landscape identity in the cities. Old trees can grant identity to the urban spaces and distinguish them from the other spaces and they also make the urban spaces and streets more identifiable and more beautiful.

Nowadays, large cities face many economic, social and environmental challenges, among which problems such as pollution, traffic, and so on have reduced environmental quality, and thereby livability in large cities. The present study aims to measure citizens’ satisfaction in the 4th municipal district of Tehran city with regard to the principles and indicators defined for livability, and with emphasis on environmental and social aspects. The Municipal District 4 of Tehran City is selected as a case study since it is a part of the green zone of East Tehran, where there are Iran University of Science and Technology, as a higher education environment, with green landscape, neighborhood living and a great number of students. This article identifies and analyzes the indicators that have been identified as those contributing to the understanding of people’ s satisfaction with their lives by national and international experts and institutions. Given the fact that the indicators are general, using the factor analysis, the indicators are localized considering the case study by national and international experts and institutions, so that they are finally ranked, according to their importance, to be used to achieve the optimal situation in the studied area in the shortest possible time. Data are analyzed using one-sample T-test, factor analysis, and linear regression in SPSS software environment as follows: first, the one-sample T-test is used to examine the significance of indicators, then, the factor analysis is used to summarize, homogenize and localize the indicators, finally, using linear regression, the indicators are prioritized. The results show that the “ attendance in space” indicator and related sub-indicators are ranked first priority, followed by “ identity” and “ sense of belonging to place” indicators and related sub-indicators.

Amongst the essential challenges of urban planning is the shortage of land for developing and supplying the urban regions’ needs, especially in large cities like Mashhad. Under the land shortage conditions, the development of the underdeveloped lands should be sought in line with taking advantage of all the internal urban competencies within the framework of infill development. Endowed urban lands are amongst the underdeveloped lands and spaces. Mashhad is amongst the cities wherein the endowed ownership plays an important role in urban development and management. Particularly, District 6 of Mashhad’ s municipality about 80% of the lands of which are under-endowed ownership by Astan-e-Quds-e-Razavi and faces a shortage of land, inefficiency, and lack of dynamicity in its internal textures. The shortage of land for development and supply of the urban regions’ needs, especially in large cities like Mashhad, are amongst the essential challenges of urban planning. Under such circumstances, the development of underdeveloped lands should be sought for taking advantage of all the internal capabilities of the city within the framework of infill development. In this article, the possibility of redeveloping the endowed properties in this region within the format of infill capacity assessment has been investigated. In order to accomplish this goal, the infill capacity assessment indices of endowed lands were identified and investigated for District Six and use was made of geographical information system (GIS) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for determining their overlaps and prioritizing the development-prone land parcels. The results indicated that the scale “ familiarity with the endowment requirements” , with a significance coefficient of 0. 154, is the most important factor and the scale “ upstream criteria” , with a significance coefficient of 0. 021, is the weakest factor for assessing the capacity of endowed urban lands redevelopment.