JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE STUDIES
Year:2015 | Volume:4 | Issue:7|Papers Count:9

Sequence of activities has evident and objective aspects in the people living environment that depend on subjective and meaningful aspects in their culture and lifestyle. The sequence of activities with two forms of "spatial and temporal", are ways of separation or aggregation of activities in different cultures dwelling, which lie at the origin of the formation of behaviour settings. The theoretical framework of this study, based on cultural viewpoints, surveys the "activities, spatial and temporal distances and sequences of activities" and their meanings in dwelling environment. For the purposes of this survey, a case study was done in a residential environment of "Qashqai tribe". In this study, a qualitative research method with data gathering techniques such as taking pictures from the environment and activities, drawing residential units’ maps, behaviour settings diagrams and laddering semi-structured interviews was used. After coding the content of gathered information, analytical findings classified in two parts of "spatial sequence" and "temporal sequence" of activities, and by the Means-End model, consequences and meanings of the sequence of activities was presented in the form of "Feature-Consequence-Meaning" propositions. The results show that the sequence of activities in "Qashqai" dwelling is under influence of “preserving social status" and "observing the privacy of individuals and activities" meanings. Other consequences of meanings like "desirability of human activity settings" prepare lifestyle habitus event conditions in dwelling. In addition to providing a theoretical framework for the study of the human-environment relationship and the presentation of activity sequence properties, the results emphasize the meaningfulness of spatial and temporal sequences of activities in dwellings.

As one of the five neighborhoods comprising the former Tehran at seventeenth century, Oudlajan has a precious heritage. In the Qajar era (1795-1925), Oudlajan had the largest population of Tehran and different social classes, including noble families lived there. However, due to subsequent expansion of Tehran as well as formation of new neighborhoods in the 1960s, the process of population movement began in Oudlajan neighborhood. Original inhabitants of Oudlajan moved to new neighborhoods and dedicated their place to low-income classes particularly immigrants and workers. Bazaar, as a strong economic and political parameter, dominated the neighborhood. As a result, a significant proportion of residential buildings converted to bazaar-related spaces such as business units, workshops and warehouses and the neighborhood largely lost its residential function. So this neighborhood began to decline in all urban, economic and social fields. Since 1970s, several plans have been proposed to revitalize this neighborhood, but none of them has actually been implemented. The aim of this research in to recognize the obstacles of revitalization of Oudlajan. Descriptive analytical method has been used for thus research. The data have been collected through semi-structured interviews with citizens, residents and users of Odlajan neighborhood and through observation and review of secondary data (existing reports, statistics, books, articles, etc.). The results of this study show a lack of interest in heritage and historic spaces and a desire for modernization. It can be concluded that the obstacles of rehabilitation of neighborhoods Odlajan more than economic, technical and political, are cultural and social. In other words, the representation of heritage in this neighborhood is strongly influenced by the thoughts and ideological trends. The desire to “change”, which has long existed in Iran, was accompanied by the rejection of tradition and history, destroying everything that is known as old. For the revitalization an historic neighborhood, it is essential to establish a link between heritage and its social environment. Encouraging the participation of local communities in the development and implementation of projects for historic districts is an effective tool for success. But it first requires training, information and awareness. This awareness is a long-term process that requires interdepartmental cooperation to sensitize society towards the urban heritage.

Since the advent of modern methods and new constructional approaches in architecture and landscape architecture, traditional architecture techniques which were based on utilizing natural energies have been completely set aside. In this case, the art of Iranian gardening has a great deal of valuable achievements and experiences which need to be reconsidered. Owing to its special geographic situation, the city of Shiraz includes a number of globally well-known gardens such as Eram, Jahannama, and Delgosha garden. As long as Persian gardens are considered as important parts of open and green spaces and urban landscapes in cities, the main purpose of this paper is the study of their structural features along with the role they play in improving environmental quality and comfort conditions. From this point of view in Landscape architecture, a quantitative-qualitative study was performed for the first time based on two distinct samples of Persian garden, Jahannama and Delgosha, to evaluate the thermal conditions of the garden's microclimate compared with the local climate and surrounding urban environment in extreme summer heat as well as intense winter cold. In this research, the latest assessment index of the open space thermal condition named the universal thermal climate index (UTCI) has been employed to evaluate the obtained data on January 24th and 25th of 2013 and July 31th and August 4th of 2014. Field data has been collected by mobile weather forecast facilities capable of recording temperature, humidity, wind, air pressure, and radiation temperature on the pre-set grid in both gardens. Final results obtained by extracting data from meteorological stations and the achieved data indicated that the structural features of the samples can highly mitigate the microclimate condition against local climate as well as short-term and long-term climate of the city. So, the main achievement of the present study is determining the role of Persian garden in improving the quality of microclimate and local climate as well as investigating the role of garden's components in enhancing thermal comfort conditions inside it.

Vegetation is the important part of a historical garden; so that, by destroying it, it's impossible to call the historical site a "Garden". In Persian gardens, the plants have special importance, since in many references the methods of planting in garden are specifically described. Whereas garden's vegetation is a mortal element and its replacement and restoration is not easily possible, so documenting them as the live historical elements of the garden is necessary. Therefore, the main goal of this research is presenting a method of collecting and arranging the data of historical garden's vegetation, as a documenting plan, in which during the introduction of every tree separately, it is possible to manage the plants of garden in micro scale for every tree. The subject of conserving historical gardens, are also emphasized in International Charters. In Florence Charter, known as "Historical Gardens Charter" (approved in December 1982- ICOMOS), the classes of the plants as the part of architectural composition of the garden is mentioned. The first step for documenting all of the trees, in order to record the condition of plants in a particular time, is to provide a vegetation map of the garden by field surveying. The next step is defining a format for recording the collected data. The information like scientific name of the trees, their age, height and width have to be recorded in this format. Some parts of the information are recorded as graphic data (pictures and schematic drawings) to have more accurate planning for the garden. In this research, Fin Garden has chosen because of its importance in Persian Gardens. The garden vegetation map was taken from relevant resources, and it is corrected due to the whole changes occurred in many years. All of the trees were coded, according to their scientific name and location. It's necessary to choose a unit format for collecting and compilation the documents of the garden, due to the amount of data. Therefore, the format of documenting the gardens' trees is prepared by field surveying and using experts' experiences. For filling in the documenting form, pictures were taken from every tree in different angles, and schematic plan and facade of every tree were drawn. Morphological characteristic of every tree was recorded during field surveying and filling in the form, as well as the location data of the trees. As the final step for easy access and ability to update the information, the collected data was designed in a software format.

The architectural setting of gardens, reflected in their layouts, comprises some of the most important characteristics and features of these open spaces. In addition to the remained historic monuments, documents and texts, Persian poems represent a valuable source for garden study which depict garden images in many cases. The images might be either extracted from poet's direct observation or his/her imagination of a specific place and clear an obscured subject or improve our knowledge about it. The article aims to study a narrative poetic text dates back to the first half of the 5th/11th century, when Fakhr al-din As’ad Gurgani narrates an ancient story. The text is Vis u Ramin, probably a Parthian narration which has widely influenced on Persian poetic romance. The article tries to reveal an image of the Saray-i Shah Mubad as well as its gardens which have been implicitly described when the poet explain the relation between characters. In this study, the text is interpreted to clarify the spatial features of Saray-i Shah Mūbad. This interpretation will focus on dramatic theme and also its story line to find the mise-en-scene of the scenes of narration; the mise-en-scene that specifies the architectural setting of the place. Based on the poet’s description, Saray-i Shah Mubad includes a garden, a palace and a harem and it is next to a Gushk which overlooks a square and the whole complex is inside the fort of Marv. Sara includes two open spaces or gardens; Bustan, an interior court inside the harem and Gulistan, a garden in front of the palace which has been surrounded by an enclosure. The palace opened to both and connected to them by its loggias.

It has been in recent decade that we saw a considerable growth in number of published historical works about contemporary architecture of Iran and its modernization era. But paying far little attention to paradigmatic frameworks of analyze and incompatible approaches for the rational enquiry along without criticality to paradigmatic criteria, have been brought some scientific conflicts to their authenticity what this article is about. Here, theoretical basis of these studies is considered through three research paradigms as well as two architectural paradigms called inner-disciplinary and outer-disciplinary through rational debate. Via compatible study with works of historians of modern architecture and architectural history as a whole, some vast neglected areas of research in this subject are introduced. This comparison is arranged in two categories of elitism history and generic one and it is argued that historical research of  near present has not pay enough attention to generic historical analysis while there has been a rich body of documents and evidences. Then one of the examples of elitists’ historical studies of contemporary architecture of Iran is put under criticism: “Architecture of Pahlavi the First” (by MostafaKiani). This study is distinguishable from its counterparts by its approach toward social- oriented research and by its dropping of naturalistic paradigm that is common in such works in Iran. The criticism presented here is aimed to enhancement of historical-analytical approaches toward past Iranian architecture and includes enquiry of its content as well as form. Finally some advices for improvement of historical research in the field of architecture of near present of Iran are given.

The life style in Iran has always been a traditional one, in which the elderly are seen as white beard. But with change of lifestyle in the modern era, this role is being destroyed and lost so that being elderly is no longer seen as a valid period of life. This has caused reduced life expectancy among the elderly, especially those living in the nursing homes. As a result, we observe the lack of attention to their emotional needs, which has led to increased rate of deaths caused by diseases as well as increased cost and crisis for the social system. Therefore, it is suggested that by further research and design of appropriate settlements, which meet both the physical needs as well as the sense of usefulness among the elderly, we may reach to the possibility of reviving the position of aged people in Iran from a different point of view and find the approach to the appropriate concept of settlement. The purpose of this study was to identify influential factors on increasing the life quality of the elderly as well as to design suitable type of housing for them. In this research, in order to identify influential factors on increasing the life quality of aged people in nursing homes of private sector of Shemiranat area in Tehran city, we have used questionnaires, interviews and field observations. Then, the collected data were analyzed and new plans were proposed to design housing for the elderly with the approach of increasing life quality among its residents. The research method used in this study is exploratory factor analysis. To analyze data, SPSS21 was used. The results showed that among the five identified factors relating to the satisfaction of residents of environment, i.e. learn ability, sociality, convenience, the ability to walk and physical exercise, similarity of nursing home to the previous home of the elderly, the factor of the ability to walk and exercise had the greatest impact on satisfaction and life expectancy among the elderly.

Relations of architecture to exact sciences (mathematics and technology) in medieval Islam have not been investigated properly due to vast extent of these sciences and limited multidisciplinary studies in both fields. Furthermore, the recognition of these relations will not be achieved completely without taking into account the intellectual legacy of scientists of the mentioned era. The purpose of this paper investigates part of these relations with reference to mathematical texts and scientific encyclopedias from the 8th to the 17th century. The present research analyzes interactions of exact sciences with architecture and dependent arts in two categories: classification of sciences and application of mathematics in evolution of architecture based on historical interpretation method. The research findings show that architecture, despite profound linkage to exact sciences in design and construction stages, is not classified as one of the respective sciences due to difference in nature and goals. Although architects and masons did not have any direct relation to scientific and technical legacy of mathematicians; it is inferred from historical evidences that the mentioned legacy was translated and developed into scientific language by means of semi-mathematician and pioneer architects.