Journal of Architecture in Hot and Dry Climateis
Year:2017 | Volume:5 | Issue:5 |Papers Count:7

Traditionally Iranian societies have been particularly concerned with their cleanliness. This concern was intensified with their conversion to Islam that made them subject to ritual duties. While the forms and structures of Iranian bathhouses evolved over the long time, their overall spatial arrangement patterns have been almost unaltered. The eldest public bathhouses in Fars Province, Southwest Iran, date back to Zand and Qajar periods. The present study investigates the structural patterns, proportions, and spatial interrelations as well as their correlation with climatic issues in order to explicate the role of regional climate in designing bathhouses in Fars during the Qajar era. Field investigation and library studies were conducted through evaluating the building plans and their major sections including the apodyterium (bineh), tepidarium (garmkhaneh), the passage in between (myiandar), and the service rooms at 14 bathhouses across the province, eight of which were located in warm and very warm and the remaining 5 in cold and moderate zones, paying special attention to their construction materials, proportions, ornaments, forms, and patterns of spatial arrangement as well as spatial, numerical and climatic relations. The results conveyed that: 1) the main spaces feature an octagonal plan as a standard architectural style. Hot, dry and semi-humid climates in the Southern parts of the province also featured a pothole room; 2) In both warm and cold climates, dominant construction materials consisted of stone, plaster, lime, and saruj; 3) The average length-width ratio of the whole bathhouse was estimated to be 1. 67-1 in warm and 1. 7-1 in cold climates; 4) The apodyterium always exceeds the tepidarium in size throughout the province. While the bathhouses in colder zones are smaller in average, their apodyterium and tepidarium together make a larger portion of the total area of the bathhouse; and 5) Generally speaking, karbandi (ribbed vaults or decorative gypsum lines on the vaults) is the dominant decorative element.

The thermal comfort achievement was not only for the interior spaces. Outdoor thermal comfort was a main science in urban design in all aspects. One of the main parts of urban planning is entrances, due to having better social interactions. The entrance has different roles as providing gate and administering the entry and exit, infiltration, equivalence, readability and initiation. Due to the research on the traditional building’ s entrance, the outdoor thermal comfort of residents has an affective role in entrance characteristics. In this research, the role of traditional house entrance depth and shadow on outdoor thermal comfort was investigated. The case studies were 10 traditional house entrances in the historical context of Shiraz. The entrances of these houses are like a horizontal shading device. The houses were constructed in Qajar period with random selection from 64 houses. The monthly maximum and minimum sun altitude angle was calculated and then for the hottest hour of a day (10-15) the shadow height was calculated. In this research the effect of sun azimuth angle was supposed zero. The monthly average of shadow height was calculated and with the comparison of the monthly and yearly amount of entrance shadow, the winter and summer shadow height and depth were performed. The ratio of shadow height of summer was 11. 61. Therefore, the outdoor thermal comfort in winter (with solar heating) and summer (with shadow cooling) (hypothesis) was achieved. The maximum amount of shadow height was 20. 8 m (for a house with 2. 3 m entrance depth) and the minimum amount was 1. 8 m (for a house with 0. 2 m entrance depth). In addition, the optimized entrance depth with south direction for Shiraz was 0. 2207. It was showed that the entrance depth of about 22 centimeters could achieve the summer shadow and winter solar radiation. So, in the selection of direction, form and position, it could be useful and could help to achieve the best entrance depth and shadow for outdoor thermal comfort. Finally, the formula of the best depth and height was determined and the shadow height, depth, direction and amount in summer and winter could be achieved.

Home is a place with which man deals during his entire life. It is the first and everlasting world that he lives and takes shape in. As man grows, changes and finds himself, home too becomes something beyond a mere building, it experiences and becomes a symbol of itself, a self that is constantly changing. From this point of view, home, that grows and finds its personality like its habitant, is not a place to "be" in but a place to "become" in. To achieve this, the present research suggests a home that is "interpretable", a home that creates new readings as human changes by the passage of time and the habitant can relate to in different eras and situations. Such home becomes a mirror, providing opportunities for diverse and creative interpretations, a mirror so clear that anyone in anytime can see his picture in it, talk to it, not only live "in" it but live "with" it. Thus this research aims to explore "the factors affecting the creation of the interpretable house" in terms of research quality and based on a literature review and analysis of the views and theories related primarily to the question of "interpreting" by investigating how the process of perception and reading of locations "regularity and order" and "irregularity and mysterious" in "interpretability" considered important housing and then based on these two properties, explain the factors affecting the housing interpretability. The description of familiarity, readability and synergy between the layers of meaning in part determined by factors such as housing and multiple meanings and deep life meanings, housing sector and mysterious indeterminacy are introduced. In this regard, sensory richness, diversity and complexity associated with multiple meanings and silent spaces and details, the archetype of spaces and elements associated with the deconstruct elements expressed deep meanings.

Historic towns are full of works and layers that have been hidden gradually under new layers over the time, or some various factors cause deterioration and changes in them. Nevertheless, the story of formation of towns' historic cores and their specific components has been recorded in the same layer. In the scientific process of conserving world historic towns, there are efforts to safeguard historical traces, clues and layers of cities properly, so through the meaningful communication between them, we can discover the process of development, evolution and transformation of a town in different periods. Unfortunately, some implemented projects in the valuable urban fabrics in Iran are leading to the clearing of historical layers due to lack of knowledge that causes irreparable damages to the structure of these towns. One reason is the lack of written sources about the historic cores and districts of towns. For example, the development plan of “ Imamzadeh Ja'far” (AS) shrine of Yazd in 2013 was one sample for an adopted project in which the context was completely neglected that caused interventions and demolition in historical context surrounding the shrine. Due to this attention, this article seeks to evaluate the historical district of “ Imamzadeh Ja’ far” (AS) through field and library studies and citing the meaning and form of the city and other quarters in Iran, so it can introduce specific elements and district structure, and state hidden layers and their relations to city development, that has been neglected in large-scale projects and in some cases has been cleared. The present study was performed by using a combination of historical and descriptive-analysis research methods. The results of this research are stating the reasons and backgrounds of development and the briskness of historic town in “ Imamzadeh” district, recognizing the historic route of “ Shahi” gate to the old “ Mosala” of the city and the development process of Bazaar in relation with the structural elements of the district, which is necessary to be considered in urban projects for this zone.

In the contemporary era, modern approaches to architecture, taking account their growing shortcomings in providing appropriate environment for human inhabitation and interaction with nature, lead to crisis in human life e. g. water, soil and air pollution. Therefore, new theories with various approaches are proposed primarily to improve, firstly, the relationship between man and nature and secondly to revive the presence of nature in the architecture. One of these leading theories is the concept of sustainability and sustainable architecture which attempts to decrease destructive issues of modern architecture and make a friendly relationship between architecture and nature aiming for contemporary and future generations to benefit from the natural environment properly. Even though sustainability has been successful to some extent in improving and enhancing of architecture approach to nature in some scopes, it seems that in the relation between human-made environment and human and nature, fundamental concepts and principles are ignored. Instead, much attention is attracted to limited aspects and consequently superficial concepts are addressed deeply to the extent that sometimes the status of nature is reduced to an ecosystem and a mere material phenomenon. Explaining dimensions and aspects of natural manifestation in traditional architecture, this research aimed to find a way out of problems caused by sustainability approach, to deal with its challenges and shortcomings, and finally to promote this concept. In order to achieve this aim, the appropriate relation between nature and architecture based on true understanding of nature is argued. Firstly, sustainable academic texts as well as Iranian historic ones, through Content Analysis method was studied while environmental sustainable architecture is criticized; secondly, based on Logical Argument method, the missing point of sustainable architecture approach is revealed; thirdly, Iranian traditional architecture was surveyed through the Grounded Theory method, focusing on the relationship between this architecture and nature. The study of traditional Architecture in Iran reveals clearly the consideration of three basic dimensions of nature: first, the physical dimension including natural elements, e. g. water, soil, trees, second, the intrinsic dimension (the essence of nature) including the qualitative properties of natural phenomena, on the one hand, and rules and principles of nature on the other hand, and finally, the symbolic dimension of the nature which represents a part of the beliefs of traditional mankind, employing some patterns and figures abstracted from the nature. Consequently, a new approach is employed considering not only nature, but also the essence and the symbolic dimension of nature. In this regard, architecture establishes a constructive dialogue with nature based on its triple dimensions. It seems interaction and relation between architecture and nature will improve. The manifestation of nature in architecture, based on its three aspects is illustrated with some cases from Iranian traditional architecture. This architecture as history testifies, through harmonic and evolutionary approaches, makes a true relationship with nature which not only derives benefits from nature, but also conserves and enhances it.

Theorists according to different linguistics paradigms, have tried to define the nature of language of architecture. Different views through philosophy have different expression about language nature of architecture. This paper tries to consider architectural language as a continuations of existence language through Islamic view. So, this research asks if architecture can be connected to roots of existence and by this goal is it going to approach understanding language for architecture. This research is primitive and author is in introduction of subject. Research method is both logical argumentation and descriptive-analytical. In result it can be said there is language for architecture rooted in existence language. It has some principles such as: appearance, likeness, interchangeability, uniqueness, revolution. It has some potentials such as: relation, narration of human life, description, making softness, having meaning. The properties of the language are: understanding potential of materials, approach to rules of growth, approach to natural proportions, attention to archetypes, attention to life styles, and stress on new composition through old ones. There is some introductory steps which are: assembly rules of making adapted to existence, attention to minds in architecture, seeking nobility of life, . … . Nowadays, there are some preventions to consider architectural language in hierarchy as a continuation of existence language which are: changing the position of human, problem solving instead of exploring mystery, quantity instead of quality, which must be rethought.

Difference and variety of residential architecture patterns in one climatic area can be the result of a variety of life styles and the ways of supplying livelihoods. The main aim of this article is to search about formation and organization of spaces in the residential architecture with regard to their economy and culture. The research progresses based on qualitative analysis, After a glimpse of theoretical foundations and previous research, measures for surveying and classification of the houses emerged, and spatial properties in various types of house were compared in case study due to architecture phenomenology. After a comparative study on some certain criteria involving central courtyard, abundance of spaces, ruined signs of Barak (production of textiles), this article, made a simple classification of historic houses that involved two groups of residential architecture. The houses with small courtyards and the houses with large courtyards, on one hand, or the houses with signs of Barak (production of textiles) on the other hand. The results of this study suggest that ruined signs of Barak confirmed in the portal (ivan) of small houses and there are almost no such organization in large houses. What is seen in these houses at the first look is the different duties of its various spaces. By analysis of mass and space organization and remained signs of Barak in some prominent samples of these houses, this research concluded that job and family systems, has been effected on this differences. This article concludes that those houses has in fact been production units of a pre-modern industrial city that combine life and work that realized physical embodiment of the word "Karkhaneh" (factory) in Persian language.