Journal of Architecture in Hot and Dry Climateis
Year:2019 | Volume:7 | Issue:9|Papers Count:6

The vaght o saat Square is one of the well-known squares of the Yazd World Heritage Site. Although the most prominent and most well-known aspects of this square are the the clock and the old observatory in the eighth century, But the historical and architectural values of this square are not limited to this aspects. One of the interesting points in the historical background and physical values of this square is the very strong bond between the elements and the architectural elements surrounding it with the structures and installations of water, which is the main subject of the present article. The motivation to start this research is the historical information that the author encountered while conducting studies for an executive project on the square when, in the process of studying and indentifying the historical background of the square, through verbal sources and interviewing the old residents of the area and the neighborhood of Vaght o saat square. In this process valuable information was obtained about the presence of elements and installations relating to water in the old square, which unfortunately are not present in the current landscape of the square. This was a motivation to complete the information by referring to written sources as well as visual documents and field surveys to verify verbal sources. The research methodology is descriptive-analytical in order to understand the unknown dimensions of the Vaght o saat square in relation to the subject of water and its related historical structures. The results of this study indicate that the location of this square in the center of the historical fabric of Yazd city and at the intersection of several historical ghanats has caused the water element have a great presence in the square’ s general landscape. And this is one of the prominent features of this historic square. From this place, there are accesses to three important Qanats of city of Yazd: Qanat Zarch, Ghanat elah-abad and Ghanat-e-waqf-Abad, and the square has been linked to these ghanats through installations such as the water reservoir and payabs. Nevertheless, none of these elements are currently present in the public and cultural landscapes of the square, and all are buried or hidden, despite being important evidences of the historical, social and cultural background of the square. The issue should be taken into consideration in square rehabilitation plans in order to strengthen the historic landscape of the square and identify and exploit these elements optimally.

Despite numerous studies on gardens, the effect of gardens and their parts on the surrounding environment has not been sufficiently studied. This lack of understanding among other factors has led to lack of attention and damages to gardens by urban and infrastructural developments in suburban areas, which makes it difficult to understand indigenous patterns and preserves the remaining gardens. In desert regions of Iran, many gardens with qanats can be identified in suburban areas usually near the foot of mountains. These gardens with qanats and mazhar-khaneh have had considerable effects on their surrounding environments. It seems that the relationship between these gardens and their qanat and mazhar-khaneh and with the surrounding environment has led to the creation of certain elements around the garden. Therefore the main research question is: what are these parts and elements and how are they composed togheter? The goal of this article is the identification of these elements and the features resulting from their composition in a certain structure. This research uses descriptive-historical method which includes field surveys and library research on examples of gardens with mazhar-khaneh with the least amount of intervention and development and with sufficient written and visual resources about them. Furthermore, only gardens were chosen that like royal gardens, had more extensive elements and features. Field surveys and the interpretation of data from texts and illustrations show that in addition to the main common elements such as the main garden, forecourt, street, buildings near water and the group of gardens and house-gardens around these gardens, there is also a common structure in the elements around them. This water-dependent structure has made life and farming possible around the garden and connects the garden to other areas.

Geometry is one of the most prominent aspects of Muslim art that has dominated all the works of influential Islamic artists. In other words, geometry in the thought of Islamic art is the door to the spiritual word from the material world. If we want to point out the importance and the role of geometry in art and architecture, we can state that geometry can be considered as an asset of the work, and its various creations can be easily understood by its definition and limitation. In other words, with the dominance of geometry on any structure, from the structures of a simple atom to the components of a work of art, architecture, and urban, we can see a single order in all dimensions. The order, which has always been disrupted by geo-disciplinary principles due to the neglect of many urban architects and designers, and has caused many problems at many levels of life. It is undoubtedly one of the most successful examples in which geometric principles are of great interest at all levels of art and architecture. The historic village of Abyaneh, located in the central part of Natanz, Isfahan province, has become nationally recorded as a valuable and historic monument. The level of utilization of the geometric principles in this village is such that if we want to look at all the structures of art in a superficial way, we can see the same footprint of homogeneous geometric designs used in all their structures and architecture; so, in this research, we are confronted with the question of which geometric patterns exist in the Abyaneh historical village? Are the same geometric patterns repeated throughout the artistic, architectural, decorative, apparel, musical, and texture structures? According to the content mentioned in the present article, to meet the main questions and achieve the research purpose, the data collection by the historical-interpretive method with the phenomenological approach and the analysis of information will be analytic and adaptive. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to recognize the geometric language in Abyaneh architecture by understanding the geometric structures that exist in all the arts of Abyaneh village. The most important results of this research are the use of geometric patterns, golden proportions, golden rectangles, golden spirals, golden polygons, the series of Fibonacci numbers and Pimon, which is a quarry used in all artistic structures such as architecture, handicrafts, rugs, carpets, textiles, traditional music, rural structures, and the way buildings are erected in the context of the Abyaneh village. In other words, it can be pointed out that geometric patterns and golden proportions are the common language among all the arts in the Abyaneh historical village, which are used continuously in all architectural structures. In other words, the use of geometry in this historical village creates the same beautiful and coherent structures in small artistic scales such as artistic, musical, ornamentation, textiles, carpets, cloths or on larger scale such as the general form of buildings and the way buildings are erected in Abyaneh village.

Traditional architecture of Iran is an exemplar of high-performance architecture which answers technical problems alongside conceptual and socio-cultural issues. For example, Shobak not only covers the building and has preserves privacy, but also has an important role in providing sufficient daylight and smart energy use for achieving optimum design. This research, with the goal of upgrading the quality and performance of the Shobak, by changing the dimensions and distribution of the apertures on it, examined the best possible mode of useful daylight and optimization of energy consumption. The research method used is descriptive-analytic and includes data analysis using Rhinoceros software, Grasshopper plugin, and ladybug and honeybee plugins for energy and daylighting simulation and finally optimization using genetic algorithms to analyze daylighting for an office building in Tehran. The results show that the opening’ s form affects daylighting with combined geometries having the most effect; furthermore, changing openings distribution based on the optimum design leads to an increase in quantity and quality of daylighting and reduction in annual energy usage. Finally, the results can be used for the optimum use of this traditional element in contemporary architecture.

Courtyard is one of the indigenous and old patterns and identifiers of Iranian architecture, which is seen in the physical-spatial composition and organization of most traditional homes in hot-arid climate in Iranian cities such as Isfahan. The aim of this study is to identify the physical characteristics of the courtyards in terms of orientation, aspect ratio of courtyard facades, proportions and percentage of openings, closed space to open space ratio and the ratio of natural elements (water and vegetation) in the historical houses of the city of Isfahan. The method of this research is case study and descriptive-analytical analysis. The data analysis is done in a qualitative way through comparison and interpretation. For information gathering, library studies, documents and observations and field measurements have been used. In this research, 35 historical houses with central courtyard have been purposefully selected and non-randomly tested. The results of this study indicate that the orientation of the 65 percent of the studied courtyards, is between 0-20° South-East and West. The largest aspect ratio (L/W) of the courtyards is 1: 1. 2, and 1: 1. 4. The ratio of open space to the total space of historical buildings is 20-50 percent. The proportion of water to the courtyard area in 70 % of the studied homes is between 2-10 % and the proportion of vegetation to the courtyard space in 73 percent of the studied houses is between 10-30 percent. The findings of this study can be applicable in the design of contemporary buildings with the pattern of the courtyard as well as studying and understanding the climatic characteristics of courtyards in the city of Isfahan.

Airflow in buildings is limited by walls, floors, and building roofs and it is possible to slow down unpleasantly, this slowdown, in addition to the imposition of an energy load, can have a harmful health impact on residents when there is energy shortage. Natural ventilation helps architects to minimize the cost of energy needed to create comfort conditions in the right way. In buildings with a central courtyard layout, the shape and proportions of the yard affect the pattern of flow and wind speed, and the size of the openings affects the volume and speed of the wind entering the building. Therefore, the present study has been carried out with the assumption that a significant relationship between openings and yard proportions of local residential houses can be found. Hot-arid climate has been chosen since it’ s highly dependent on ventilation and Shiraz has been chosen as an example of cities in such climates. In search of the existence of recurring ratios in existing houses, case studies have been selected in a historical period with similar characteristics and minimal intervening factors. The descriptive-analytic research methodology is chosen using documentation, photography, field surveys, and software analysis. Finally, these relationships have been extracted from four-sided samples with courtyards by calculations of volume airflow, the proportions of courtyards, openings, wind-facing faç ade, built area, etc. The obtained ratios have a specific pattern in these studied cases, and the proportions have limited numerical range based on the characteristics of the buildings.