JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING
Year:2020 | Volume:12 | Issue:26|Papers Count:6

Urban form studies have been designed to understand the dynamics and complexity of the urban structure. Urban form has been assessed based on many objectives, approaches, and related indicators. Meanwhile, the explanation of neighborhood forms and the provision of benchmarking indicators has attracted many researchers’ attention. However, in these studies urban form has been analyzed using either limited indicators compared separately, or indicators opted based on the goals or measured qualities (like sprawling, compactness, vitality, etc. ) from the beginning. In each case, all the indicators and components do not cover a sufficient range of urban form indicators. Therefore, there is an inquiry to set indicators that illustrate urban form at the level of neighborhoods in order to interpret and explore the qualities from viewpoint of correlation of these definitive and clear characteristics. By providing a set of urban indicators at the neighborhood level, in addition to determining their quality, it is possible to compare the neighborhoods urban form and employ it in various studies related to urban form. To achieve this purpose, in this research, after identifying all the urban variables at the neighborhood level from different approaches and using secondary information in 368 neighborhoods of Tehran, the indicators of neighborhood forms and their quality are derived by explorative factor analysis. After determining the form variables and their quality resulting from the correlation between them, the neighborhoods of Tehran are clustered based on these qualities. The results show that 22 indicators and six denseness, access to open/green space, permeability, and diversity of activities, access to plots and access to public transportation components respectively indicate indicators and qualities of urban form at Tehran neighborhoods. Determining these quantitative and main urban form indicators at the neighborhood level can be the basis for all research related to the neighborhood form in Tehran. Moreover, the clustering of Tehran metropolitan neighborhoods based on urban form qualities shows that in areas with high denseness (central and eastern neighborhoods), access to open/green space is less and vice versa. The city center of Tehran is among the most diverse districts. On the other hand, in the central neighborhoods, the level of permeability is extremely low. In general, there is a huge discrepancy between the central neighborhoods and other neighborhoods in terms of denseness, access to open/green space, permeability and diversity. In sum, this research by identifying the urban form indicators at a specific scale (neighborhood) explores the determining and dominant urban form variables and their qualities at that very scale. Therefore, it can be said that among the approaches or goals of measurement, the scale has a significant impact on opting urban form indicators as well as the qualities of urban form. So, regarding the fact that urban form can trigger different qualities in each scale it is suggested that this concept should be assessed using the method and framework of this research in other scales to explain the qualities it can provoke in each scale.

Reusing the leftover and abandoned spaces in cities during the classical look towards urban design has mainly encompassed scattered parcels and spaces, separately from the connected urban network. The redesign of such spaces has no close connection with the urban structure as a whole, so the design would not be a wise intervention, leading to a deeper spatial and ecological enhancement of the city. In the historic and urban fabrics of the Iranian traditional cities, a large number of demolitions and clearances that have been done during the last decades has left a vast amount of non-developed lands and parcels, which have actually become parking lots and non-used spaces. The phenomenon of underdeveloped spaces and the increasing number of vacant spaces, which have no interrelation with the urban structure, reveals an urgent need for adoption of more subtle solutions, engaging valuable monuments and historic landmarks within a framework in which the great potentials of the heritage buildings, linear elements, and the whole structure are regarded and improved. Here, a new paradigm has occurred as reuse and redesign of the abandoned spaces became crucial to the urban design. The redesign process would act as such that all the parcels, even the most limited ones, could take a role in the rearrangement of the urban structure and this will show a suitable solution as all the spatial potentials are involved in the process. During the 1980s’ Gordon Matta-Clark tried to recognize a series of leftover spaces in New York City to represent them as chances for a new design, and contexts to organize new amenities and artistic installations. By the absence of the upcoming geographic information technologies, Clark only could manage to find a very little number of parcels accommodating his objectives. Four decades later, and by reviewing many other theoretical approaches emerged since the Clarks’ efforts, Nicholas de Monchaux has re-lanced a new look towards the problem and proposed the newly born concept of ‘ Local Codes’ . As the code-dependent approach to design has also been a matter of concern among the scholars, by taking the concept of ‘ fake’ estate and using the vast possibilities given by the GIS-based software, Monchaux tried to show that it is possible to recover a large number of vacant parcels and redesign them respecting the ecological and functional needs. This reintroduction of parcels to the lifecycle of a city, all along with the intent to redesign the lost spaces, not only gives a spatial opportunity even greater than the largest green or open spaces of the cities, but also revitalize the urban web or its spatial network, resurrecting with its focal points and lines. This paper introduces the approach of “ Local Codes” and examines it in the context of an Iranian city. Shiraz with a complete but damaged urban network is the case of this study. After examining the spatial network of the historical fabric, the spatial potentials are revealed and the process of redesigning the network has been shown in terms of a well-connected network.

This study looks forward to find a way for understanding the concept of ‘ collective memory’ in the historical urban fabrics. In this research, identification of the concept of collective memory, and also, the preferable qualities in relation with historical bazaar as a public realm and the impact of urban interventions about that, have been studied. The historical urban fabric of Mashhad is deteriorating due to the many damages suffered over time and for various reasons, such as urban interventions, and it needs the conservation and planning using principles in order to be restored and maintain its tangible and intangible values. Much of the historical bazaar of Mashhad, as a monument and original structure and inseparable from the identity and the core of the formation of this city, and the communications of its inhabitants, have been eliminated due to changes and transformations resulting from inappropriate interventions in terms of existing values. Thus, only a small fraction of it still remains named as “ carpet bazaar” . The studies have shown that factors influencing the sense of place stability and sense of belongingness in the audience of a historical structure is collective memory, which, through addition of meaning to the place, promote the spatial identity, attachment of individuals to the environment, and create a platform for interactions of a society with the structure, meaning, activity and occurrences of the place. The values associated with collective memory, which are considered among the essential factors in the presence of a local community in a place, are being obliterated and abandoned due to inappropriate actions and neglecting the values of the remains of the historical bazaar of Mashhad. In summary, the memories of the local community of Mashhad’ s carpet bazaar was obtained using open and semi-open interviews regarding four areas of structure, meaning, activity and event (as components of the place and the factors that form and maintain collective memory), and review of the sustainability level of their related indicators has shown the negative impacts of urban interventions on this monument. These impacts have been analysed and some strategies have been proposed to prevent further damage of interventions that results in elimination of collective memory, in order to achieve the research objectives and answer the research questions. Finally, this study proposes some suggestions for the future actions related to the conservation of the historical fabric's values such as the collective memory. To do this, implementing actions like presenting protective plans and preparing executive actions for the sustainable development of the area and conserving the existing values in the historical fabric of Mashhad and its old bazaar are essential. Furthermore, introducing a guideline for identifying, preserving and restoring the values inherent in historical fabrics is a very important issue.

Iran is one of the 10 countries with the highest consumption of energy generated from fossil fuels, and approximately 40% of the mentioned energy is used in the building sector. The consumption of fossil fuel increases the emission of greenhouse gasses and leads to environmental pollution. In order to mitigate the unpleasant effects of consuming fossil fuel energy in building, it is essential to construct buildings with efficient energy usage. The first attempt in constructing a building with an efficient energy usage is designing a building envelope with a proper thermal behavior. The previous research have indicated the importance of the specification of the appropriate thermal resistance of the building envelope. Therefore, the aim of this research is to specify the appropriate R value for different elements of the residential building's envelope based on the climatic situation of the region and the commonly used building materials in Rasht, in order to effectively decrease heating and cooling loads. This quantitative research uses a composite descriptive-analytical and modeling research methodology. The needed data to perform simulation includes climatic data and numbers related to R value, as well as heat transfer coefficients of various building materials. A residential building has been simulated in the Designer Builder software version 5. 5. 0. 012. This software uses the Energy Plus Engine 8. 6 to analyze the collected data. The dimensions of the building are 15x10x3. 5 and is in east-west direction. The window-to-wall ratio on the south and north fronts is 30 percent; the eastern front includes a door while no opening exists on the western front. Moreover, according to the default stings of the software, other variables exerting influence on the energy consumption of the building are also selected. This research examines external walls, roof and window's glasses of the building's envelope, separately. To analyze the thermal resistance of the wall, 16 walls with different materials and thermal resistance coefficients were simulated. The roof is examined in both flat and sloping forms with uncontrolled roof gaps. The sloping roof is also consisted of two parts, one that interacts with its surrounding environment and the other that its bottom separates the sloping roof from the living space. Furthermore, 18 types of glasses have been examined to assess the relationship between heat transfer coefficient of multi-layer glasses and energy consumption of a building. The results show that increase of the heat resistance of the building envelop reduces the heating load of the building more than its cooling load. Furthermore, this research proposes the appropriate thermal resistance of the different components of the building's envelope. The results indicate that the suitable thermal resistance for walls, flat roofs, sloping surfaces and attic floor are m2. k/W 2v-3. 5, m2. k/W3, m2. k/W 1. 5-2. 5 and m2. k/W 1. 5, respectively. Likewise, the results show that reducing the glass transition coefficient of the multi-layered glass of the window has no significant effect on reducing the heating and cooling load of the building.

Anything deemed as an object of historical study goes through changes with the passage of time. What historians do is partly to explain such changes, and periodization is a conceptual tool devised for this purpose. Periodization both reveals the historians’ position regarding the changes they perceive and the origins and results they assign to them, and shows how they understand their subject matter. In this paper, we have reviewed the body of the Iranian architectural historiography to determine how historians have used periodization to explain the formation of Iranian architecture; how their understanding of “ architecture” and “ Iranian architecture” affected the periodization they have used; and what consequences such periodization have on the historiography of Iranian architecture. This study reveals that the architectural histories have mainly borrowed from the periods already established in the field of the political history of Iran. The periodization reflect the major ruling dynasties in consecutive eras, and architectural historians have associated the works of architecture with their contemporary political context to the point that they have considered the state as the main force behind any significant change in architecture. Adopting the political criteria of periodization has lent historians a useful framework, but its dominance have made them oblivious to the possibility of alternative histories that could include more diverse works of architecture and offer different explanations. Architecture is a vast concept and historians of Iranian architecture have relied upon different definitions of it, such as a fine art, the embodiment of culture, the symbol of civilization, and the reflection of a nation’ s spirit. These definitions have helped them to identify the periods of time in which apposite examples have emerged in the Iranian architecture. These periods are mostly similar in different historiographies; however, they cannot agree on periods earlier than Median and Achaemenid to mark the beginnings of Iranian architecture. They have also distinguished the works of architecture as “ Iranian” by acknowledging specific properties in them; among which “ continuity” , “ monumentality” , “ historical value” , and “ aesthetic value” are recurrent themes. The idea of continuity has an important role in determining whether or not the more recent architectures, such as Qajar architecture could be considered a period of the historical architecture of Iran. The contemporary architecture has been also shaped around the idea of a period of discontinuity in otherwise continuous Iranian architecture. Current forms of periodization impose some limitations on how we understand the history of Iranian architecture. The cliché of 2500 years of Persian civilization, that has found its way into many architectural histories through the works of orientalists, leaves out long periods of our past as irrelevant or negligible. The political criteria of this periodization advocates the state as the main power that shapes architecture, thus historians tend to focus on the monuments, not the mundane, residential or rural architecture. It also prevents them from studying the works of architecture located in areas that are peripheral to a specific dynasty’ s realm.

The impacts of properties and design of the built environment has always been a concern for environmental psychology. Meanwhile role of faç ade design, as a visual effect of a building and effective way for beautification of the urban scape, is important and can be studied as emotional and eye behavior reactions of individuals. In this regard, the present study, in the field of psychophysics study, investigates "bottom-up" (color factor effect) and "top-down" (expertise factor effect) processes on eye movements during aesthetic judgment of new residential buildings in Tehran. The images are displayed in in two black-white and color modes. For this purpose, in a quantitative method of quasi-experimental design, the visual psychophysics is studied using an eye tracking tool. The eye tracker is known as a complementary tool in individuals’ cognitive processes assessment. In this study, five indicators for eye movement assessment (number of fixations, duration of fixations, duration of saccades, amplitude of saccades, and scan path) are investigated. The sampling method is voluntarily with random assignment, and the samples include 38 participants that were divided into two groups of architects (experts) and non-architects (non-experts) (21 experts and 19 women). The findings of the aesthetic judgment study show that there is a significant difference between selected images in these two groups for both color and black-white images. Architects prefer mixed materials faç ades while non-architects prefer the stone faç ades. The findings of the behavioral study also show that experts prefer images with the dominant red wavelength intensity and red / green contrast while non-experts prefer low contrast images. On the other hand, analysis of eye movement indicators and heat maps show differences in visual scanning pattern, preference for layers and facade features under the influence of "expertise" factor, rather than "color" factor. By examining static indicators, it is found that duration of fixations is influenced by expertise and architects takes more time on fixations. By a smaller number of fixations, they have higher fixations duration than non-architects in both display modes. In examining the dynamic indicators, it is also found that architects have lower scan path. On the other hand, by spending more time on observing the faç ade elements, the scan path length of architects is less than the non-architects. Furthermore, the non-architects tend to explore more regions in the presented image, while architects tend to focus on specific features of the image. It can also be seen that the heat maps pattern in black-white images is almost the same as the color ones, but the intensity of focus in the color images is lower. In general, the results of the study show a behavioral and cognitive difference between these two groups. Therefore, it can be concluded that the eye tracker as a complementary tool can be used for better understanding the visual impact of faç ades design and each of its functional indicators in human visual aesthetic perception. This can be used for evidence-based designs to optimize design solutions based on empirical evidence, scientifi c research, and other available information.