Soffeh
Year:2017 | Volume:27 | Issue:77 |Papers Count:8

There are both pleasant and unpleasant forces originating from the environment which can either interest or disinterest the observer. Humans try to make a pleasing balance with these environmental forces.A most common experience of presence in the mid of high-rise buildings with non-conventional configurations or disproportional settings leads one to attempt to leave the disinteresting forces. This study investigates the dimensions and extents of the forces which make the environment unpleasant and oppressive.After a literature review of oppressive environments, structural parameters and physical aspects of buildings are introduced. Through a descriptive-analytic investigation, the significance of the body of the building as the main oppressing factor and of the size of setting as the key parameter lessening it.The results of this research can be used to determine appropriate building densities and proper mass and space configurations.

There are numerous concepts in the field of environmental psychology that deal with the interaction of the structure of the environment and human behavior. One of the most applicable concepts to the design of environments is the concept of “affordance” which originates from ecological psychology and has been widely used in various design disciplines, i.e., industrial design and product semantics. In architecture, however, the concept is not yet clear or explicit as regards how to be applied to the different phases of architectural design (planning, design, post-occupancy evaluation…). The successful application of affordances in other design fields hints that by defining and adjusting the relationship between designers, users, and built environments, the concept could help increase the efficiency and success of architectural projects. The theoretical background of the concept of affordance along with other key concepts in ecological psychology and architectural design, such as niche, form and function, and agency, are discussed in this paper. The research uses an inductive analysis method to develop a conceptual framework. It is evident that further research is proposed for a more precise application of affordances through the different phases of architectural design.

Because of the multiple dimensions of design issues, it is essential that architectural students as designers be trained in objective, subjective, critical, and creative thinking styles. This study is based on Ned Herrmann’s “Whole Brain Thinking” model studying the “thinking preferences” and thinking styles pertaining to the four quadrants of the brain.Little such research has been conducted to date in the field of architectural education.The main reason for choosing Herrmann’s model was that it categorizes people according to multiple priorities, unlike other tools which mostly classify individuals according to their thinking styles. The present paper presents a field study in which data was collected from 140 freshman and senior students of architecture and chemistry in ETH Zurich in Switzerland in the form of 120-question HBDI structured assessment.Research findings indicate that after the completion of the Bachelor’s program, architecture students are more flexible in using different styles of thinking as compared to chemistry students. This explains the effect of architectural education in extending thinking preferences of students, which makes sense with regard to the multi-dimensional aspects of the architectural discipline.This research shows that architectural education trains students to use their whole-brain capacity, yet intervening factors such as the curriculum and methods of instruction can tackle this effect. The force of this effect toward whole brain thinking can be different in different universities. Therefore, paying attention to the methods of instruction and diverse thinking styles with emphasis on whole brain dominance would improve the quality of architectural education.

Landscape architects use different sources of inspiration for generating design ideas, among them previous works. Since this is the most frequent method used by design students, the question posed is how can landscape architecture students be guided through the correct ways of mapping from built examples. This paper first reviews the works of scholars on the approaches to generating design ideas as internal/external sources of inspiration, locating the place of built examples as sources of inspiration.Next, by employing the structure-mapping theoretical framework, various mapping strategies are introduced as structural mapping, superficial mapping, literal mapping, and metaphor. The suggestions of other scholars regarding the guidance through the correct ways of mapping in landscape architecture design education are presented, among them, the selection of a good example, knowledge of and training for correct mapping in students. The results of this research show that promoting landscape architecture students in this regard has a difficult track ahead, involving students’ training efforts and educators’ expected awareness.

Tourist destination image’ is among the most significant concepts in knowing the perceptions and behaviors of visitors. The objective of this study is to explore the Iranian tourists’ image of Isfahan’s urban spaces by way of a conceptual model. The study follows a qualitative approach using grounded theory. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 30 Iranian visitors of Isfahan, 24 of which were tourists and six of which were tourist guides. The data were analyzed using Corbin and Strauss’s approach. Data analysis revealed five categories including search for meaning, sensory-physical dimension, hosting community, discovery of space, and contextual factors. A conceptual model was then developed to explain the inter-relationships of these categories. The results of this study can help urban designers and tourism experts to understand the needs and perceptions of visitors of urban spaces.

The new town movement has been a solution provided by urban planners in response to the growing population of urban dwellers. The rapid growth of these towns and the emphasis of urban planners on their economic aspects alone debased them as dormitory towns that were facing social injustice and cultural issues only after a short while. This is because culture is one of the dimensions of sustainability, whose ignorance in planning procedures can actually fail sustainable development efforts.This research tried to make a link between urban planning and cultural planning by extraction of dimensions, criteria, and indicators of cultural planning according to which new towns in Iran could be evaluated. The most re-appearing dimensions of cultural planning which can be measured and evaluated were extracted from the existing body of native and foreign research utilizing content analysis. They are cultural sustainability (in both native and foreign sources), cultural vitality and cultural diversity (in foreign sources), identity and characteristic (in both native and foreign sources), and justice (in native sources). The weighting factors of the upper-level variables according to the results of the experts’ questionnaire were calculated using swing weighting, and subsequently the weight of each indicator was assigned. The calculated weights revealed that cultural sustainability and identity and characteristic with weights of 0.261 and 0.232, respectively, were the most important dimensions of cultural planning.The evaluation results in the New Town of Hashtgerd indicate that the central parts of the town have better cultural conditions, but the eastern and western parts of the city shall be improved in terms of cultural sustainability, justice, cultural diversity and cultural vitality. Among strategies suggested to be employed include creating services and land uses according to the needs of the growing population, equitable distribution of services, improvement of cultural activities, and increase in the share and improvement of public transportation.

Conservation and restoration of valuable remaining historical sites result in the preservation of identity and cultural improvement in a city or a region.There are presently two significant issues current in Farah-abad historical site, i.e., development and conservation. Keeping a balance between the two approaches has always been a challenge. The convergence of the two approaches is possible by equalizing their criteria, strategies, and plans. The development process is currently heterogeneous and unbalanced because of the ignorance toward the site’s past natural/historical environment. The historical site, the historic town, and the natural environment are three main components based upon whose past and present values and their interrelationships the conservation of the whole Farah-abad region is possible.This is a case study research using a qualitative descriptive-historical methodology.Information was collected by field observations and library research. After an assessment of damages induced by development, the authors provided solutions to a balanced integration of development and conservation by taking into consideration the natural-historical value criteria and planning with regard to local culture and economy- promoting economic self-sufficiency of the region leading to self-conservation.