mojtaba roshan

Problem statement:

 Archaeologically, a stepped structure is recorded from the E. hill of Rabʿ-e Rashidi. Firstly, such a structure is thought to be a remnant of an Ilkhanid mosque. Later it is hypothesized as the basement of a large complex, from the Rawza arena, Rabʿ-e Rashidi, 14th CE. Nevertheless, in accordance with the topographic features, plan, spatial design, and architectural materials of this stepped structure, it cannot be the remnant of a structure or the basement of the large building in the Rawza arena. So, two basic questions concerning this stepped structure are its function and relative dating.

The archeological and architectural recognition of the function and dating of the stepped structure at the Rabʿ-e Rashidi provides the required basis for its accurate and methodic restoration.

This research is based on the archeology of buildings, which uses archaeological findings, historical reports, and technical analysis of construction to understand the chronology, typology, stylistics, and function of ancient architectural remains.Firstly, the technical features and architectural materials of this stepped structure were well studied by the field archaeological methods, providing a plan and site surveying and aerial photography by a drone. Secondly, historical reports that provide information about the structures of Rabʿ-e Rashidi, from the 14th to the 17th CE (Al-Waqfiyya al-Rashidiyya & History of Öljeitu & ‘Ālam Ārā-yi ‘Abbāsi) were studied. This allows the authors to examine their hypotheses by matching the collected information from such sources with archeological materials and architectural remains.

Abductive reasoning, based on archaeology, history, and architecture, considers that the hypothesis of the large cistern of Rabʿ-e Rashidi is more likely to be justified. According to Al-Waqfiyya al-Rashidiyya, the relative dating of this staircase structure, as the cistern, goes back to the Ilkhanid period. This structure was repaired in the post-Ilkhanid period.

Problem statement: Utilizing knowledge as an inexhaustible source of wealth creation has drawn the attention of scholars to the concept of entrepreneurship in various disciplines to achieve the economic and social development of societies, adapt to changes, and commercialize knowledge. In this regard, architecture must also take steps to ensure its survival and presence, and to synchronize with this concept in a dynamic and up-to-date structure to solve problems, overcome challenges, and respond to the demands and needs of society. It must align its traditional mindset with an entrepreneurial mindset and utilize its skill potential. The main question of this study is: What is the concept of opportunity-based architectural entrepreneurship? What is its structure, mechanisms, results, and contributions? And what are the components of the entrepreneurial model of Iran’s architecture presently based on entrepreneurial opportunities?Research

This study, while addressing the necessity of attention to the emerging concept of architectural entrepreneurship, presents a conceptual model of opportunity-based architectural entrepreneurship and examines the formation process and details of the realization of this model in the context of today’s architecture in Iran.Research

The present study is applied-developmental using a mixed approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Data collection was exploratory and carried out in two steps; first, in the field of architecture, the meta-synthesis method was used to find the dimensions of problems, deficiencies, and challenges of today’s architecture in Iran, and in the second step, the Fuzzy Delphi technique was used to validate the extracted dimensions and components. The statistical population of the first step included 59 scientific research documents, and the second step included 39 architectural experts selected based on purposive sampling. Through the meta-synthesis method, 11 macro-level problems, deficiencies, and challenges of today’s architecture in Iran were identified as entrepreneurial opportunities in the Iranian architecture field. All macro-level problem dimensions and their associated components were validated and verified by experts using the fuzzy Delphi method owing to the necessity of attention to the emerging concept of architectural entrepreneurship, and the initial model of the opportunity-based architectural entrepreneurship process was outlined.

According to the obtained model, to realize start-ups in the field of architecture, the architectural entrepreneurship opportunities, a large portion of which stem from the problems, challenges, and weaknesses of contemporary Iranian architecture, must be examined so that the architectural entrepreneurship process can take shape through the interaction of architecture with entrepreneurial knowledge and its associated skills. In this way, one can leverage all the benefits and advantages of entrepreneurship in architecture and use them to address architectural problems and challenges, create employment and welfare, achieve sustainable development in various dimensions, and create and preserve the values of the Iranian architectural community.

Statement of the problem: “Rab’e Rashidi” or “Rashidiyya” is an architectural complex. According to “Mostowfi”, the author of “Nuz’hat al-Qulub”, it was a cultural and academic town, in the northeastern Tabriz at the foot of Mt. Sorkhāb.It was planned and founded in the reign of the Ilkhanid “Sultan Muhammad Öljeitü” by “Khwāja Rashid al-Din Fazl- Allah”. According to the “Endowment Deed”, the town encompassed several public buildings including a bathhouse. Therefore, it was expected that excavations reveal the ruins of an Ilkhanid bathhouse. The outdoor building in the southeastern quadrant of the site was thus overtly introduced as the Ilkhanid bathhouse of the complex by the former excavators. The underlying question of the present paper was the nature and function of this alleged bathhouse. A precise understanding and systematic apperception of the nature, function and identity of a historical/archaeological construction is an essential and challenges facing those preparing any restoration plan are inevitable. No restoration master will then be able to restore a building precisely and systematically without gaining correct insights into that building and its archaeological structure. Analytical review of the architectural plan, internal spaces, and building materials of the building allegedly designated as the Ilkhanid Bathhouse showed evident discrepancies with those of the known historical bathhouses in Iran. Based on the falsifiable hypothesizing approach, the purported Ilkhanid Bathhouse could not serve such a function, and indeed there was no evidence to support its Ilkhanid date. The authors proposed the falsifiable hypothesis of a dying workshop or a tannery.

Developments in science and technology have had many effects on human lives causing the formation of new views and procedures in various disciplines such as architecture and urbanism. One of these views is the Complexity Theory and the geometry of organic structures such as fractal geometry that have influenced the urban issues. Euclidean geometry is dominated by the concept of things as having one, two or three dimensions. This is suitable for describing objects or shapes that are completely regular, but Mandelbrot (1977) argues that much of the ‘natural’ world, and it is also argued here that much of an urban development, cannot be adequately described using the concepts of Euclidean geometry. It should be noted that this discussion applies to the 3D material world. Mandelbrot (1977) used the term ‘fractal’ to describe shapes or objects that demonstrate repeating patterns when examined at increasingly smaller scales, which demonstrate scale invariance (Mandelbrot, 1977). This special quality of scale invariance shows up in many natural patterns that can be identified and quantified by a parameter called “fractal dimension”. Nowadays, fractal analysis and the calculation of fractal dimensions offer a practical method in urban studies at different scales. Implementing the fractal geometry in realizing and analyzing urban structures in different scales has been the course of action for a number of researchers so far. In fact, most of these studies have used the fractal dimension as a quantitative criterion for the assessment and evaluation of city structures in different viewpoints ranging from the manner of developments in cities and the factors affecting it to the relationship between environmental qualities and the fractal dimension in urban spaces. In other words, different individuals have studied this relationship while trying to quantify the qualities existing in the space. But most of the researches have focused on analyzing the fractal structure of the city and have done limited work in new developments using the results of these researches. Apart from other researchers’ attempts to introduce fractals in architecture, another crucial attempt to introduce fractals to architecture was made by Carl Bovil in his book, Fractal Geometry in Architecture and Design (Hagerhall, 2004). His approach is more practical and more concerned to suggest a method to layout the project according to fractals. With an extensive introduction on fractal geometry, he delves a great deal into the mathematical aspect of fractals trying to base his method on the idea of fractal dimension. He uses fractal dimensions to produce a fractal rhythm of different sized elements. The important point in this method that sets it apart from others is that it elicits patterns from the existing context to analyze and offers guidelines in new developments along a dynamic process that adjusts different personal ideas. Nowadays, organic cities with their complex systems have gone through a lot of changes. As a result of these changes, a valuable structure of such cities is suffering from decay and destruction. Also, realizing the hidden order in such structures and developing this system to new or replacement structures and developments have turned out to be the main concern of architects and urban designers. One of the problems that many cities in Iran are facing with is the new construction in the more developed zone around historical sites. The challenge one faces when being inspired by the valuable historical structures for the purpose of modeling for the development of new constructions is the fact that copying the existing embedded structures often turns out to be discouraging and self-imposed. The main question focused on in this research is how one can create a new historical-oriented structure while maintaining the environmental qualities of valuable historical structures without repeating the existing patterns bearing in mind the modern taste, materials, and technologies. In this paper, fractal geometry is used as a means to determine the degree of complexity and its desirability. This research provides a fractal analysis of valuable facades linking the calculation of fractal dimension to context indicators from existing patterns. ChaharBagh-Abbasi Street as structural axis of Isfahan has many historical buildings and nowadays is known as main retail street in the city. Therefore, improving the quality of space and reforming the facades are in priority. This street is selected as a case study and the fractal dimension of its valuable façades were calculated using the method of box-counting with professional software Benoit 1.3. After that the obtained numbers of fractal dimension were converted to a grid-like and we suggest guideline for new developments or projects of reconstruction in this historical street.