Obstacles of Sustainable Planning in Housing Sector of Iran

Housing has been a major challenge for the rising population of countries during last decades and the provision of affordable standard house for low and middle-income households has always been at the forefront of sustainable development strategies and plans, especially in developing countries. Besides, the need to high-density housing systems due to rising population has become a central issue to most urban design or renewal programs in the late 20th century. Therefore, residential complex has rapidly developed into one of the most important prototype of modern housing in urban and metropolitan areas especially in developing countries leading to unprecedented challenges from the sustainability point of view. On the other hand, despite existence of many sustainable principles of residential architecture in ancient era, diverse housing problems and issues have originated in modern housing patterns of urban areas due to consequences of the process of uncontrolled urbanization and industrialization. It is obvious that in most cases, ancient principles of sustainability which have stood the test of time have been ignored in modern housing strategies and plans leading to obstacles in achievement of sustainability in residential buildings. In this paper, the intention is to introduce and analyze diverse obstacles of achieving sustainability in modern housing strategies, policies and regulations in Iran.