The Resident's Experiences of Physical Integration in Settlement Developments: A Case Study of Historical Village of Qahi

Population growth has always brought about the need for settlement developments and new constructions in recent years. Contemporary settlement developments, being too hasty and commensurate with western urban pattern, have been formed highly different from the local settlement context and urban pattern .As, they have turned the integration of newborn settlement components with old textures into a serious challenge in design sciences especially urban designing. Qehi village as one of the historic rural settlements with hundreds years of antiquity and organic settlement pattern, like many of the human settlements has been exposed to these kinds of new development. The rural development has been implemented based on urban development plans in the form of contemporary urban grid pattern which is at odds with the organic pattern of the village. Practically, in terms of the form, the integration of the old and new fabrics and the historic identity and characteristics of the Qehi village has been destroyed in a way that the physical segregation between the old and new textures is clear.
Considering the historic nature and the perceptions of local inhabitants of the Qehi village, this research tries to design a model of influencing features on the cohesion experience and settlement integration of the residents between the old and new fabric of human settlements by emphasizing on the level of resident's experience about integration and effective aspects of integration of development plan of valuable settlements fabrics. Qualitative methods and content analysis were used in this study. Data collection in site study was done through direct site observation by trained observers and also through implementing mass-space, space, place, and Roger Trancik connection techniques by urban designers in the rural context. . Interviews were transcribed and done for research themes extraction analyzing through content analysis method and finally the existing concepts and themes were extracted to a conceptual model. In the final stage, the analysis of the field observations was conducted. Furthermore, 10 of the original residents from both old and new rural fabrics have been interviewed regarding their experiences of integration. The data collection procedure was continuous until the theoretical saturation to be reliable for next step steps especially data analyzing.
Data analysis reveals that resident's experience of settlement form integration and the physical cohesion of the old and new settlements can be achieved through some themes such as “distinctiveness of borders”, “connectivity”, “anchor points continuity”, “contemporization in architectural style”, “belonging to place”, “the continuity of the place identity”, and “the quality of life”. in other word, according to interviewees’ opinions these factors plays the most paramount role in promoting the integration between two mentioned parts of village. The results explored from the resident's experience in the settlement cohesion of new and old fabrics help these features be utilized in the levels of settlement intervention and social interaction enhancement of the residents. Additionally, these results provide opportunity for being applied in the two aspects of procedural and substantial.