An Approach for Identifying Social Relationships in Historic Fabric Case Study: The Aqa Bozorg Historic Gozar (Passage) of Kashan

Most of the approaches taken about conservation of historic fabric have been focused on the tangible values and physical aspects. This happens while through the life and continuity of historic cities, historic spaces are flourished by means of their tangible and intangible values derived from their formal, economic, social and cultural structures. In this research, social relationships -within the defined framework - are considered as one of the constructive factors of the social dimension. It could be considered that one of the major parts of sociological studies is social relationships. Social relationships as a part of intangible heritage by increasing the internal motives force will provide effective inner conservation. Social relationship is known as one of the most important features of human behavior which plays the role of creating, preserving and transmitting the oral traditions by increasing social interactions among individuals. Moreover, the necessity of conservation, revitalization and promoting of the social relationship is not overlooked by anyone. Hence, the first step is to acquire and recognize the features that we call social relationships and a framework to deal with this category in historic fabric. The purpose of this research is to identify the examples of past and current social relationships, in order to detect and recognize them. The Aqa Bozorg Historic Passage of Kashan -a public space- has been considered as the context of this study. The historic fabric of Kashan comprises valuable structures and integrated components like passages, neighborhood centers and monuments, providing facilities in order to create social relationships. The Aqa Bozorg Passage was part of a long and important historic passage, including the numerous valuable monuments such as the mosque- school of Aqa Bozorg and the tomb of Khaje Taj al-Din, has been reformed through the development of streets like Mullah Habibullah Sharif and Fazel Naraghi. Great diversity of public, semi-public and semi-private spaces in adjacent passage with the ability of hosting large number of people have been taken into account for the reason of surveying. This research is a combination of library research and field studies. Advanced qualitative research studies have been used by the means of obtaining information and examples of social relationships through the fact that mutual effects exist within physical and sociocultural factors of space. Examples of social relationships and behavioral indicators are recognized via vast library studies and urban sociology research. With a contextual approach, examples of past social relationships are identified through interviewing old residents and historical studies. Adapting these examples with the current conditions of social relationships, interviews with residents and matching of spatial spaces and physical elements in historic and current maps and the examples of social relationships in them have led to identification of changes. Consequently, it has been suggested to determine the status of library information, field observations and interviews to examine social relationships. Some of the results of these include proposing a method of observing social relationship in historic fabric, creating a framework to identify social relationships in the urban environment, perception of the built environment and its effects on social relationships.