Architecture Design Utilizing PrecedentsThe Study of How Iranian Professional Architects Use Design Precedents

Designers usually use precedents in their designs. They may use them through different stages of the design process and to different ends. As this use is important, the study of its positive and negative aspects has encouraged numerous studies to find out about the correct way of using them. In this paper, the use of design precedents is studied by interviewing professional architects and the results have been compared with other studies. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess the ways professional architecture designers in Iran use design precedents, how they find them, in which stages they refer to them, and how they utilize them in their design process. Survey research is conducted using semi-structured interviews with nine professional architects of Iran, and qualitative content analysis is performed on the results of the interviews. The results identify different criteria that were used in the selection, study techniques, and adaptation of precedents, and reveal that reference to precedents happen at all stages of the design process. However, the type of selected precedents and the strategies to use them are very important to the final design, and reference to precedents cannot be limited to any special architectural type or to any specific stages of design.