Comparative Study of Fractal Geometry Patterns in Iranian Garden and Landscape Architecture (Case Study: Tabas Golshan Garden)

Today, returning to nature and patterning it seems to be one of the most important needs in the world. Iranian architects have been successful in applying scales and connecting different scales to one another, as well as facing nature around them. Geometry, while being abstract, is the most important language through which the architect creates specific spatial qualities.

This article investigates Golshan Garden by expressing its features (rotation, egalitarianism, introversion, centeredness, symmetry, and multiplicity) in Iranian landscaping, while fractal geometry has features including nonlinearity, irregularity, imperfection and non-Euclidean geometry, chaos, and special rules, representing its naturalistic aspect along with the lack of rest and relation of geometries.

A descriptive-analytic approach has been employed consisting of two steps. The first step included library studies and reasoning to explain the internal validity of the geometry of Iranian garden. Second, the new relationship between the findings of Tabas Golshan Garden as an example of Iranian garden are interpreted and compared with fractal geometry to explain the external validity.

It is found from the study that if the Iranian garden has fractal features in structural, vegetative, irrigation and functional systems, it can be extended to the whole garden. Tabas Golshan Garden as an example of Iranian garden represents fractal architecture design with all the features of fractal geometry and inspired by the nature as well as benefiting from geometric flexibility, definable and recognizable throughout the design and using a form such as the pentagon found in nature.