Evaluation of the Residential Facades in Tehran from the Neuro-Aesthetics Approach

In recent years, the study of apartment buildings is important because of their growth in Iran. This issue has been neglected in contemporary architecture and landscape research. Previous studies show that one of the factors affecting the mood of apartment dwellers is aesthetic criteria. The purpose of this study is to redefine the aesthetic criteria in evaluating the residential facade of Tehran to improve the quality of experience of residents. To this end, in the first step, the aesthetics criteria of the facade were extracted from the literature on neuro-architectural research. In the second step, according to the mentioned criteria, the residents of the apartments were interviewed. This research is an applied study and its method is qualitative. Sixteen articles were content analyzed in a systematic review. Eleven physical criteria and 8 semantic criteria for the aesthetic of residential facades were extracted. Classification between criteria was done through open-ended interviews with 14 apartment residents in Tehran. Findings showed that among the physical and semantical criteria of the facade, “vegetation”, “color and materials”, and “surface of the openings” have a positive impact on the perception of the aesthetics of the facade. The results show that the residential facades of Tehran are at a low level in terms of semantic and symbolic aesthetic. At the same time, these facades are not acceptable in terms of emotional aesthetic and are only visually enhanced.