An Investigation into the Feasibility of Façade Design Guidelines for Newly Constructed Residential Facades(Case Study: Bagh-Shomal District along the Historic-Cultural Area of Tabriz Metropolis)

Today the facade of newly constructed buildings is an important issue in the urban context, particularly the historic context, which determines the presence of building within the urban landscape of a district as the last step of construction operations of each building. Existing criteria and instructions for facade design of new buildings in urban-historic districts have been developed based on a variety of components, e.g. historic patterns and vernacular materials, as a guideline and framework for owners and designers; so that the facades can be appropriate and consistent with the historic context and buildings of the district and also in harmony with each other. Despite the attempts to meet the targets, a broad variety of newly constructed facades can be observed now throughout the historic areas of the city, which may range widely in terms of harmony with each other and consistency with the context.

Given the issue explained above, this article aims to detect the weaknesses and drawbacks resulted from the failure to meet the objectives of the instructions on façade design of new buildings in the historic area of Tabriz; hence the existing guidelines on façade design in the historic area of Tabriz are analyzed to investigate the dimensions of their feasibility for newly constructed residential buildings. The objective is met through multidimensional attention to the facades of new buildings.

In this article, the implementation process is thus qualitative and the data is collected through a descriptive-analytical method based on scientific references and field research.

The investigations on newly constructed residential buildings in the historic area of Tabriz reflect two major types of failure (i.e. theoretical and practical) in regard to the feasibility of façade design instructions.

Therefore, corrective measures and revisions are required theoretically in addition to the actions necessary for implementation of façade design instructions.