Decoding Architectural Design Elements Through Shape Grammar (Typology of 64 traditional houses of Kashan, Yazd, and Isfahan)

Typology provides a simple and diagrammatic description of a group of phenomena and establishes a degree of connection or affinity between those phenomena. Many studies have addressed the typology of spaces of historical houses, but most of these studies have focused on one or more limited spaces, which reveal the absence of structural connection between different spaces and the lack of a specific method or framework that can be used to typify all spaces and explain the structural connection between them.

This study aims to establish a connection between different spaces in introverted historical houses located in the Central Iranian Plateau Iran and identify the formal-structural connection between the findings from previous studies on the typology of spaces of historical houses in Iranian architecture.

Using the shape grammar, the present study performed a typological analysis of micro-spaces of 64 historical houses from Kashan, Yazd, and Isfahan. This study also developed the initial typology of micro-spaces and established a coherent system of relationships between formal typologies in the historical houses located in these three cities.

Based on the findings from this study, a two-stage grammar was first developed for generating the formal structure and then establishing spatial relationships between components of the houses. With the help of this grammar, a triple structure was developed using a range of formal structures and spatial relationships identified in the studied samples. The developed typology can account for the structural relationships between different forms. In addition, it can pinpoint the differences between different typologies in other cities. Accordingly, the typological model developed in this study establishes a structural-form relationship between different spaces in introverted historical houses located in the Central Iranian Plateau.