Rural Design, Particpantion and Sustainable Development

The fast growth of urbanization in Iran has led to the emergence of new values in rural areas of the country; which subsequently has resulted in formation of new demands in these rural societies.The post war and post natural disaster reconstructions of the rural areas in the country have revealed that in most of the cases the academic knowledge is incongruent with the social, economical and cultural rural context. But unfortunately, these precocious experiences has never concluded in a framework that could make our design and planning more effective.On the other hand, the successful experiences of rehabilitation and renovation in the rural areas have proved that the effective rural design and planning can be reached only through interaction with inhabitants.In other words, the active presence of the rural inhabitants in the process of decision making,planning, designing and implementing is imperative. It is vital to consider that participation is the most crucial factor in rehabilitation and renovation of rural areas. The other key factors are utilization of vernacular knowledge and materials. In addition, training the rural inhabitants how to use their vernacular knowledge in a scientific way is our most important task as professionals.