نشریه نامه معماری و شهرسازی
سال یازدهم شماره 22 (بهار 1398)

Urban development as a new component of the existing natural ecosystem transforms the ecological function, and deteriorate its quality and ecosystem services. The negative impacts of these changes shall be minimized and accessibility and the experience of the natural environment by the people shall continue. Enhancing the experience of the natural environment by the residents of a city affects their mental, spiritual and physical health and, by influencing the environmental awareness, knowledge and attitudes, encourages the pro-environmental and protective behavior. Eco-revelation, with an emphasis on improving the quality of the natural environment, reconsidering the impacts of human activities on ecological health levels and facilitating the perception and experience of the people from it, is one of the most appropriate approaches in response to this issue.The main purpose of this paper is to measure the impacts of the built environment on eco-revelation quality of the environment. For this purpose, we have selected two residential areas with different urban forms within the city of Tehran and in the vicinity of the Darakeh River valley. The first area has been organically created over time as a village and the second area has been planned and designed based on urban planning and regulations. The location of these two areas in the vicinity of the river valley has caused research samples to have approximately similar ecological qualities. We have used a questionnaire survey to determine the eco-revelation quality, i.e. perception of the households living in these two residential areas of natural environment quality. The perception of households was measured using a Likert scale. Moreover, some questions were asked to determine the knowledge of nearby residents from living species was. In last part of the questionnaire, demographic factors such as age, sex, duration of residence, ownership, education and childhood experiences were also requested. The results indicated that the eco-revelation quality was significantly different between the two studied areas, despite their relatively similar natural and ecological characteristics. The perceptual experiences of people varied significantly for all aspects of eco-revelation, except for naturalness. The perception of changing seasons and entertainment along with the imageability of the natural environment has had the greatest impact on the difference between two studied residential areas in terms of eco-revelation. In addition, enhancing eco-revelation quality will result in increasing the awareness and knowledge of individuals. That means that people with a higher perception of eco-revelation quality have more knowledge about plants and animal species. This suggests that the organic environment versus the planned environment dramatically enhances the opportunity to experience the natural environment, and the eco-revelation quality in this kind of environment that is intertwined and connected with nature is much higher. Eco-revelation quality has to be assessed as one of the essential qualities of the environment and accordingly, the built environment shall be designed to maintain ecological functions of the natural environment and to increase ecological perceptual experience and awareness.

Urban land is one of the most significant constituents in portfolio of urban households of Iran. Land prices also have the greatest impact on real estate prices. Within the structure of urban management in Iran, valuation of urban land has no specific authority, and in fact, real estate agencies, builders and owners, according to their own interests, determine the value of a property. On the other hand, the value of urban land has a direct relationship with access to the city's physical-spatial facilities. Thus, the prediction of land prices and the factors affecting it for homeowners, investors, tax auditors, and other participants in the market of indirect assets is a significant issue. If the partial derivatives for each of the representatives and effective features are obtained from the monetary value of land function, the results show the final changes in the balanced price of land in terms of its characteristics. In the situation where many choices and factors are involved in the process of choosing a residential unit, the human mind is incapable of paying attention to such vast and varied information and processing it. In these circumstances, it is not possible to evaluate all factors in the decision-making process for determining the value of housing, thus the best decision cannot be made. Hence, considering the impact of urban amenities on the price of land and the interpretation of the role and contribution of each of these facilities in the course of life, real estate value can be estimated based on its utilization of the city and urban amenities. As the results of the model shows, the price of land not subject to trading can also be estimated based on the value determined for the neighborhood. For the estimated price of a property, it is easy to use a cartographic system or geographic information system to map the value of the neighborhood property using a color classification attributed to the calculated price range. This paper studies the physical-spatial factors affecting the value of residential land in Zaferanieh neighborhood in Tehran as a case study, identified during the literature review and interviews with experts, investors and residents of the neighborhood, and using prioritize and weigh the components derived from the ANP method. The research tool consists of interviewing experts in real estate sector and preparing a questionnaire. For sample size Cochran’s formula with a sample of 80 people was used. Moreover, Excel and SPSS software programs were used to analyze the data. The results show that the components of visibility into surrounding areas of land (0.249), accessing to facilities and urban activities (0.051), the structure of land plots (0.011), comfort (0.065), imagination (0.441) and security of the residents of the environment (0.228) affect residential land price. The model for estimating the physical-spatial components affecting the value of residential land derived from the research in the case study can provide an effective tool for determining and controlling the price of urban land, as well as creating a real estate tax map for the lands.

Cafes and coffee shops as representatives of social exchanges in city places are relatively new in the showcase of cities and towns, which are suitable places for relaxing and talking with different people, especially for the youth. According to Oldenburg, some of these spaces are known as “third places”. Oldenburg identifies third place as the public and interesting space for people, which gives meaning to the informal public lives of citizens. They provide urban spaces that are the context of these places with survival and dynamism. According to the characteristics of third places and the needs of the youth, who are a huge segment of population, the third place is a good place to meet some of the needs of youth and to allow them to communicate with their urban space. Of course, as Zukin and Oldenburg believes, third places as public space institutions play some major roles in constructing public culture and urban everyday life. According to Lefebvre’s theory of urban space production, everyday life is embodied and repressed by power, and also is linked to underground side of social life, such as art which may come eventually to be defined less as a code of space. This applied research is based on qualitative approach and has evaluated these third places by content analysis method. This research is trying to examine third places in two main unique streets, Enghelab Street and Valiasr Street– between Vanak square and Melat Park. Its purpose, at first, is to examine of the features of the third places in cafes and café shops, which are interesting for young people as the users according to third place codes which are extracted from theories especially Oldenburg’s views. Then, it aims to clarify their roles on producing urban space based on the functional differences of cafes and coffee shops in everyday life of two main streets, Enghelab as a cultural street and Valiasr as a recreational-commercial street. And to know what is impacts for youth as a target social group in third places. The findings of the research show that cafes as third places are more attractive for young people in these two main streets. It also indicates that although these places have similar basic functions, they are different in form, which causes different function and meaning based on the context of exposure and influence of the characteristics of social groups, and accordingly, this makes the cafes and coffee shops different third places. The locations of these places are affected by other interesting land uses and unique features of each street that are found in third place. So third places in Enghelab Street have cultural aspects like book café, while third places in Valiasr Street have recreational-commercial aspect. The youth who come to these places are often the users of the first group in Valiasr Street, while the users of the second group come to Enghelab Street, and they have their own cultures and habits, which belong to different types of social groups.

Conservation is an inevitable step to conserve historical heritage. Historical and cultural heritage, including architectural heritage, needs conservation based on their characteristics and values. After registering the architectural heritage in the national heritage register, the recorded heritage is legally governed by the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization and is subjected to the rules and regulations for conservation of national monuments. The process of architectural heritage conservation, in addition to being related to technical and physical issues, also requires attention to various aspects beyond the physical object, such as social aspects in the conservation of architectural heritage. In the field of architectural heritage conservation, the role of people and their relation with these properties is more significant than other types of cultural heritage; it is because of the concept of architecture. As a matter of the fact, some factors can result in multiple consequences: social participations can cause dynamics of conservation process, however, on the other hand, they can make some problems like social conflicts and dispute besides preventing the progress of conservation process. The interaction and equilibrium between cultural and historic dimensions of past methods of living and contemporary needs and demands of the present requires elimination or control of misunderstanding and social conflicts, based upon conservative approach. In this regard, according to available evidence, Tehran has witnessed numerous threats related to the national architectural heritage due to the removal of monuments from the national heritage register by private owners. The hypothesis of the current study is the existence of weakness in the cognitive aspects of valuable historic cultural monuments in terms of importance of architectural heritage conservation. It also mentions the incoherence between “the rules and policies of architectural heritage conservation” and “needs and demands of heritage buildings' owners. This paper is considering the cognition of the causes of owners’ demands of removing their architectural heritage from the national heritage register in the form of a case study in Tehran. The historic urban fabric of Tehran is considered as one of the most problematic urban areas regarding conservation issues of cultural heritage, and therefore is chosen as a case study in this research. The question of this research is ‘what are the causes of social demands in the cancellation of architectural heritage registration operations from the national heritage register in Tehran?”. The aim of this research is to improve the quality of the conservation process based on reducing or solving related problems in the social sphere. The findings of the studies carried out in this paper indicate that various causes are effective in the above-mentioned social demands, most of which include: the weakness of the owners' cognition and awareness of why and how to conserve the architectural heritage, weakness in paying attention to owner’s needs and demands from the authorities in charge of conservation, non-comprehensive and incomplete laws related to the subject and lack of incentive policies for the owners.

Most of the approaches taken about conservation of historic fabric have been focused on the tangible values and physical aspects. This happens while through the life and continuity of historic cities, historic spaces are flourished by means of their tangible and intangible values derived from their formal, economic, social and cultural structures. In this research, social relationships -within the defined framework - are considered as one of the constructive factors of the social dimension. It could be considered that one of the major parts of sociological studies is social relationships. Social relationships as a part of intangible heritage by increasing the internal motives force will provide effective inner conservation. Social relationship is known as one of the most important features of human behavior which plays the role of creating, preserving and transmitting the oral traditions by increasing social interactions among individuals. Moreover, the necessity of conservation, revitalization and promoting of the social relationship is not overlooked by anyone. Hence, the first step is to acquire and recognize the features that we call social relationships and a framework to deal with this category in historic fabric. The purpose of this research is to identify the examples of past and current social relationships, in order to detect and recognize them. The Aqa Bozorg Historic Passage of Kashan -a public space- has been considered as the context of this study. The historic fabric of Kashan comprises valuable structures and integrated components like passages, neighborhood centers and monuments, providing facilities in order to create social relationships. The Aqa Bozorg Passage was part of a long and important historic passage, including the numerous valuable monuments such as the mosque- school of Aqa Bozorg and the tomb of Khaje Taj al-Din, has been reformed through the development of streets like Mullah Habibullah Sharif and Fazel Naraghi. Great diversity of public, semi-public and semi-private spaces in adjacent passage with the ability of hosting large number of people have been taken into account for the reason of surveying. This research is a combination of library research and field studies. Advanced qualitative research studies have been used by the means of obtaining information and examples of social relationships through the fact that mutual effects exist within physical and sociocultural factors of space. Examples of social relationships and behavioral indicators are recognized via vast library studies and urban sociology research. With a contextual approach, examples of past social relationships are identified through interviewing old residents and historical studies. Adapting these examples with the current conditions of social relationships, interviews with residents and matching of spatial spaces and physical elements in historic and current maps and the examples of social relationships in them have led to identification of changes. Consequently, it has been suggested to determine the status of library information, field observations and interviews to examine social relationships. Some of the results of these include proposing a method of observing social relationship in historic fabric, creating a framework to identify social relationships in the urban environment, perception of the built environment and its effects on social relationships.

Searching for and analyzing similar examples is a common strategy in architecture education. Today due to simple access to the pictures of examples, students use examples more than before. However, designing with example has a dual effect on design outcome. The main question is how to educate students to correct their adaptation from precedents? This issue has been investigated in inspirational design, case base design, design precedents and design analogy areas. In all the researches the three main stages include: (1) selecting the source, (2) analyzing the source, and (3) creating a new design, that are considered as the main adaptation stages in this research. The adaptation can occur in superficial or structural ways. In the first stage, i.e. selection, the important effective factors are the distance between source and target, designer’s expertise, designer’s goals, the type of source, and the type of source data. Sources are categorized into between and within domain based on the distance factor between source and target. The source selection is affected by designer’s approach and is related to the reading method of source. The data of source is categorized into four types: pictures and maps, seeing the real cases, the real cases during real function in real context, and other related architectural precedents. The reading of precedents can take place by expert analyzer or designer with no enough skill in reading. In the first method, the expert reads architecture to produce architectural knowledge. This knowledge can be used in design indirectly. In this research the second method is considered, while the tools and approaches of the first method can be used to educate architecture students. Each reading pattern or strategy needs special tools and information. The types of information that are obtained from precedents are categorized into six categories: form, function, space, meaning, cultural-social, and historical aspects. Each type of information can be read superficially or structurally. The correct and comprehensive reading depends on designer’s ability. Creativity has different definitions and the main core of most of these definitions is the concept of “novelty”. The recent definitions considered both aspects of novelty and value of ideas. To have creative idea after reading stage, researchers have emphasized on different strategies based on problem-solving, incubation, transformation, and idea generation skills. One of main effective factors in the creation stage is designer’s creativity. Inability in creation is the common problem of students. The two stages of reading and creating are not separated and occur at the same time. We concluded that designer’s characteristics are the basic factors and the strategies that can be used in architecture education include: selecting diverse precedents, comprehensive data from precedents, reading different factors to obtain a whole perception, scrutiny of analysis, reading structurally, adaptation training, and enhancing ideation skills. Architecture education has a difficult path to empower students for successful adaptation, and architecture educators must have the necessary knowledge and plan to enhance the students’ capabilities.