International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development
Volume:5 Issue: 4, Autumn 2015

Urban commercial quarters such as bazaars can be found all over the world, from Turkey toEgypt, from Tajikistan to Iran. In Iranian cities, bazaars have very specific and unique architectural features and theyhave played an important role as economic and social engines. In addition, bazaars are an integral part of the culturalgeography of Iran and have contributed to the definition of urban development patterns. This paper aims to criticallyexplore sustainable architectural elements in historic bazaars and their relation to social and cultural components. Thispaper’s theoretical exploration is developed by detailing relevant findings from a case study on the significance ofthe sustainable architectural elements of the historic Bazaar of Tabriz, and it debates the relationship between thosearchitectural elements and socio-cultural and economic components. A qualitative methodology, specifically in-depthinterviews with shop-owners and customers and in loco observation, was employed. Findings show that the Bazaar ofTabriz has preserved its sustainability both in terms of architecture, by rigorous preservation, and in terms of socioculturaland economic components, by maintaining an exciting daily dynamic and a healthy relationship between shopowners,customers, local administration and the city of Tabriz. The preservation of unique and authentic sustainablearchitectural features, together with the maintenance of public spaces, such as mosques and schools, benefits thepopulation of Tabriz and brings visitors every day to the shopping area of the complex, thus maintaining a constant fluxand social, cultural and economic dynamics.

In this paper the designing products of B.A. Sophomore students of architecture in TehranUniversity who were divided into two kinds of learning namely technical and skill-based learning. In technical learningthe subjective steps of creativity process i.e. "insight", "preparation", "incubation", "intuition", and "verification"were discussed and it was suggested that these steps cannot be taught but in skill-based learning the objective stepsof creativity process i.e. "combination", "mutation", "analogy", "first principle" and "emergence" in a form of aninstructional and designing practice were studied. In skill-based learning, three kinds of learning namely "passive","active" and "reflective are utilized. Passive learning is used by the student to discover the knowledge and skill of theinstructor. The active learning which is based on the idea is utilized for helping the novice learners. The result of thecase study indicated that the perception through creativity in the designing process is like building a bridge on theknowledge gap between teacher and student through studying the samples of architecture as an active learning andstudent's implicit knowledge as a reflective learning. In this paper the emphasis is on the values of education and thevery important point about learning designing is the access to the creativity as a product of an educational process. Tothis end the instructors' concern on the quality of improving the novice learners' designing ability and considering thesuggested model in order to evaluate the designing improvement is quite necessary and indispensible.

Walking being the oldest form of urban transport, and until the advent of major transformationsin transport technology in the nineteenth century, most cities were structured in ways that supported walkability.Today, there is a change in transportation which emphasizes, the traditional pedestrian paths which are increasinglybecoming non-regulated spaces when compared to the urban spaces for automobile modes. This change in emphasisis noticeable partly because urban walkability has rarely been planned for in the past few decades and ultimately mayreplace our automobile dependency. It has brought enormous changes to urban landscape in recent times particularlyin the developed world. Automobile dependency comes in different ways, forms and degrees. For instance, thereare few cities worldwide that are absolutely automobile dependent (where driving is the only form of transport).Even areas that appear to be highly automobile dependent often have a noteworthy amount of walking, cycling andtransit travel among certain groups or in certain areas, although use of these modes tends to be undercounted byconventional transportation planning. Contemporarily, reducing car dependency has been discussed broadly in thescientific community by professionals in the built environment and of course by the general public. With increasingvehicular streets worldwide, it raises a swirl of questions, how did we get to this point of automobile dependency andare the alternatives more desirable? In answering this question, this paper identified and discussed extensively thirteenmajor distinct trends that are responsible for the automobile dependencies in most cities of the world.

Value literally means to assess the worth of something against something else. The importance ofthe assessment of this word in the economic areas in a few past years has led the recognition of urban values especiallyin their historical parts. It is hypothesis that recognition, assessment, and introducing the existing values in historicalcities have a direct relationship with the selection of the intervention approach in the process of conservation anddevelopment. The purpose of research, considering the mentioned assumption, is to find a response for this question:How do the existing values in historical cities affect the process of selection of the intervention approach? This study isa fundamental-theoretical research that has been done by interpretational-historical method and the selection statisticalpopulation are the four cities of Isfahan-Shiraz-Tehran- and Mashhad among Iran’s historical cities in order to specialurban values. Obtained results show identifying and introducing the existing values in historical cities, in past century,has directly been related to the selection the intervention approach in Iran’s cities and regarding cases in which theresults were not proportional to predicted goals, it was because of neglecting the existing values in cities and nonmaterialvalues such as artistic, social, economic, and political values are related to the urban fabric values of historicalcities and the removal of physical values would cause the removal other values of Iran’s cities.

Fast and unplanned city growth, has effects such as isolation of village societies, threatening urbancores and centers and small and weak societies, destruction of open spaces and open and natural regions. Smart growthoffers a sustainable way for urban developing with appropriate use of available sources, increase of urban services,developing neighborhoods with different uses, making public transportation available and integrated designing inhuman scale. Green belts idea,at first was based on controlling the growth between cities, preventing from mergingcities and separating specifications and details of city and village from each other. Although according to the fact that,there was not an agreement regarding the possible outcomes of green belts and controlling cities growth process amongcity experts, some with conservative ideas, believed that green belts are stopping barriers and negative factors in naturalgrowth process of cities and some others, thought that it is element of separating urban and non-urban habitats.In first approved comprehensive plan of Tehran (2006), suburban ranges were recognized as protected range for futurecity developing. This definition has no more places according to the problems of Tehran. In this article based onthe natural and environmental potentials of Tehran protected areas (Green belt) and many threats for its exposure toresidential construction, there are offered strategies and protecting rules with smart growth approach and green beltdefinition.

Tourism organizations have become one of the main users of the internet in recent years bysetting their own urban tourism websites. However, not all the websites are effective to promote their goals andobjectives. An effective evaluation of urban tourism websites can help organizations on how best to employ them.Using the ICTRT (Information, Communication, Transaction, Relationship and Technical merit) model, this studytries to evaluate the efficiency of Iranian official tourism websites from functional perspective and their role in urbandevelopment. The aims of the study fulfilled by content analysis of two official urban tourism websites. The resultsdemonstrated that the websites were not able to support Iranian Tourism Industry effectively. The focuses of thesewebsites mainly based on the basic services such as information and communication. Advanced services such astransaction and relationship building were generally being ignored. Furthermore, a converse correlation was seenbetween complexity and performance of websites. Based on the research findings suggestions and implications inurban development were discussed.

As it is commonly understood, Urban neighborhoods play a significant role in developing urbansustainability as the smallest unit of city so that the formation and promotion of neighborhood identity, and focusingon social relationships would be in harmony with urban sustainability. It is believed that a dramatic change in spatialstructure of urban neighborhood include a decline in levels of political, social and economic role of neighborhoodsas long as they have had some disadvantages such as environmental pollution, marginalization, poor housing, socialpsychologicaland cultural damages, and particularly losing spiritual and material values as well in the recent decades. Tolimit these disadvantages associated with communities, neighborhood centers should be designed. The purpose of thisstudy will analyze the concept of neighborhoods and neighborhoods’ centers and their effects on urban sustainability bydescriptive- analytical approach and by gathering information through libraries and reviewing documents. This paperengages in analyzing components, dimensions, factors of sustainability and neighborhoods centers that integratedin the final model which characterized by practical-economic, environmental, empirical- aesthetic components; and,the validity of the used questionnaires based on factors of this model with 387 subjects (the selected sample) andthe reliability of the questionnaires by using Cronbach Alpha through Bartlett Test and KMO factor at high levelof 0/85 was proved. The level of significance of each component was reexamined by concerning their effects onurban sustainability. By applying multiple- regression test, the statistical outcomes reveal that designing based onenvironmental components have the utmost impact on neighborhoods sustainability.

Recycling process is one of the most important processes in the trend of sustainable development,a logical reaction against the problems that results from industrial age. Building materials can play an important rolein the process of a building formation or destruction, in fact, materials forms the building nature. Thus, the role ofmaterial and the impact of its recycling in sustainable development context cannot be ignored. Also, due to the rate ofdestruction and renewals that exist in cities and considering to the point that almost half of fuel storages are consumedin the buildings, the mass of materials that are sources of potential energy, should not be ignored. So, it is obvious thatfinding a fundamental solution in this area is necessary. In terms of research performance, this study is qualitative andas descriptive-comparative investigation and selection of the concepts is based on library and documentary methods,surveying some characteristics of recycling which in terms of quality and technique effect on architecture has beenattempted in this research. Therefore, the role of recycling materials and the importance of their potential energy in thetrend of sustainable development are investigated in this paper by descriptive-comparative method and appropriate andoptimum solutions provided in order to reduce energy consumption in the field of construction and building materials.