مجله منظر
پیاپی 50 (بهار 1399)

Landscape is not a mere physical reality; but a scene interpreted by the observer. Therefore, landscape is intertwined with the observer’s mentality. All over the world, the exterior and physical dimensions of the places where we live are completely alike; however, the exhibition of “concepts” are quite unlike for the residents. In interpreting the outside world, the subjective mentality of the observer, which is inspired by history, events, reflections, traits, and memories, plays a central role. The observer reads the space as a text and then lives in a space where is perceived and understood by the observer. Myths and fundamental cultural beliefs are the most prominent sources in configuration of the observer’s mentality. The repetition of the myths produces the symbols of a civilization and gradually leads to formation of an aesthetic system. This brings an order to the living environment and introduces a series of symbolic or functional “landscape” elements that elevates the entity of a place to a perceived space. The efforts of civilizations to present their beliefs leads to the creation of unique art and architectural masterpieces. The study of art, whether scrutinizing the aesthetics of the artwork which deals with the quality and proportion of the parts in combination with each other and with the whole, or analyzing the beauty in the minds and beliefs of the people which reveals their preferences, is indispensable for the continuation of a nation’s identity. In a beautiful photo of the Father Garden (Shahid Abghari Garden) in Tehran, Shokatpardaz has confined a beautiful view of the fountain within a frame. It manifests the assimilation of truth and imagery; an objective phenomenon revealed in terms of mythological beliefs in Persian garden. The two square and circular ponds as the symbols of Persian gardens from the ancient and Islamic periods and they are built in brick with dark colors inside to reflect the above world. This image of trees and the sky presents a terrestrial-sky view of Persian art that can be conceived as the sum of truth and imagery.

The Persian garden is not simply a physical body; it is a ‘culture’. It consists of a set of art, architecture, plant orders, irrigation system, beliefs, oral literature, lifestyle, and aesthetics aspects; therefore, the footmark of the Persian garden can be traced as far as this culture is presented. Although the expansion area of the Persian garden is often limited to the Persian land, it has the capability of having a wider influence if we consider the garden as a cultural issue. The evidence presented here in this study, which explores more different aspects of the Persian garden, indicates its expansion to the borders of the Atlantic coast from the West and middle China to the Eastside. Some other indications of this existence are also visible in East Africa and the Swahili region. So, it is possible to draw a novel picture of Persian garden heritage that explain its authenticity, richness, and interaction with the other parts of the world and also reveal the reason for its continuing presence over history.

Today, social spaces have become a Emancipation way from mechanical life, high speed, and Enormous potential for attracting citizen and tourists, to increase the level of participation and vitality of cities, along with their impact on the surrounding urban texture has been proven in many successful global examples, for this reason many urban professionals and managers in recent years have emphasized the necessity of building, recreate and equip Iranian cities with these types of spacesThe present study aimed to evaluate social spaces existing in the historical texture of Isfahan, as one of the ancient and historic cities of Iran, during the prosperity of one of the governments that focused on urban planning, and this paper also examines the weaknesses and strengths of these types of spaces.In the first step in the present study, urban space, public space, and social space have been defined and the presence of these spaces in historical texture, and also social spaces of Isfahan in the Safavid era have been described. Then, based on experts’ opinions on the definition of social space, prominent social spaces of Isfahan have been evaluated. In the next step, elites of this field helped us explain the components of assessment and conduct a survey, and their consensus on the spaces was evaluated so that at the end, to develop a more accurate model of utility criteria of social spaces in historical textures can be proposed.

Color is an important element used in urban landscaping can highly affect the enhancement of the urban identity. Colorful landscape planning of a city, as a branch of the environmental psychology, follows, like colorful palette planning in the interior decoration of a building. Therefor certain specific rules and principles that have been neglected and not attended to appropriately. This research aims at identifying and evaluating citizens’ perception and their color preferences in the urban environment through their own participation and, therefore, effort has been made to analyze such preferences in a public urban environment (a section of Imam Hossein Square as an example) through the VEP (Visitor Employed Photography) method that obtains people’s opinions about their perceptions of the colorful landscapes. For this purpose, the evaluation variables were extracted and the related pictorial questionnaires were designed. The sample of this research, determined through the cluster sampling method, included three groups of residents, workers, and pedestrians. The qualitative and quantitative analyses were carried out using the SPSS and Image Color Analyzer and the results were incorporated in the colorful landscape planning of the research site to reflect the citizens’ color preferences. Based on the conclusions derived, some suggestions are: (1) sequencing the urban spaces and perception of color combinations in each sequence using color analyzing software programs, (2) determining dominant colors in each sequence and the needs to add or reduce colors considering their harmony pattern, (3) determining the dominant role and performance of each urban space and the color palette fitting its function, (4) studying the city’s prevailing climate and extracting the principles required for better perception using a colored landscape, (5) determining the dominating audience of each space and studying their perception of the colors’ indicators, (6) obtaining the citizens’ opinions and preferences to plan the colored landscape in each sequence, and (7) presenting the proposed improvement plan of the colored landscape based on the reflections of the citizens’ preferences.

Resilience, as a new concept in sustainability literature, has created a new understanding of the relationship between humans and the environment. In addition, with increasing environmental challenges facing humans in the new century, this concept has been extended in different fields and redefined by scholars of different disciplines. Landscape, a science that deals with the interaction between humans and the environment, has been no exception; in recent years, after the introduction of resilience into urban literature, this concept has now found its way into the literature of the field. Researchers are now seeking to develop a theoretical framework based on this concept to preserve the landscape in the face of dynamic environmental disturbances. However, a careful perusal of literature of resilient landscape reveals that not all aspects of the landscape have been considered in available studies. Since an incorrect conceptualization of the term, landscape, through these definitions lead to a malfunction of existing theoretical frameworks in the face of disorders, this study attempts to evaluate the existing definitions. This study also aims to review the available definitions of the term of the landscape resilience and compare them with the fundamental definitions of the concept of the landscape. To this end, this study first briefly reviews the literature of resilience in the field of urbanism and landscape, and then, presents the theoretical foundations of the landscape and its properties. Thereafter, the concept of landscape in landscape resilience is compared and contrasted with the fundamental definitions of the term landscape, and their discrepancies are discussed. The results of this study indicate that, in all definitions, the perceptual aspects of the landscape have been neglected, and only its objective aspects have been included. In addition, this concept has been considered as equivalent to environmental ecosystems. As a result, the term “landscape”, in all definitions, in the field of landscape resilience is substantially different from the concept defined by landscape literary experts.

The organization and renovation of Shohada square in Mashhad, entitled as the urban regeneration project has been in progress for the last two decades and now this project has been almost completed. However, it has failed to achieve its goals as it has witnessed the absence and involvement of people. This failure is caused by the perspective in which urban space is considered merely an object. Previous studies on urban regeneration and related projects show that the focus has just been on the functional and physical aspects of urban spaces rather than meaning. The negligence of the meaning could be the main barrier to developing a sense of place in cities. To address this gap, the current study employed a qualitative and holistic approach to evaluating the Shohada square landscape. The study included three phases: The first phase involved a detailed field study and data collection on the physical attributes, activities, and meaning of space by the researcher. In the second phase, data about Shohada square was collected from available research papers, newspapers, reports,etc.and were further analyzed. Using the content analysis the role of the square was scrutinized from the citizens’ perspectives. To this end, in-depth interviews were conducted with urban users. The findings revealed that the people’s perceptions of Shohada square fall into five categories: “city center”, “shrine threshold”, “public urban space”, “cold and soulless” and “identityless”. These factors reflect the meanings of Shohada square in the citizen’s minds. The study further drew upon the data from three phases to evaluate Shohada square through the lens of its citizens and then attempted to identify the factors threatening the role of this square. Based on the findings, the study concludes that for the revitalization of Shohada Square, three main aims and relatively policies and strategies must be taken into account namely: increasing the space vitality and its transformation to a civil space, reproducing and adding meaning and keeping the identity of space as well as the spatial reorganization of space for bringing people to space.

The traditional Qazvin gardens were generally fruitful gardens that were located far away from the city of Qazvin. These gardens are more than a thousand years old and two thousand five hundred acres of Qazvin's area are located in three directions east, south and west. One of the references to written history is Nasser Khosrow's travelogue, which represents the history of this garden complex In the past decades, the proliferation of Qazvin has caused great damage to the identity and domain of traditional Qazvin gardens and has endangered the traditional Qazvin gardens. Factors such as urban development, population growth, rising land levels, social and economic changes, rising land prices, the construction of a landfill site and, of course, mismanagement of urban management have caused this devastation. Lack of consistent and contemporary implementation of the people's lives and lack of a comprehensive plan for defining a variety of functions for these parts of the city that caused the destruction, drying, alteration and dismantling of this green and vital infrastructure of Qazvin. Mullah Khalila Park in the traditional garden garden of Qazvin is one of the few efforts that the Qazvin municipality aimed at reviving the traditional gardens and freshening them to the modern life of the citizens of Qazvin with the needs of their modern life. This park was opened in 2015 and now it is used by people of Qazvin on a daily basis. The present research tries to increase the level of continuity and loyalty of the park's design to the traditional Qazvin gardens, which today serve as a pilot example for live livelihoods. Qazvin gardens are considered, to be analyzed in traditional gardens' structures and patterns.