International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development
Volume:13 Issue: 1, Winter 2023

One of the ways to achieve high energy efficiency in buildings and an effective system is to utilize local architectural experiences. In this connection, the central courtyard is an element that was used in the past to create comfort in the hot and dry climates of Kashan, Iran. A large part of the literature in the past has focused on this space and investigated factors such as height, length, and presence of water in the courtyard, which are directly related to the studied space. This article concerns the hydrodynamic behavior of the wind under the effects of the length-to-height ratio to reduce the temperature of settlements in Kashan's hot and dry climate, aiming to yield the highest efficiency from this element. This study uses Fluent, Energy Plus, and Open Studio software using a descriptive-analytical method to analyze the data. In the end, it is determined that since the prevalent wind in Kashan comes from a northeast front, it can be utilized by placing the longitudinal direction of the central courtyard on its path. In addition, the optimal state in all models suggests the central courtyard has experienced a length-to-height ratio of 1to4, followed by a ratio of 1to5.

Designing the facade's color based on user evaluation is necessary due to the effect of color on people's evaluation. To evaluate the facade's color, its combination should be categorized. The emotional dimensions of color evaluation should be assessed due to the variety of emotional scales of color evaluation. Thus, the question arises: What are the emotional scales describing the facade's color and components. During a study, temperature, harmony, and weight were considered to describe the color in facades. This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the components related to defining the color composition's weight scale. First, some components were identified to determine the weight of the color combination through a semi-structured interview. Based on the results, a questionnaire was prepared. The final results were obtained using the Q method analysis with the help of color strips and HSL codes. Therefore, to describe the combination color of the facade as light and heavy, the facade with a light color combination has at least 30% openings. At least 70% of facade areas and openings have a hue with more than 90% lightness. In addition, the saturation of at least 70% of the area is less than 30% and 5% with warm and cool hues, respectively. At least 70% of facade areas and openings have a hue with less than 65% lightness and a heavy color combination.

Today, spending leisure time has become part of humans' lives which can take on various forms. Spending leisure time, on the one hand, and the priority of selecting a place, on the other hand, differ from each other. The main research question is How are leisure places selected and prioritized in a case study of Tehran's District 2? To answer this question, factors affecting an individual's preference for leisure and recreational places were determined. The statistical population consisted of 384 people. Using a questionnaire, residents' views on their tendency to spend their leisure time and their preference for the use of 18 leisure places across district 2 were evaluated. The theoretical framework of the research expresses that the type and quality of leisure spaces on the one hand (recreation and place aspects) and the individual's lifestyle (individual and cultural features in the geographical and social environment) are influenced by the time factor (access and availability), On the other hand, are influential in leisure time preferences. Research results indicated that individual characteristics, gender, age, and marital status were significantly correlated to selecting the type and leisure-recreation places. Also, Friedman test results suggested that as regards spending leisure time, going to cafés and restaurants held the highest thematic preference, while going to local parks had the highest location-based preference.

In a different context, the user's needs in a housing apartment are constantly changing; it is required that the provided house, by having flexibility, can always be responsive to the user's needs in various situations, which would be a challenge for specialized areas of housing, including design. To perform a flexible housing design, the architects face many different design solutions and variables, leading to confusion in this field. So, the objective of this study is to identify these variables and achieve an effective solution by considering their priority of them. The variables of this study were proposed in three scales of macro, medium, and micro according to the previous valid research studies in the field of flexible housing. Then, the variables have been evaluated using the specialist's idea through the Fuzzy Delphi method (FDM). The Friedman test has been used to analyze the data obtained from the questionnaires and achieve a valid ranking, which performs the ranking by calculating the mean rank for each variable. According to the results of data analysis, the characteristics of "spatial expansion and division," which means the possibility of space to be expanded (the expansion) or divided (the contraction), as the medium scale of housing design, has the greatest impact on the housing flexibility. On the macro scale, the "structure" component, and the micro-scale, the "use of flexible elements" provide the highest effectiveness in this regard. Moreover, as the medium scale, the modular design of space falls in the second place of influence compared to all other variables. Increasing the properties of spatial expansion and spatial division can be an effective design strategy for achieving flexibility in apartment housing. Also, modular space designing and flexible elements have been introduced as two solutions in the next priorities. All are considered small and medium scales and can be prioritized in designing flexible apartment housing.

Understanding how discourse is spatialized needs a conceptual ground for the discussion, and this study believes that the Foucauldian view is the right one. With a non-cartesian attitude, Michel Foucault considered the body as space and used archaeological and genealogical analysis to study its productive conditions. In his archaeological study, Foucault sought to analyze changes in knowledge or discourse through historical periods. In the genealogical one, he revealed discourse emergence conditions via mechanisms of power. Taking Foucault's epistemic framework, power and knowledge have a mutual relationship, and spaces represent power/knowledge. This paper explores spatial discourses in Naghsh-e-Jahan Square of Isfahan (1591-1941 A.D.) as the last public-government square from the Safavid era. Ultimately, the spatial discourses of the Naghsh-e-Jahan square can be traced by techniques of domination in different periods of history; the discourse of Islamization through sovereign power in the Safavid era, the discourse of modernization through disciplinary power in the Ghajar era, and the modernization, civilization, and nationalism through disciplinary power and biopower in the late Ghajar era and during the first Pahlavi era.

Iranian architecture started to develop at the beginning of the Pahlavi era, and a historical gap happened between what was identified as traditional and contemporary architecture. Meanwhile, some efforts were made to establish a connection with the identity of Iranian architecture, which this confrontation has been extended up to now. This study aims to explain the factors affecting the continuity of architectural Identity to reconsider how the Identity of Iranian architecture started to extend and continue during the first Pahlavi era. The qualitative research method, an interpretive-historical type, was adopted for this study, and to deal with the Identity, library resources have been used to analyze the selected buildings in Tehran city as a case study by determining the relevant theoretical framework using the bibliographic research, and both field and visual interpretations. The continuity of Identity in architecture initiates through the objective encounter with the building's physical structure, through its physical characteristics and recognition. Then it will be realized by the audience's vision according to the thought processes and eventually by comprehension and cognition within the life current, events and determining its location. The Identity of Iranian architecture during the first Pahlavi era has been continued by reviving the nationalistic and ancient styles. This has influenced the idea of architecture relying on Iran's historical and cultural memory. Despite their representation in new functions, some of these identical concepts have continued.

The term of brownfield and its redevelopment has been considered extensively in the world urban planning literature. However, the nature of the brownfields and the differences between how they are created in countries have caused this term to be defined based on the contextual and typological conditions in each country, involving a wide range of lands. Meanwhile, despite the high importance of brownfield development in improving the quality of urban life, this issue is still neglected in the urban planning system of Iran. Therefore, this study is aimed to propose the definition of brownfield sits in Iranian cities and their typology as a policy to help reconsider them in urban development plans. After presenting the adaptive criteria extracted from the relevant literature, experts in this field were interviewed to determine the main categories of this concept in the country’s cities using the grounded theory qualitative method. Then, the rules and regulations related to the categories were reviewed to finally define this concept and present its comparative typology. The findings show that in Iranian cities, the brownfield sites comprise abandoned sites or lands including activities that pollute the environment, being incompatible with authorized urban activities. According to this definition, twelve types of brownfield sites can be identified in Iranian cities, in which the activities are incompatible with urban activities and they require intervention for development, and one type includes lands with no function at present, in which development has occurred previously.

Ease of routing is one of the most important principles in the design of public spaces. Such spaces can provide higher desirability when they can communicate with numerous users. This study aims to find the components affecting the mental image, to investigate the compliance of the mental map of passengers from the terminal, and the effect of the variables of gender, education, and the number of trips on the mental map. The results in the theoretical part reached four main components: body, readability, meaning, and attractiveness, each of which includes six subsets. Then, by studying these components, a questionnaire was developed and distributed among the passengers. Software analyses were performed by SPSS. The results of the one-sample Chi-square test to check the compliance rate of the mind map showed that the mind map of passengers in terms of the body, meaning, and attractiveness is undesirable. However, the readability of the airport is desirable. The effectiveness of gender, education, and the number of trips on the mind map was reported to be 0.34, 0.14, and 0.27, with a coefficient of determination of 25%, respectively, indicating that the above variables explain 25% of the variance of the mind map. According to the t-tests of independent female samples, there was a clearer mind map in all components, and the analysis of the variance test shows that the higher the number of trips and the level of education, the clearer the mind map.