نشریه نامه معماری و شهرسازی
سال پانزدهم شماره 39 (تابستان 1402)

The concept of dwelling is complex and dynamic. Therefore, the existing theories and views on the concept of dwelling, which are often presented in the conditions and structures of formal settlements, do not have the necessary effectiveness in other settlements. Due to the mental and interactive nature of the concept of dwelling, its experience and perception in different residents can be different from the universal and conventional theoretical views in the field of dwelling. Therefore, considering the development of informal settlements and the importance of studying and recognizing them accurately, as a basis for any action in the environment of informal settlements, which are recognized with different characteristics, can be thought-provoking. The purpose of this study is to identify the perception and experience of residents of dwelling and how its meaning and conceptualization in the field of informal settlement and related concepts and by examining the case study of Mortezagerd informal settlement. This research falls into the category of interpretive paradigm and from the epistemological point of view, emphasizes the researcher's action and interaction with the research subject and at least an objective separateness from the research participants. In this research, manifest inductive qualitative content analysis has been used as a research method in order to interpret the textual data obtained from semi-structured in-depth interviews and field observations. The data were analyzed through a systematic process with the aim of classifying concepts up to four levels of abstraction. The selection of participants in this study was purposeful and in line with the development of concepts to achieve saturation. The findings of this study indicate that in informal settlements, the dynamic concept of dwelling and its defining components such as peace, tranquility and security in different stages of dwelling is interpreted differently and its transformation is observed. Once (phase and first stage of residence) through living within large families and a sense of collective belonging and another time (phase and second stage of residence), through intra-group competition and contradiction, promotion of capital and quality of life. In other words, this study, through the interpretation and analysis of the content of residents' perceptions, shows two different and metamorphic stages in the concept of dwelling: First, "meaningfulness of living within large families", and then, the rotation of the concept and "intra-group competition and contradiction" with the aim of promoting capital and occupying space. Also, the development of previous research in order to achieve the concept of dwelling in informal settlements with a focus on Morteza Gerd informal settlement is considered; Concepts that express how to achieve the components of housing in the general sense, such as peace, habitation, construction, nurturing, etc., but in different ways. The novelty of the present article is to show the difference in the meaning of dwelling in formal and informal settlements and to refine the mentioned concept and the defining components of each in different stages of informal settlement.

The notion of public interest has had a critical role in planning thought and practice. It has identified and legitimated planning as a discipline and a profession. However, it is an ambiguous and vague concept at the same time, and there have been countless debates on its nature and definition. Various experimental and concrete analyses of the planning practices have demonstrated a gap between what is theoretically defined as public interest and what comes to actualize in practice. This gap is a crucial reason for the de-legitimization of contemporary planning. Accordingly, the role of government and the planning system as the representative and advocates of the public has increasingly been questioned. Such criticisms aim to raise the awareness of planners about the claimed public interest and their role in the maintenance of power relations, pretending to support the public interest. And such self-awareness is a prerequisite for any ontological transformation in planning and its so-called public interest. In Iran, planning has emerged in an entirely different context from democratic countries. Consequently, it is even more complicated to reflect on the public interest as the final cause for planning. In this context, one possible way to increase the self-awareness of planners is to reflect on what has happened in reality. This article aims to uncover the planning reality in Iran and its relation to the notion of public interest. Thereby, it focuses on a land-use conversion plan in Chamestan through a cartographic methodology of tracing. It is a methodology based on Deleuzian pragmatics and Foucauldian genealogy, developed by Jean Hillier in planning. Using this analytical framework, this article addresses three questions: which assemblages have emerged, and how have they come into being? What relations (games of power, knowledge, and subjectivation) have existed between which actants? And which assemblage has served constituent power, and which one has increased the potential of constitutive power? The results of this research show there have emerged three assemblages with shared interest during the process of this plan. To advocate its position and justification, each assemblage uses its formal and informal authority and power (such as the power to issue permission for land use conversion, voting right, money, and so on), produces new knowledge and technical documents (such as feasibility plan, or environmental impact assessment plan and so on), and subjectivizes both themselves (as the advocate of the public, the experts, and so on) and the other actant (as the bothersome, the squatter, the populist). These relations in and between the assemblages imply that what determined the final decision in this process has not been the public interest but the games of power by the assemblages, who were advocating their individual or organizational interests. However, there is a trace of constitutive and destabilizing forces in this planning process, including the actants who escape the apparatuses of capture and do not obey the rules of the formal planning system.

In Iran, despite the increasing attention of policymakers and planners to the need and importance of applying participatory urban planning approaches at different scales, urban development plans (UDPs) with a participatory approach often face failures and problems such as stopping the process of planning in the middle stages, failure of participatory planning processes due to lack of proper grounding, or non-implementation of prepared plans. Therefore, Tehran, with the boldest background in the field of urban development planning (UDP), as the country’s capital and the first demographic and political city, is selected as the case of this study. The research aims to recognize the institutional barriers to successfully applying participatory approaches in UDP, which leads to the classification of a wide range of obstacles due to the inefficiency of formal and informal institutions involved in the UDP process and determining how and to what extent each category influences the outputs of the planning process. The research design is based on a parallel multistrand mixed method to test the structural model resulting from the relationships of the main variables identified in the theoretical framework of macro-level research by quantitative modeling of structural equations and, in parallel, formulation of an independent theoretical model based on the findings of qualitative content analysis in the case study scale. In the "structural model of institutional analysis of urban development and participation relations" framework, critical paths and relationships governing how formal and informal institutions affect the process of Tehran citizens’ participation in urban development plans are identified at the macro level. Also, to scrutinize the existing processes and document the process and product of UDP in Tehran, the results of in-depth and semi-structured interviews conducted during the research have been categorized into three main categories. The first category aims to confirm the relationships between research variables in the context of the study sample. The second category aims to gain specialized knowledge of the current situation of pilot plans in the subject area of research, and the third category aims to extract and classify the institutional barriers of participatory urban development in Tehran in the form of sub-categories and related conceptual spectrums. Finally, to answer the central question of the research, by combining quantitative and qualitative findings of the research with a descriptive-explanatory approach, "Integrated conceptual model of institutional structure and barriers to participatory UDP in Tehran" and with a prescriptive approach, "strategic implications for alleviation of institutional barriers of Public Participation in Tehran UDP" are presented. Framing a theoretical model of integrated and simultaneous analysis of the relationship between urban development, public participation and institutions, and the obstacles of participatory UDP in Tehran is the main research achievement. This analysis framework can be developed and exploited at three levels in future applied research. First, at the operational level to produce practical outcomes of participatory planning. Second, at the policy level for decision-making and policy-making in the form of constraints and rules of collective choice affecting the structure of participatory planning action situations; and third, at the legal level to determine the composition of participants competent for policy-making and determining institutional rules in this regard.

According to the theory of life cycles, the choice of housing and subsequent movement of people are influenced by several factors including the social and economic status of households. Migration is one of the conditions that are important in the selection of housing in the subset of social and economic status as a difference between resident and migrant occupational groups and the difference between the first and second generation of immigrants. Tehran, as the capital, has been involved with the issue of immigration for many years. The analysis of migration statistics from the 1950s to the 2010s shows that in recent decades, unlike in the 1950-1960s, the dominant pattern of migration in Tehran has changed from the rural-urban pattern to the city-city. Therefore, it seems that the recent group of immigrants who migrated from small cities have detectable differences in their skills and education level compared to the first group of immigrants who migrate from rural areas. Therefore, the subject of the research is to identify the differences in the choice of housing in the occupational group of workers between migrants and residents in Tehran. Following the research goals, we separate workers into two subgroups; skilled and not-skilled workers, simultaneously they have been divided into two groups of migrant and non-migrant. Based on this, the main question is set as follows: Is migration an influencing factor in the choice of housing for labor groups in Tehran? In other words, is immigration more effective in the choice of housing for labor groups or they're belonging to the considered occupational group? The pattern of housing selection is defined as a logit regression function, and the research data is done as a secondary analysis of the neighborhood quality monitoring plan in Tehran. The results show that migration is not an effective factor in the choice of the neighborhood in worker groups. According to two indicators: the per capita built-up area and building age, migrant groups are in a worse condition than non-migrant workers. The difference in the ownership index in the group of skilled migrant workers shows a clear pattern of behavior that seems to be resorted to creating continuity of residence in the metropolis. In a situation where the city of Tehran directs its population overflow to the surrounding satellite cities and villages, the group of skilled migrant workers who have moved to Tehran with financial resources and the possibility of obtaining better job opportunities in the metropolitan pass the other. Therefore, skilled immigrant workers whose migration continues and who have been able to achieve job stability tend to reduce their housing costs with a higher ownership rate, even if it is at the cost of living in a residential unit with smaller built-up and higher building age. Skilled migrant workers prefer to choose a lower-quality house, but by changing the ownership pattern, they increase the chance of continuing to live in Tehran.

Natural forms and structures have always been a source of human inspiration for the creation of space. The present study focuses on one of the most important sources of inspiration from nature, namely Rotational Symmetrical Synclastic shells (RSS), and deals with the formal and structural optimality of these shells and their role in architecture. The methodology of this research is descriptive-analytical and simulation. It also uses primary sources and case studies in nature, such as bird eggs to analyse the form and structure of natural RSS shells, and to determine how to use their capacities in architecture. To this end, the article first addresses the typology of RSS shells. Then, the formal principles of RSS shells in nature are examined, which include various formal structures. Then, the typology of these shells in past and contemporary architecture is examined, including different types of arches and domes based on compressive or tensile behaviour. Another objective was to study the formal and structural optimality parameters in nature and architecture. It is very important for architects and designers in this field to have data control in order to achieve optimal and innovative forms and structures. Due to the variety of RSS shells, the focus of this research has been on spherical and parabolic examples. In the study of the "circular parabolic" shells, first, the required parameters were defined. The parametric definition of "spherical" and "circular parabolic" surfaces showed that the optimality of the shell surface can be achieved by adjusting parameters. In order to identify the optimality parameters of RSS shells in nature, bird eggs were examined as a case study. Various studies have shown that many parameters are effective in the optimal formation of bird eggs, such as: clutch size, roll factor, Hand Wing Index (HWI), degree of conical or elliptical egg elongation, and structure of the egg, among others. On the other hand, changing in numerical parameters also showed that by increasing the height of the egg, surface optimality in relation to volume can be increased. In examining such natural RSS shells, which are great examples of natural structures, we arrived at hidden rules and parameters. Some of these have been implemented in architecture, while others have not yet been considered. The ones that have generally been implemented are: achieving formal and structural optimality with maximum resistance in large openings, using the least materials and having minimum surface area, reducing resistance to lateral wind forces in minimal formal and structural contact, and having an optimal form in response to environmental and weather conditions. However, the findings show that there are other rules, which should also be considered by architects, such as design and implementation of context-sensitive in-situ shells and prefabricated shells focused on the specificities of each context, and utilizing new technologies to achieve maximum optimization of form and structure in RSS shell architecture. Thus, by examining natural RSS shells, it may be possible to achieve new and more efficient architectural ideas and design processes.

The curriculum of architecture courses in Iran has been reviewed several times; but no attention has been paid to the local approach. This article seeks to review the possibility of revising the curriculum of Bachelor of Architecture with a local perspective to minimize the educational shortcomings of the curriculum of architecture courses. Mazandaran Universities has been selected as a case study. The research method in this research is content analysis which has been done through semi-structured interviews with 20 professors and 20 architecture graduates of four universities in Mazandaran province: 1. Mazandaran University, 2. Babol Noshirvani University of Technology (BNUT), 3. Shomal University and 4. Islamic Azad University – Sari. Also, the syllabus approved by the Ministry of Science were studied and then the findings have been reviewed and discussed according to the results of the interviews and the analysis of their content. The results show that the reason for the need to develop a new curriculum for the Bachelor of Architecture with an approach to localism and in accordance with the conditions and needs of Mazandaran Universities can be divided into 4 main subcategories: 1. Form appropriate to the climate, 2. Lack of knowledge of local architecture, 3. knowledge of local materials, and 4. limited research in the field of indigenous architecture, which is mostly related to the sub-category of "lack of knowledge of local architecture" and the benefits of paying attention to it, along with the negative impacts of neglecting it. The need to pay attention to the types of indigenous needs in the field of architecture can be divided into 3 sub-categories, including: 1. raising  awareness about the needs of society, 2. considering the familiarity and preserving indigenous history and culture, 3. attention to contextual and regional needs, and the most common reason is related to two sub-categories of "considering the familiarity and preservation of indigenous history and culture" and "attention to contextual and regional needs". Most important reasons for the interviewees in terms of frequency were as follows: 1. more attention should be paid to the preservation of important and historical buildings in architecture education, 2. in most cities of Iran, regardless of the principles and climate, etc., the designs are often subject to repetitive patterns, which unfortunately sometimes have no justification, 3. familiarity with the urban infrastructure of each region, to properly understand the sustainability needs of each region in order to design the desired architecture, 4. considering different cultures, histories, climates and, most importantly, different needs of people 5. architects should be able to rehabilitate existing traditional buildings, both mentally and technically, and not think about destroying the building due to ignorance, 6. architectural educational trips to understand and learn from buildings that have proper functions as well as buildings that do not, 7. architecture students can increase their creativity in the field of design by being inspired by the spaces and arts within them.