International Journal of Architectural Engineering & Urban Planning
Volume:33 Issue: 2, Apr 2023

One of the main goals of the resilient discourse in the recent urban design literature has been creating resilient places. Urban resilience is defined by the URFs (urban resilience features) for operation and realization in various fields. Due to continuous urban developments, there is a need to revise URFs with a place-based approach. URFs addressed in literature are so diverse that placing them into one single general list creates many contradictions and ambiguities. To reduce or eliminate inconsistencies in the definition of URFs and the qualitative performance of each URF in delivering urban resilience, this paper justifies the key factors for ordering and classifying URFs. In this study, a systematic review of the literature on urban resilience was performed in five stages using the Scopus databases within the 1973-February 2020 period. Then, 16 URFs, using three guidelines based on the corresponding evaluation of place and resilience, were identified and classified into three groups: (1) the intrinsic (internal) characteristics of the constituent components of a resilient system, (2) the behavioral proxies (proactive/reactive) of a resilient system and (3) the resilience-reinforcing attributes of a system in relation to the external environment. This study can shed light on the proper definition of urban resilience and its operational URFs.

Neighborhood parks are important as spaces of residential neighborhoods where part of the daily interactions of residents take place. Hence, the study of environmental quality of the behavioral settings in which they are formed can be considered a suitable indicator to measure environmental quality with behavioral patterns. In order to intervene or adopt strategies in the design and planning of neighborhood parks, behavioral settings offer appropriate indicators. The present study has a combined strategy (qualitative and case study) with an analytical-descriptive approach. The paper evaluates the quality of behavioral settings in a selected neighborhood park (SEKONJ of Shiraz) in three steps. In the first step, the basics and conceptual framework are discussed and in the next step, two components, namely physical (welfare, recreational facilities, and site features) and social (social interactions) are introduced to measure the quality of the setting in neighborhood parks. In the third step of the research, two tactics of semi-structured interview (40 participants) and behavioral mapping (using filming and observation techniques) are used together to collect data. In addition, in this stage using the components expressed in the second step, the quality of behavioral settings in the selected neighborhood park is analyzed. The results of the findings indicate that there is some synomorphy between the behavioral pattern of “recreation” and the physical environment, but the behavioral pattern of “children's play” is not consistent with the physical milieu. Finally, planning and design guidelines and strategies to improve the environmental quality of neighborhood parks are proposed.

This study analyzes the post-globalization reconciliation in architectural ideologies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). UAE experienced an unprecedented boom in urban development starting from the later half of last century mainly due to the unparallel economic growth in their history. This brought in star architects around the world who contributed in designing large scale buildings there. Considered as the globalization in architecture, this trend produced some exceptional stand out buildings boasting of dazzling philosophical back stories. However, after the initial burst, there has been some noticeable evolution in the ideologies. The concept of globalization faced the pressure of localization. There have been a significant number of studies on these new buildings. But they mostly talked either about the philosophies of the star architects or about the mesmerizing architectural and engineering details. Only a few research have been done on the reconciliation and evolution of the ideologies through time. This study attempted to draw attention to certain ideological evolution that have been evident by analyzing certain large scale new buildings. Socio-semiotic theory have been used as the analytic method, by which, hermeneutic interpretation was drawn after investigating the expressive and explicit architectural elements of the buildings. Categorical and purposive sampling have been used to select the precedents. Data was collected through archival records, books, and various electronic resources. After rigorous investigation, this study found several ‘localization’ ideologies significantly reacting to the initial ideology of globalization. This study concludes that though this kind of reaction may not be an unheralded one, however, the grandness of those new buildings has given the ideologies a new dimension. It remains to be an interesting question where this ideological transformation will head to.

During the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran, self-quarantine was a measure to slow the spread of this infection. We conducted this cross-sectional study to explore the psychological effects of the home environment while people had to stay at home for a long time. For the survey, 536 individuals took part. Collecting data was via an online questionnaire including three sections: (1) Demographic characteristics and general information; (2) Home environment features and (3) Negative psychological experiences (NPE) considered as (a) feeling of sadness and depression; (b) feeling of stress and anxiety; and, (c) experiencing domestic violence during quarantine. For data analysis, first, some descriptive information about the participants was presented; then, we used a logistic regression model, one of the classification algorithms in machine learning methods to investigate the association of home environment features and NPE during self-quarantine. The results indicate the home environment affects NPE differently among men and women. Generally, the individuals who were more satisfied with their house performance during quarantine, and people considered the light quality of their house as appropriate; besides, residents with less noise disturbance issues had a better mood during this period. Conversely, failure in the possibility of indoor exercising and the feeling of being in a crowded house increased the level of NPE.

For years, research on daylight in work environments with different climates has been important for researchers to distribute light evenly in the indoor space in order to create a healthy work environment and visual comfort. This study examines the effect of horizontal and vertical shading devices, the depth and distance of louvres on daylight with the aim of increasing DLA (daylight autonomy) for Abrisham tower in Tabriz, Iran. As input parameters the depth of louvres was considered 5 and 15 cm and their distance were considered 150 and 200 cm. Modeling was performed in Rhinoceros software and the Simulation was done in Grasshopper plugin to control the geometric parameters and with the help of ladybug and honeybee plugins. The multi-objective simulation tool, octopus was used to optimizing. Results show that vertical louvers caused more light reduction. Furthermore, the simulation effects of shaders parameter's include depth and distance being examined and analyzed, it seemed that the distance between louvers in this case and in Tabriz is more important variable and moreover, using reflective material or coating on louver’s surface as there are many weeks are overcasting theirs in Tabriz can help and improve internal light autonomy. The optimal cases that were obtained for north façade windows are horizontal louvres with a depth of 5 and a distance of 190 cm and vertical louvres with a depth of 15 cm and a distance 200 cm. In south facade are horizontal louvres with a depth of 13 and a distance of 161 cm and vertical louvres with a depth of 14 cm and a distance of 153 cm.

In recent years, optimizing the energy consumption of buildings has become one of the important environmental and economic goals in sustainable architecture and urban planning. A group of factors affecting the energy consumption of buildings is their physical characteristics and form. In this regard, in the present research, the effect of volumetric porosity in high-rise buildings on their energy consumption has been investigated. The purpose of this research is to explain the correlation between the volumetric porosity of a building, as an independent variable, and its cooling and heating load, as a dependent variable, in a high-rise residential complex in Tehran. In this regard, first, a modular-generative model has been created in the Grasshopper plugin of Rhino software, which can create a porosity of 0 to 50% parametrically. Then, the cooling and heating load of each of the produced models in the city of Tehran and on the June 21 (summer solstice) and December 21 (winter solstice) were calculated using the Honeybee plugin, with standard settings. The data obtained from the simulation were entered into the SPSS software environment and the correlation test of the percentage of volume porosity and energy consumption was performed on the two aforementioned dates in Tehran. In order to validate the research method, this process was performed in 3 other climatic zones of Iran and the findings were compared with other studies in this field. The results of this research showed that the increase in porosity, assuming the number of modules is kept constant (the total volume of the building remains constant) and the site coverage ratio - as is common and inevitable in high-rise buildings - have a significant positive correlation with increased energy consumption in high-rise residential buildings in Tehran.

Applying an efficient method for studying and assessing school learning space is a considerable issue in Iran country so the main purpose of this research was to introduce a scale utilizing CFA models. The mixed method was used for extracting architectural variables of the learning environment, via a survey study by distributing the "six factor school building checklist" consisting of six sub-constructs among the sample of 180 accessible volunteer girl students in Gorgan city ( academic year 1397-98). The qualitative study was performed by coding technique to extract some repeated factors for enhancing student achievements from recent research (2017-2022), which includes the effects of green spaces, flexible spaces, daylight, seating arrangement, window view, and outdoor education.  According to the quantitative part of current study, all the six factors can describe the "six factor school building checklist" and the model fit was achieved and reported as a very good model fit according to CFI (0.93) and RMSEA (0.045) indexes. The factors hierarchically, social space, interface, massing, way finding, context and finally comfort can determine and describe the main scale. Thirty- three variables among Thirty-eight, can describe the main construct. From the social space factor; the ease of accessibility to the teachers' office, from the interface; students' spatial experience from the main entrance to the classroom, from the massing; variation in the massing for providing interest, from the way finding factor; easily understood circulation for interior routes and finally controlling the destructive noise level from the comfort factor reported with the highest factor loadings.

Nowadays, global climate change makes urban planners and designers pay more attention to thermal islands to enhance thermal comfort conditions in cities. The present study aims to investigate the effects of evergreen and deciduous tree placement patterns, tree canopy height, and tree canopy diameter on the enhancement of ambient temperature and improvement of thermal comfort conditions. The ENVI-met model was used to replicate the research region and site. It was validated by comparing the outputs of the model with the values from field measurements. Finally, the recommended scenarios were simulated in the model to discover those scenarios with better performance in enhancing outdoor thermal comfort and temperature on days with low temperatures. At low-temperature situations, planting evergreen trees irregularly had a stronger impact on the improvement of thermal comfort (PMV) compared to deciduous trees. Furthermore, in all models, Populus nigra and Platanus showed the worst performance in boosting ambient temperature. Landscape designers and urban planners might use the findings to improve urban green space, construct sustainable cities, and enhance air temperature.