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سال بیستم شماره 125 (آبان 1402)

Problem statement: 

Having fundamental objectives regarding the historic urban landscape is the basis of a comprehensive understanding and approach towards identification, evaluation, preservation, and management of the historical urban landscapes; therefore, the material and spiritual significance and potentials that could shape the historical character of a city as urban landscapes are the primary notions that should be identified and recognized. There are valuable research studies regarding Iranian architecture and Persian Gardens, as well as the viewpoints in gardens or pavilions. However, urban viewpoints have not been addressed separately, as one of the valuable aspects of urban architecture. In historic reports and notes made by European orientalists, the importance of these locations was not neglected; yet they have only been indirectly highlighted in these reports. Urban viewpoints are significant in ways that they could be necessary for affecting our perception and understanding of the landscapes and the reciprocal relation between the viewer and the views. Since the most significant urban developments occurred during the Safavid era in Isfahan and this city has been a suitable urban model for other cities in Iran because of its architectural design and landscape features, it can serve as a research site. While Isfahan has been the capital of two important historical eras, most of its urban landscapes, including its architectural elements, are either distinguished or has undergone drastic urban changes. Based on existing evidence in Isfahan, most of the historic urban landscapes in this city date back to the Safavid era.

The present article aims to identify the concepts and viewpoint-driven significance of urban architecture in the construction of the Safavid capital.

The research method in this article is based on archival research and field studies and the emphasis has been on historic textual resources. For this purpose, reports and prevailing concepts in the specialized literature regarding urban architecture were revised according to the extant evidence from the Safavid period to identify and understand the viewpoint-driven significance of the Safavid architecture in Isfahan.

Surveying the urban architecture in Isfahan indicated that Safavid designers had a strong will to integrate urban spaces with nature; thus, through the use of rectangular geometry, water runnels, and tree rows in all urban spaces, they aimed to emphasize the places that resembled gardens. Therefore, Isfahan could be seen as a vast garden, where the architectural edifices in its urban landscape were designed semi-open and semi-closed to create certain viewpoints. These viewpoints embodied the notion that “a prototypical Persian Garden was a model for urban architecture and Isfahan during the Safavid era, hence, making Isfahan a city of spectacles and sightseeing.

Problem Statement: 

The city of Bushehr on the northern coast of the Persian Gulf is one of the most critical hot and humid climates in Iran. Always, natural ventilation has been one of the common methods of providing thermal comfort to residents Taremeh is one of the semi-open spaces effective in natural ventilation. This research is trying to investigate the ventilation in the residential area of Bushehr based on the Taremeh and its parameters.

This research was carried out to investigate the natural ventilation caused by the potential of the Taremeh.

This study employed a mixed research method including field survey, library research, and document reviews of historical buildings. In the experimental part of the study,the independent variables affecting the quality of natural ventilation were identified and the dependent variables were measured by accurate digital devices in a case study (Dehdashti building) and then its data was used for software validation. After the validation, the models were simulated in Cfd Autodesk 2018 software, relying on the CFD method. velocity and age of air as well as the wind circulation were evaluated.

The results show that the “inner Taremeh “ in a linear form in a state that is a part of the yard area has the highest and the 4-sided Taremeh has the lowest velocity. Wind circulation is less in the middle area and more towards the walls. The internal U-shaped Taremeh has the highest speed in the room. By reducing the number of columns and increasing the dimensions of the columns in the Taremeh, the speed of airflow in the Taremeh space decreases. As the height increases from the ground floor to the first and second floors, the velocity in Taremeh increases in all cases. In the “middle Taremeh “, increasing the width of the Taremeh reduces the velocity to some extent. From the perspective of depth, the depth of 3.5m for the Taremeh has the most optimal ventilation in terms of velocity and the lowest age of air.

Problem statement: 

To increase the efficiency of the social function of the public space, urban researchers have listed many features in various conceptual models. It seems that these qualitative characteristics can be categorized under the configuration of space to converge the concepts and to evaluate them quantitatively.

 There is a cause-and-effect relationship between the qualitative factors that influence the ability of a space to shape public urban life. These factors can be evaluated through quantitative and qualitative methods. This research tries to put the necessary factors that increase the quality of the space in a more comprehensive category and evaluate them through the integration of the above methods.

The present study is applied research in terms of purpose. It used a descriptive-analytical method. First, qualitative variables effective in constructing and forming public spaces were identified and categorized by reviewing the literature. The factor of accessibility was identified as a common factor that all theoreticians have emphasized. This factor was considered to be the basis of using the space syntax method. The space syntax evaluated the qualitative characteristics of the space at the macro level. Then the results were discussed using logical reasoning.

The findings of the research showed that the analysis of spatial qualities can be defined in a two-step process: first, in an initial evaluation, the public space is analyzed at the macro level through axial maps based on the level of accessibility and mobility, which is the basis and foundation of spatial qualities. In the second stage, to measure how the space is experienced by the users, a micro-scale investigation should be done on the site by referring to analytical techniques such as questionnaires, mapping, surveys, etc.

Problem statement: 

Why do some casual art audiences question the aesthetics of some abstract works? What are the aesthetic criteria and indicators in modern art? Basically, the raison d’être and aesthetics of modern art are considered noteworthy topics in the philosophy of art. The growing body of research in cognitive neuroscience has provided a deeper insight into the neurological basis of visual perception and decision-making processes in the brain. This insight can lead to extensive applications in various theoretical and practical fields ranging from explaining the formation of aesthetic experiences to cognitive design.

This paper focuses analytically on the aesthetic criteria of modern art based on neuroscience, interprets the most important and relevant empirical studies, and explains their relations to modern art. It also presents an aesthetic analysis of modern art based on the principles of neuroaesthetics.

A descriptive-analytical approach was employed in this qualitative study. The discussion, findings, and results are based on the analysis and interpretation of results from empirical studies on neuroaesthetics.

This analysis of research findings indicated the effects of certain neuroaesthetic laws on the aesthetic experience of modern art. Based on the visual processing mechanism in the brain, these laws are in closer links with the gene-based route of aesthetic perception. Apparently, the aesthetic experiences of abstract artworks are mostly the results of concepts constructed by the syntactic reasoning brain system akin to a semantic label on modern artwork. The intertwined two routes of instinctive gene-based aesthetics and the syntactic reasoning brain system have a two-sided dialectic interaction in the process of aesthetic perception. The analytic results indicated that the second route, which is mostly affected by culture and education, had a greater impact on the aesthetic judgment of modern art.

Problem statement:

  Various estimates have been presented regarding effective strategies for reducing heat loss and energy storage in the body of traditional Iranian bathhouses. However, the efficiency level has not been determined due to the impossibility of calculating the function of each one.

This study attempts to the efficacy of three common strategies in the body of bathhouses, including “compactness in the texture and neighborhood”, “entering the ground” and “surrounding the apodyterium among unconditioned spaces” to see which is the most effective in preventing heat loss from the shell in traditional Kashan bathhouses.

The present study uses a quantitative paradigm and energy simulation strategy. In this study, Design Builder software was used for its calculations. It is based on evidence obtained from the physical reading of the spatial structure of traditional bathhouses in Kashan City. They were selected using a non-random sampling method.

Surrounding the apodyterium spaces among the unconditioned spaces in Kashan bathhouses has had different results which can be explained by their centrality in the bathhouse plans. However, in its minimum state, the space has been effective with a mean of 13.94% per year in Sultan Ahmed Bathhouse and 46.74% in Khan Bathhouse. This figure has reached 33. 18 percent compared to all four bathhouses. It shows the significance and efficiency of this strategy compared to the insignificant efficiency share of the strategies of inserting the bathhouse inside the ground and “compact urban texture to use the neighborhood” with values of 5. 44 and 0.6, respectively.

Problem statement: Architectural education in Iran is encountering fundamental issues and suffering from weaknesses such as confusion in architectural education spaces in Iran, the lack of a somewhat responsive process to the educational needs of students, and,  the lack of the student’s orientation towards learning architectural design. Unfortunately, in universities, professors pay less attention to the subject of “understanding space,” and the problem is how to teach students to create it without a clear understanding of the nature of space. On the other hand, transferring concepts from a visible state to a spatial one is much simpler than transferring them from a mental, verbal, or written state to a spatial one.

The main goal of this research is to identify the challenges and problems in teaching architectural design, with an emphasis on the mental perception of students.

The present study is considered applied in terms of its purpose and data collection and analysis methods within the qualitative research group. The statistical population of the research includes experts and professors in the field of architecture at the Islamic Azad Universities of Tehran and Karaj. The data collection tool is a semi-structured interview, and ATLAS TI software was used for data coding.

The results led to the identification of 46 core codes, 84 indicators, and 17 final themes, which include issues such as the physical conditions of learning environments, outdated methods and design approaches in Iranian universities, the level of familiarity of architecture professors with modern methods, lack of paradigmatic convergence, one-sidedness in architectural design education, visually-centric space creation, and more. Therefore, it can be said that in the educational and research system of Iranian architecture departments, less attention is paid to “mental perception” and architecture students cannot accurately convey their understanding of the environment using past methods such as simple hand tools, paper, and models and convince their audience of the success of their project. Understanding the environment and its mechanisms plays a key role in expressing the environment.