فصلنامه مسکن و محیط روستا
پیاپی 126 (تابستان 1388)

In this article definition of local building materials and characteristics of different kind of them are described. The Building materials discussed are adobe, stabilized earth blocks, Rammed earth walls, straw – bale, Superadobe, Micro-Concrete Roofing Tile, brick, concrete block, sand and gravel, lime, masonry mortar, wood, agricultural wastes, bamboo. Using locally available building materials as well as the skills of local craftsmen should be considered for the design of earthquake resistant houses and it should be proved that the solutions are accepted by the beneficiaries.In other part of this article, local building materials of the country are studied based on statistical data of building materials consumption. Then Building material status and prospects are reviewed. For current situation, the evaluation, earthquake risk zonation map and also climate zonation map are overlaid by building material consumption map and different area are compared in this respect.In almost all localities, nature has provided us with some wonderful materials to build with. Because these materials require little processing or transporting, the environmental and economic costs are low. Some are renewable resources (like trees and straw), and some may be so abundant that their supply seems almost inexhaustible (like rocks and sand).Building construction can use local products and services where they are available. A locally based economy can be more sustainably managed than one based on imported materials and services. Local materials, such as stone, tile, brick and timber, also give a building a quality of "place", or belonging in the region. At the same time, local materials substantially reduce the energy and environmental impacts of transporting of materials in long distances. A traditional rural residence is almost always based on adaptations to the local environment, and is often built with the labour of the villagers themselves without the need for external mechanized inputs.Low cost, aesthetics, preserving traditions, and living in climatically suitable houses are all fine notions, but the durability of homes is also an important consideration. A mud house with a thatched roof needs continuous maintenance, whereas a brick and cement house is far sturdier, and has a longer life span.

Sustainable architecture has grown over decades and many guidelines has been presented for solving the crises, but likewise there are some obstacle in its way to be carried out. It is possible to complete the sustainable architecture through paying attention to values and features of vernacular architecture. Because by considering vernacular architecture works and library documents, it is understood that these buildings were compatible with sustainable approach. In forming vernacular architecture some social and economical relations with natural environment and cultural signs are considered. In this way the sustainable aspects incorporation is observable. Obviously the repetition of precedent vernacular architecture is not true. In this paper, finding frequent values of vernacular architecture is the aim. Sustainability means, making a frequent process and it is a concept which is used as an amount of value of an approach. In this vision, understanding the frequent values and principles of vernacular architecture is treasured.

Nowadays we are witness to some kinds of squandering and luxurious attention to different dimensions of people's lifestyles in our society. This situation is in current to many aspects and to the architecture as well. During the construction of a building, a large amount of building materials, natural resources, man powers and various energies are wasting. But that is not all. This wrong attitude is unfortunately happening all the time. Not only during the construction of the building, but also in the beginning of the work, in other word during the designing process.It is praiseworthy to have a new deep look at this issue. This will be helpful to find out the ways that these problems are occurring and to present a solution for them. This article is decided to elaborate about this matter. It will focus on the design process of housing which contains a large number of buildings in the country. It will mention some points regarding the squandering and luxurious viewpoints of architects which will flourish in the houses and causes some problems. Then a proposal will be presented for the architects to prevent and control the above mentioned viewpoints during the designing a building.

Retrofit is a set of measures taken to protect the efficiency, beauty and static's of building against damages stemming from destruction and decay factors over time. The process of retrofit is usually done on buildings built in the past. But it doesn’t imply that its principles cannot be applied in the current construction.This article trying to investigate the general issues by discussing the different important matters in architectural design, aims to put forward theories about strengthening building with regard to basic concepts in architecture. By identifying the destruction and decay factors and discussing the basic concepts of architecture, the article to puts forth different ways to strengthen buildings effectively and also aim to elaborate these basic concepts.

Informal settlement at the outskirt of the cities in its today’s concepts first appeared in industrial countries with township growth and rural migration to cities; and in developing countries started following colonial programs of industrial countries and penetration of west culture and technology. History of informal settlement in Iran backed to 1961. During past 50 years majority of macro cities and studies focused on this phenomena. This study focused on sanandaj, the center of Kurdistan province that its population have increased three times in three decades. It seems that developing of informal settlement in this area is as result of lack of provision of services in the rural area. In other hand the role of natural limitation such as slope, heights, dry and cold climate intense the migration. The methodology of study is analytical – description with natural and field approach, using quality and quantity methods (interview, observation, questionnaire). GIS software also used to show outskirt of sanandaj which occupied 42 percent of the city population and 13.32 percent of residential space. With regard to social crimes, such as rubbery, sexual offences (34 percent), collective quarrel (56 percent), drug addicts (64 percent) and more than 75 percent of peddlers are resides in these areas.

Every year we witness that natural disaster cause some damages in the societies, financially and human life. Unfortunately our country occasionally experience this bitter event. Flood, earthquake, drought, frostbite, storm and… create lots of damages. Therefore, it requires some arrangements and management to decrease these damages. These arrangements are presented differently, surely the first step is to know about these phenomenons and understand them, because human being fears of unknown things especially if they had bad experience. At the first step what could reduces this fear, is having knowledge through training by providing the right understanding of the events to people and make sure to reflect a right behavior by people when encountening danger by these events. However, the most important issue in flood control is the role of mitigation and forewarning. In many cases we can prevent the injuries and damages by preventive and forewarn action. In this paper it has been tried to provide a complete guidance of decreasing factors in flood water dangers through collecting all preventive ways.

A board game was developed for use in workshops to demonstrate some theoretical principles underpinning conservation planning at the landscape scale. The game is based on neutral landscape models and demonstrates the effects of habitat removal and arrangement on landscape connectivity for organisms with different mobility characteristics. This paper briefly describes the ecological principles underpinning the game, the equipment required to run a game session and the rules of the game. The game was piloted in three workshops where it was played by a total of 75 people, primarily extension personnel. It proved to be an effective learning tool that was adopted by a number of the participants for their own communication activities.