International Journal of

Due to audiences’ diversity, local cultural spaces have the highest share in residents’ mass life. Therefore, these spaces are the necessary environment for social relations and face-to-face communication of residents of urban area. If these are well qualified, welfare would be promoted. This study aims at identifying and evaluating factor influencing quality of local cultural spaces and aims to recognize and prioritize the factor using AHP analytical hierarchical process so as to promote them. This applied study has a descriptive-analytical basis with a population of 75 experts in urban planning and cultural matters and academic staff used as participants. First, the quality criteria of cultural space was determined based on the 4 main criteria and 26 sub-criteria in a hierarchical tree. Then experts were asked to score the major and minor criteria and specify their priorities based on paired comparisons. Applying the Expert Choice which implements the AHP, the weights of each criterion and sub-criterion were estimated respectively. Finally, according to the study’s aim, priorities were determined. The results obtained showed that the physical criteria, weighting 0.557, got the first priority and it was followed by social (0.162), economic (0.148) and environmental (0.133) criteria which got the second to the fourth rank. The sub-criteria affecting the "quality of cultural spaces" of the physical structure included safety, human scale and availability.

One of the main architectural characteristics in the central area of Iran is the relation between life and climatic conditions; e.g., the four-seasonal house which is a typical kind of the central-yard house. As the climate of Isfahan is more pleasant than other desert regions in the central part of Iran, wind towers are replaced with skylights to ventilate the pool area of hoze-khane. So far, several researches have been carried out to study the stack effect characteristics and to review wind tower performance. In this paper, a case study is carried out to investigate the effect of the skylight of Mosaver-al-Molki house on the flow pattern and natural ventilation. The performance of skylight on the internal air flow patterns as an effective tool in improving the natural ventilation is investigated by using the Ansys Fluent software. Other elements which have been discussed in this paper are the vault and the columns. These elements have a distinguished effect on distribution of inlet streams in different parts of the hoze-khane. Analysis of the simulation results were obtained for wind velocities of 2.5 m/s and 8 m/s. The numerical results show that wind speed of 2.5 m/s has better performance than wind speed of 8 m/s in terms of ventilation.

As a medium between people and the city, urbanscape makes a mental connection between individuals and their surroundings. It is usually difficult to conceive this mental relationship and its corresponding processes with usual methods. This study seeks to address the mental aspects of urbanscape and highlight its role and importance by using an innovative method.

In this study, map-based methods have been examined as one of the most effective tools for studying citizens’ urbanscape. Indeed, using maps provides a tangible model of the city and its spatial imagination by mapping people’s perceptions. In order to achieve the hidden layers of people’s perceptions, a combination of map-based methods have been examined in the study of Ferdowsi Square in Tehran.

First, 50 questionnaires in which interviewees were asked to draw remarkable element of the area were conducted (Cognitive map). Second, people were asked to mark the places that are meaningful for them in a provided map of the area and describe the reason (narrative map). Finally, the results of the former step as evaluative meaning were measured in investigated area (evaluative map). As the result, collective images completed by narrative maps and 4 categories of meanings attributed to the space have been recognized, collective, individual, physical-functional and sensory-emotional concepts. Moreover, the locations of detailed meanings and the intensity of each meaning or concept have been determined and located on the map. Through analyzing and comparing these maps; it is concluded that by developing map-based methods and combining them with other techniques and methods, deeper layers of individuals’ perception about spaces are revealed. So, spatial distribution of concepts and assessments of individuals that have been provided by these methods in this study seems to be very helpful in analysing mental urbanscape.

In this context, moving from traditional and structured methods to more evaluative and flexible ones that focus on deeper layers of individuals’ perception is extremely useful.

The quality of the communication between teachers and students and ultimately, of classroom education itself, is closely linked to the acoustic quality of the auditorium. This acoustic quality can be characterized based on the reverberation time (RT), speech transmission index (STI) and the sound insulation. In this context, an acoustic study was conducted in an auditorium located in the Higher Institute of Technological Studies (ISET) of Sfax, south of Tunisia. The investigation used acoustic measurement methods to assess the acoustic quality of the nave and the results were compared with the standards ISO 3382-1 and ISO 3382-2.The results of this work were obtained by measuring the RT values and the sound insulation of auditorium façades. In addition to these parameters obtained by measurements, STI was obtained through the computer simulation (utilizing ODEON ver. 4.2, assuming the occupied case). The results showed that the measured and calculated values were consistent with those proposed by the standards for speech auditoria (RT_500Hz = 0.98 s, D₅₀> 50% and STI> 0.45), and are in line with the speech intelligibility requirements.

The purposeofthispaper is to examinethe impacts ofphysical contextson theefficacy oflocalmosques. The main question of thisresearchis: “What istherelationship betweenphysical context (including:number and space share per head of mosque in neighborhood, functional radius of mosque, the location of local mosque, local adjacent land uses and finally legibility and identity of local mosque in neighborhoods) and efficacy of local mosques? The research hypothesisis based on the assumption that there is a meaningful relation between physical context of mosques and their expected socio- cultural efficacyinurban neighborhoods. The method of the research has been analytical descriptive.In order to examine the hypothesis, variables “physical components of the mosquesandtheirefficacy" have been assigned. Applying“the Theory of Environmental Quality”, theindexes of each variable have been determined and applied in questionnaire to be evaluated in case studies. The data of the study wereanalyzed through SPSS software and the hypothesis was confirmed with 95% confidence level. Theresearch resultsrevealedthatphysicalcontext ofmosques can have a positive influence on their function of efficacy which consists of socialsolidarity, sense of belongingand sense of religiousaffiliationsofpeople through the five above mentioned factors.

Transformation of land use-land cover change occurs due to the numbers and activities of people. Urban growth modeling has attracted authentic attention because it helps to comprehend the mechanisms of land use change and thus helps relevant policies made. This study applied logistic regression to model urban growth in the Ahvaz Metropolitan Area of Khuzestan province in IDRISI Selva software and to discover what are driving forces effective on the urban growth of Ahvaz city, and with what intensity? Historical land use and land cover data of Ahvaz were extracted from the 1991and 2006 Satellite images. The following two groups of factors were found to affect urban growth in different degrees as indicated by odd ratios: (1) Constraints Distance to the Bridge, Rural Areas, Planned town and Industry activities (all with odds ratios<1_or coefficient <0); and (2) Number of urban cells within a 5·5 cell window, Distance to the Hospitals, Main Road, High Road, Rail Line, River, CBD and Secondary centers, agriculture areas in distance more than 5km of Urban area and Vacant area (all with odds ratios>1_or coefficient >0). Relative operating characteristic (ROC) value of 0.906 indicates that the probability map is valid. It was concluded logistic regression modeling is suitable for Understanding and measuring of driving forces effect on urban growth. Second, unlike the Cellular Automata (CA) model, the logistic regression model is not temporally explicit; urban growth trend in Ahvaz isn't in the event of infill development strategy. Also, variables of sprawl based agents indicate more power than to compact base agents.

Preset paper aims to recognize the most important factors in creating a smart city in the city of Ahvaz. For achieving this, all criteria, which play an important role in creating smart cities, were collected using different resources based on descriptive-analytical method. At the next stage, a survey of a number of 40 urban planning experts was accomplished in Ahvaz city, which is the case study of the research, to rank smart city criteria and sub-criteria in terms of importance using Fuzzy TOPSIS technique. The results showed that among six criteria, “smart government” with the score of 4 percent was ranked as the most important criterion and “smart environment” with the score of around 1.5 percent was recognized as the least important criterion in the regard of creating a smart city. Moreover, of the sub-criteria, “Stable economy and ability to transform”, “Social and ethnic plurality”, “Crisis management and ability to organize human resources”, “local and regional accessibility”, “Sustainable resource management”, and “Individual Safety” were recognized as the most important factors in different aspects of making the city smart.

Environmental problems caused by fossil fuel consumption, on the one hand, and the upcoming prospect of ending these fuels on the other, attracted much attention towards sustainable architecture. Traditional buildings can be seen as a sample of sustainability; as they have used strategies to cope with the environment, which have been developed over the years, providing users’ comfort conditions for centuries. But before implementing these strategies in today buildings, we need to know the exact effect of their use; something that is regularly performed by an energy simulation software. Thus, first, we should know the ability of the software in modeling different design strategies, and secondly we should be certain of the validation of its results. This research aims to study the ability of DesignBuilder software (as one of the most applied software for building energy simulation) to model and simulate a complex traditional building. The accuracy of DesignBuilder thermal simulation results, in comparison with the experimental data is the main question of this study. To do this, Rasoulian house in Yazd (in hot and arid climate of Iran) was chosen as a case study and after simulating the entire building, the simulation results were compared with experimental measurement data. The results show that in most spaces, the experimental data were only 1–5°C different from the results of the simulation. Finally, the probable causes of these differences were analyzed and some suggestions were proposed to develop DesignBuilder, to be more applicable in simulating buildings of hot and arid climate.

The problems of distressed urban areas are getting worse year after year. Due to limited resources and Amenities of municipal organizations for solving every problem concerning urban distressed textures, it is essential to determine the priorities of each area based on identified factors and criteria. In distressed areas, there are different circumstances and distinctive citizens with their needs and special expectations, so in this article we face many criteria with fuzziness. This study aimed to apply the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) to prioritize the most important issues for each urban distressed area in Karaj. For this purpose a hierarchical model with 4 main factors (social, physical, environmental and economic) and 17 sub factors were suggested. Four zones of the city (central Karaj, Hesarak, Mehrshahr and Fardis) were analyzed. The findings of the paper suggest that social factors with a weights of about 30% are the most significant problems cause in these areas and physical factors with 27% weight we’re in second place. Among the areas, Fardis and Hesarak areas were most affected by social factors and Central Karaj and Mehrshar had the most priority for physical factors.

Trust, along with transparency, is an important indicator of a satisfactory relationship between a government and the public. Considering transparency as the key to trust in government, the purpose of this paper is to postulate a link between transparency and trust taking into account satisfaction as a psychological factor. This paper tries to find the answer of these questions: “Is there any significant relationship between institutional transparency and citizen trust? And what is the role of citizen satisfaction in this context?” In order to investigate these questions, through survey method of research, this paper presents the results of an experiment (N=384) testing three hypotheses by statistical analysis which involve the relationship between institutional transparency, citizen trust and satisfaction. Tehran municipality is elected as a specific institution. This study found that transparency will significantly increase citizen trust, and satisfaction will play a significant role in the relationship between transparency and citizen trust. As well, trust will increase satisfaction. This study found that transparency and satisfaction play a substantial role in enhancing citizen trust. Furthermore, transparency and citizen trust play a significant role in enhancing citizen satisfaction. The results show that among background variables (gender, age, education, income and history of residence) the two variables, education and income have a week significant relationship with trust.

Early design decisions made on building configuration and spatial design affect seismic behavior of buildings. Therefore introducing design guidelines and empirical methods implemented to assess seismic behavior of buildings have been proposed as an appropriate approach. Such concept helps architects to take into the consideration that how their preliminary design decisions influence downstream structural results. In previous efforts guidelines for seismic assessment of irregular buildings configuration and also torsional effect of interior walls-layout have been introduced. While seismic effects of the adjacency in spatial units and associated structural systems are almost ignored. This paper tries to show how spatial layout and specifically adjacency of spatial units affect the seismic behavior of a building when (1) the roofing systems are non-uniform and (2) specific spatial units correspond to the specific types of roofs with specific seismic behavior. The paper focuses on masonry buildings with curved roofing systems. To develop guidelines and empirical methods, we selected conventional masonry residential buildings implemented in central arid and semi-arid zones of Iran, traditionally, as case study. Two approaches have been proposed in the form of seismic guidelines and empirical methods. First, a method is introduced to show how adjacency of spatial units and associated vaults with different seismic vulnerability can affect the vulnerability of whole structure according to the effect of “successive damage”. An empirical method is also proposed to estimate the value and shape of distribution of lateral forces on load-bearing walls transferred by adjacent curved roofs, since lateral forces increase seismic vulnerability of load-bearing walls

Rapidly increasing urbanization in the world, especially in developing countries, let to increasing urban extents. Rapid urban growth causes to appearance many problems such as wasting environmental resources, inability of providing necessary services for citizens and unplanned growth. Urban mangers and planners need tools for understanding amount and size of future urban growths to prevent these problems. Urmia as capital city of west Azerbaijan province, in the last decades has considerable growth in both extent and population. This rapid growth caused to lose most high value agricultural resources in its surrounding. It has also caused many problems for urban management. Therefore, how city managers and urban planners can be aware of magnitude and location of Urmia city’s future growth and what is the best growth scenario for Urmia city? This paper uses a quantitative analysis research methodology to prediction and evaluation of growth scenarios for Urmia city. In this paper, SLEUTH model was applied to predict future urban growth of Urmia until 2050. Two different scenarios were employed include: Historical Growth Scenario (HGS) and Environment Protection Scenario (EPS). The result highlight that if the city continues its growth based on HGS scenario, in compare with growth based on EPS scenario, it would occupy more area. In this paper, we concluded that the EPS scenario can be more sufficient than HGS scenario. In addition, SLEUTH urban growth model can be used as a planning support model for urban planners and managers decisions for Urmia city based on scenarios.

Orientation of classrooms is an important challenge in architectural design of a school. However, there is a lack of appropriate knowledge about influence of orientation on students’ perception of daylighting in classrooms. This paper presents a questionnaire survey that was conducted to compare students’ perception and satisfaction with daylighting in classrooms of a high school in Tabriz, Iran. Statistical analysis of responses was done to identify daylight factor and their relationships with satisfaction with daylighting in northern and southern classrooms. In southern classrooms, satisfaction with daylighting had significantly negative and positive correlation with perception of reflected and direct glare, respectively. In northern classrooms, perception of unified daylight and control of sunlight overheating by operable windows had significantly strong and positive correlation with satisfaction with daylighting, respectively. The students’ seating location had significant influence on satisfaction with daylighting and perception of direct glare in southern classrooms. In northern classrooms, students’ seating location caused different perception of reflected glare. The results showed that orientation did not lead to significant difference between satisfactions with daylighting in northern and southern classrooms. Although, in southern classrooms, the mean votes of satisfaction with daylighting was higher than northern classrooms.

Because of the suitability of coastal lands for different groups of activities such as recreational, residential and commercial functions, there is an increasing demand among different stakeholders to benefit from these natural lands. The conflicts between the users, sometimes, lead to exclusiveness and limitation of public access to the shoreline. This article aims to recognize the main agents and mechanisms intensifying the spatial segregation and limitation of public access to the coast. By applying the qualitative methods of Interview and documentary analysis in the middle shoreline of Caspian Sea, the categorization of exclusive public shoreline, their supportive contexts and spatial outputs, are formulated. Findings show that in contrast to the privatization of publish shoreline throughout the world, in Iran, beside the role of private sector, it is the government who benefit from the shoreline exclusively. In order to find the role of institutional contexts, analyses of the formal and regulatory documents, laws and regulations, showed the negligence in performance of coastal and agricultural land use control systems which accelerate the processes of land use change and creation of exclusive spaces in the form of gated communities. In the last step, the analysis of interviews with key actors showed the unsuitable spatial consequences especially social segregation and also decline in economics of coastal cities.

In today’s mechanized world, the need for a patient-friendly attitude in the hospitals and its psychological effects on the recovery time of patients has been proven. Considering the special pre and post-partum conditions of a pregnant woman, together with the fact that the mother and child cannot be treated as a patient case, makes these psychological effects more critical in this research, the mental state of pregnant women in association with the social support they receive, and its role on their stay and recovery, was considered. In this research we investigated the role of maternity ward architectural design on the quality of mothers social interactions. To achieve this, a survey has been conducted on the affect of maternity ward architectural design on the mothers social interactions with visitors, medical board, and other patients in maternity units of Tehran’s General Hospitals.
It was found that the establishment of social communications with visitors, hospital staff, and other patients had significantly positive psychological effects on patients. Not only the mental health status of patients was improved, also their recovery time was reduced. This was concluded that the design of healthcare centers should provide maternity unit’s patients effective communication opportunities by providing an appropriate space for patients companies, family members, and visitors.

How to design a city more legible is one of the main problems in urban design. To define the parameters that are crucial in designing legible cities is the main debate of this article. The research methodology was studying mental maps of the city dwellers and comparing the group image of the city with the pattern of continuity of salient elements and integration of the urban axes using Space Syntax theory. It was found out that to make a city more legible there should be continuity between salient elements of the city; between main integrators and visible fields of the landmarks, to form a coherent structure, or these elements should overlap to emphasize each other to make the city more legible. The relationship of these two elements in the city structure depends on the degree of irregularity of the layout and the presence of the rules of Gestalt of “good configuration". Each urban morphology according to its degree of irregularity and presence or absence of Gestalt rules can be categorized as organized, semi-organized and unorganized. The role of landmarks or visual clues according to the type of morphology differs from one type to another. To make a legible city, there should be a coincidence between the maps of main integrators to the landmark setting to emphasize the main structure of the city in regular settings (organized and semi organized structures). In irregular layouts, there should be continuity between pattern of visible fields of landmarks and main integrators of the city to form a coherent whole. The hierarchy of the urban axes in global and local level- most integrated and least integrated axes- will be followed by the hierarchy of the visual clues in global and local levels, which defines the nature of systems of reference in the structure of the city. The aim of the study presented by this article is to show how the interaction of landmarks and pathway configuration influence the legibility of the city and make the image group of the city.

Little has been written about the structural behavior of conical shells, while conical shells’ construction techniques due to the high rise and small span has always required special attention throughout the history of Islamic architecture. This paper aims to examine how conical shells bear weight loads and resist against bending through a qualitative analysis. After proving that ‘rise/span’ ratio strongly affects weight loads and bending in external shells, the main question of the paper is “what construction techniques architects adopted to carry weight loads, and how these techniques differed in domes with various ‘rise/span’ ratios”. To find out about paper’s main question, a qualitative approach for structural analysis has been adopted. First, architectural maps and dimensions of six cases were documented, and then, according to the documentation, some ratios and parameters have been defined to find their probable correlation with ‘rise/span’ ratio. Results show that to restrain weight loads in external shell, design of stiffeners and thickness of the conical shell play a crucial role to keep structure balanced. According to the results, ‘rise/span’ ratio has a positive correlation with ‘thickness/span’, ‘height of stiffeners/span’, ‘stiffeners’ sectional area/span’, ‘gradual decrease of thickness’ and “number of stiffeners/ number of flat planes”. In contrast, ‘Rise/span’ ratio does not have any meaningful relationship with ‘stiffeners’ end point’ and ‘struts’ end point’, and has a negative correlation with “the number of flat plains.

As recent researches show, creativity is very important in art, technology, science, education, management and etc. Also, preschool ages are a golden time for developing motor creativity. So, it‘s necessary to enhance creativity of preschoolers. Many scholars have studied cognitional-emotional aspects of creativity. Some, have focused on the creativity process and creativity techniques. But, the relation between creativity and physical environment have been rarely studied. The goal of this research, is exploring design patterns which may help architects to design suitable spaces to enhance kids’ creativity. The question is “which architectural variables affect kids' creativity positively”. Survey research method is used to gathering questionnaires of kindergarten mentors, architects, psychologist and preschoolers. Factor analysis showed the effective variables (factors) that were known and labeled. Creativity variables were “imagination”, “curiosity” and “cooperative play”. The variables of physical environment were “flexibility” and “variety”. To find the relation between three creativity variables and two architecture variables, the path analysis method was used. The correlation of creativity variables and architectural ones was significantly positive. Then, 72 architects and psychologists were tested with an open end test. Design patterns were extracted from architects and psychologists suggestions. The results were discussed in a session with 20 children to explore kids taste about them. The outcome was design patterns such as: a) Design of modular wide open plan with several corners; b) Design puzzled Shadow maker partitions; c) Using light modular furniture such as light cubes that kids could move and rearrange them to make new furniture/walls; d) Using incomplete paintings, on the wall or on the ground; e) Design vast planting areas that kids could plant in groups.

Due to the superiority of functional requirements of equipment and systems over human requirements in the field of architectural and environmental design of industrial buildings, users have to adapt themselves to the conditions which might be followed by imposed biological and psychological pressures. The present study examines the components and environmental parameters influenced by building features (thermal comfort, lighting quality, office layout, interior decoration, acoustic quality, air quality, cleanliness and maintenance) in typical control building of combined cycle power plants. Using a questionnaire based on Vischer’s model of environmental comfort regarding people’s environmental perception, the level of users’ satisfaction with the environmental factors and their self-estimated performance in relation to these factors at the two levels of physical and functional comforts has been determined. The statistical analysis of the results shows that the lack of consideration of the environmental comfort parameters of workspace in the process of architectural design of industrial buildings influences users’ satisfaction with these factors which is directly related to their self-estimated performance in workplace and consequently their job satisfaction by decreasing them. Taking into account the fact that the amount of impact of various environmental factors on the individuals’ function was evaluated differently, prioritizing the physical factors in the work place for corrective purposes was finally done using affectability of performance in the degree of satisfaction with any factor.

Using the results of the assessment of desirability from the viewpoint of employees and the computer analysis of space syntax, the desirability factors of work desk arrangement in office space have been analyzed in the present study. Firstly a pictorial questionnaire was distributed among 113 employees in two offices of Tabriz city to obtain the desirable sitting places in the room (considering the position of the door of room, the angle of the sitting and the position of the desk of colleague). Next, using the space syntax software, the factors which affect the preferences of employees were analyzed. In this regard, indices such as Isovist, integration and distance from the door were studied. The results show the impact of these indices on the preferences of employees. The significance and impact of the indices have not been similar and in some cases, "distance from the door" has had the highest impact and the "isovist" has had more impact than "integration". In relation to the selection of the sitting place, this research has also demonstrated the impact of organizational and cultural factors on the preferences of employees. Such as the difference between the spatial value of various parts of the room in terms of distance from the door and the position of the door in different cultures, the difference between the results obtained from female respondents and the male respondents in relation to the index of "isovist from outside", as well as the difference between the choices of individuals with different occupational ranks.