Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Background: Abundant studies have shown that, spending and attending long-hours in health centers is regarded as a stressful experience for patients, visitors, and staffs. Therefore, many researchers have considered and noticed using the nature in health centers as an approach to decrease environmental stresses and improving the environment quality. Their findings denote the issue that using landscape and creating the possibility to access the nature for users of health centers can provide a calming environment and also would be effective in patient’s improvement process. Objectives: Now in the present study, in order to emphasize the use of nature in the country's health centers and to have a more profound look to the issue, role of the nature in human's healing and its reason, have been investigated using Islamic resources and by applying a descriptive-analytic method. Then, to provide a practical approach the possibility of implementing Persian garden pattern, as a healing garden in hospitals, has been evaluated. Methods: At first, comprehensive characteristics of a healing garden in hospitals were explained and then by reviewing and analyzing the related scientific literatures, conformity of these characteristics to a Persian garden pattern were investigated through two approaches. 1- Description and analysis of the existing library documents 2- investigation of the experts’ attitude through a questionnaire. Results: In the research findings, the effect of nature on human’s health according to the Islamic sources was described and the causes of these effects were also mentioned. In the Islamic sources, abundant literature emphasizes and focuses on the positive effect of nature on human’s health and use of it for human’s healing is theoretically a proper issue. Thus, relationship with nature can play a positive role by guiding the internal sources of treatment in human, along with the medicine (external treatment sources). Findings of the present study indicate that this effect may be due to some reasons such as a common origin and existential domains and also stimulation of human’s powers and senses. Therefore, if human’s five senses emphasized in designing, effect of the nature on human’s health would be more effective. Healing gardens are those gardens which do not only have aesthetic function, but also due to the association they make with users, they lead in healing of physical and especially mental patients and at a higher level, they prevent from illness in the human. According to article reviews, the following nine features can be mentioned as the characteristics of a healing garden in hospitals: 1. Providing access to the nature and interaction with it 2. Creating an opportunity for selection, privacy and experience in having control over affairs 3. Creating an environment for getting together and social interaction 4. Creating a space for physical activity (walking) 5. Meeting others 6. Silence and being away from mechanical and machine noises 7. Peace and security 8. Readability 9. Creating positive and clear features Comparative study of the pattern of Iranian gardens with the above-mentioned features was performed based on the evaluation of the existing documents, Iranian garden is an appropriate pattern to be applied in design ideas of healing gardens in hospitals. Subsequently, experts’ views in this regard were investigated. According to the experts’ view, the most important result of this section of the study is the high level conformity (90/13%) of the Iranian gardens to the characteristics of a healing garden. The highest percentage of conformity related to the readability feature (98/2%) that distinguishes Iranian gardens from other patterns such as Japanese gardens. According to the experts, after readability, “providing the accessibility to the nature and interacting with it” is the most important feature of the Iranian gardens in the present study. The reason for this may be the profound association of the Iranian gardens with plans and water, stimulation of all human’s senses by environmental factors, thoughtful selection and planting of flora. In this study, two features of “creating an opportunity for selection, privacy and experience of having control over affairs” and “peace and security in Iranian gardens” had the lowest percentage of conformity (78/2 and 77/4%) based on the experts’ view. Of course, in general, higher than 75 percent of conformity indicates a high capability in providing the intended feature but the percentages of these two features being lower than other features can be attributed to the orthogonal geometry, symmetry and high readability of Iranian gardens. In a regular geometric pattern, there is a lower spatial diversity compared to what is observed in non-artificial nature or Japanese gardens. With respect to the high readability and clarity of the Iranian gardens, fewer cozy and far from public sight spaces have been formed and generally speaking, there are fewer private areas to be chosen by users. Discussion: Now, if it is decided to apply the pattern of Iranian gardens with a healing function in medical centers, in order to enhance the efficacy and efficiency of a garden, the designers are required to improve private areas and provide users with more spatial diversity for selection with committed innovation and adoption of thoughtful solutions. Moreover, the interested people and researchers can investigate reinforcement and improvement of the two features of “private areas” and “spatial diversity” in Iranian gardens as a useful research issue.

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Tabriz Blue Mosque is a valuable historical monument from the 9th century AH, which has been built during the Kara - Koyunlu of Turkomans rule on northwestern Iran and about 35 years before the beginning of the Safavid Iranian government. This building has some features that make it to be distinguished from other monuments of the Azerbaijan region and even Iran. These features have attracted the attention of many researchers in the field of ‘historic studies’ and ‘art studies’ and as well as have led to the publication of various sources about it; the approach of which are mainly to introduce the historical and artistic aspects of the mosque. But, little research has established about its architectural design and discovering its environmental relations. Therefore, there is a gap of knowledge in the understanding of architectural norms of this building that need to be addressed by some systematic and targeted researches. Understanding this fact, the present paper examines some of the ambiguities about this building; such as the way of its interaction with the natural environment. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating the quality of interaction between the nature and architecture in the process of planning and architectural design of the Tabriz Blue Mosque. The mentioned aim is based on this hypothesis: the interaction of “natural environment” and “artificial environment” in the architecture of Tabriz Blue Mosque is based on a systematic approach that in its regulative foundations, the component of politics is dominated other components, especially the component of nature. The necessity underlying this research is to point out this fact that the architect of Tabriz Blue Mosque along with the exciting beauty that created in this building, did he/she also pay attention to natural and climatic aspects? Drawing on what has been said, this research has been done by descriptive - analytical method and data collection was via field study, direct observation, corpus analysis in order to answer the following questions: 1. What are the requirements and necessities of naturalistic architecture in Tabriz's environmental and climatic conditions? 2. To what extent did architect of the Tabriz Blue Mosque, in the architecture of this building, adhere the principles of convergence and harmony with the nature and climate of the region? 3. What is the reason for the existence of some incompatibility between the architectural design of the mosque and the system of nature and environment? The result of this paper shows that the architectural design of Tabriz Blue Mosque was based on the ambitious desires and motives of a social climber king. The desires required some specific necessities, some of whom was contradicted the natural and climatic requirements of region. These contradictions create some incompatibilities between the architectural design of the building and natural environment. Accordingly, in the architecture system of Tabriz Blue Mosque, political considerations and government accreditation were prior to other components of design, especially the component of nature.

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Since urban spaces are the focal point of the inhabitants of the earth, they can be considered the most appropriate area of manifestation of human culture, social communication and the history of nations, but today what is happening in Iranian cities is a departure from the rich cultural and ancient values of the inhabitants of this land and by a deeper look "reversal of the art of the times". There is no doubt that cityscape design has been very influential in the formation of cities. This urban component and its symbols reflect the character, function and culture of the city's inhabitants, and therefore the spiritual effects of the city are worthy of credit. This cityscape has not had a single concept in different literary, artistic, mystical and urbanization yet and its position in the field of urbanization is still unclear. One of the most important foundations of religious art is the consideration of meaning behind the face and appearance in such a way that the discovery of any meaning for man is in the form in which the meaning of it is manifested. Mysticism also places two dimensions of appearance and interior for each reality, and believes that the survival of meaning is not possible except through the form and what the mind can understand is a meaning that appears in the order of a form. But the issue that has been addressed in this study is whether this form and appearance are the same as the cityscape in urbanization? This research attempts to recreate this notion of architectural descriptive-analytical method by comparing different theories in various literary, mystical and urban areas in order to clarify the paradox in the concept of cityscape. In Persian, the word "image" means a face, a face or a state in the form of a human being that represents internal states, which is the same as the one used in the field of mysticism, and ultimately, the form and the meaning in the unity that is the face of the same meaning and The meaning is the same, but in the area of urbanization, various and contradictory interpretations of the term image have been brought about, which is far removed from the general meaning of cityscape; so that for some urban planners, cityscape is the subjective aspect of Urban Landscape , and everything that one perceives after viewing the perspective, cityscape knows, but some others introduce cityscape to the same face and appearance of City. According to the data of this research in the field of the concept of the word image in various literary, artistic, mystical and urban areas, it seems that the word Image has not been correctly equated in the field of urbanization. Regarding the purpose of this study, the insight of this contradiction of the concept of image in various fields of study, it can be concluded that in the field of urbanization, as in the literary and mystical areas, the concept of the word cityscape should be the same face and appearance of the city and the term cityscape And nature as the equivalent and perhaps new replacement for the urban landscape that is being used today in urban planning with a different conception. This phrase also expresses the face and the face of the city, and it mirrors the meaning of the appearance.

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Nature has always played a very significant role in responding to numerous human needs. Human needs have two dimensions of material and value, and this subject has been the source of both material and value views of nature. Human, in response to their needs, has invented solutions that have, if repeated, become a model. The current article aimed to compare the role of technologies and solutions derived from nature in meeting human needs in both traditional and contemporary periods from the perspective of experts. The question posed to attain this objective is: What are the differences in the extent and manner of responding to different human needs by patterns derived from nature in the traditional era and the contemporary era? At first, in the theoretical framework of the research, the solutions and technologies obtained from library studies were categorized in eleven groups and via the qualitative method and logical reasoning, the formation of solutions and technologies derived from nature based on the response to human needs and their transformation into architectural patterns and the impact of features such as multifunctionality, and combination of patterns in an appropriate response to various human needs were mentioned. To answer the research question, to compare the two traditional and contemporary eras in response to human needs using solutions and technologies derived from nature, the architectural experts’ views were cited via a semi-structured interview method. The results obtained from the present study at this stage were that in the traditional era, nature has played a more effective role in meeting the various needs of human beings than in the contemporary era and in the contemporary period, with the diminution of the semantic dimension of man, the attention to the value dimension of nature in architecture has also diminished and the provision of material needs of nature has been given priority. In general comparison, in the traditional era, technologies derived from nature were more abundant in architecture, but in the contemporary era, it is limited to specific buildings. Out of the eleven solutions obtained, according to experts, the criteria of nature as a source of matter and energy and inspiration from nature in the promotion of technology in the contemporary period and the criteria of direct use of nature in architectural design and use of renewable energy in the traditional period, had the highest frequency.

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