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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Mankind is always interacting with an environment that contains various meanings and layers with each of which the environment behaves differently, and on the other hand, this behavior is effectively reflected back to the environment. In recent decades, experimental environmental psychology has sought to help solve the issues posed to human societies by pursuing two objectives of theoretical understanding of human interactions with the environment and applying this understanding in practice. In pursuit of these objectives, the area of knowledge has succeeded to build theories and achieve practical findings. Nevertheless, applying these achievements in an Islamic society faces theoretical and practical challenges in both "description" and "prescription", which in turn necessitates further investigations about "Islamic Environmental Psychology". The present study aims to present an applied paradigm of environmental psychology in interaction with Islamic thoughts, which can be used to organize "location-behaviors" of contemporary living in order to facilitate the realization of an Islamic lifestyle. In regards, the present study began with the three constituents of "location-behavior" that is, humans, the environment and the mechanisms needed for the human-environmental interaction, and posed three questions: what social, psychological and cultural characteristics of humans, from the Islamic perspective, affect the environment? What are layers of the environment that affect humans under certain circumstances? And finally, what mechanisms are required for a human-environment interaction in Islamic viewpoint? To answer these questions, two frameworks were proposed: The first relies on environmental psychology by accepting the assumption about different layers of the environment (from the objective to the subjective environment) and assesses the effect of sociocultural environment in a comparative study. The second framework relies on the Islamic doctrines and develops a reference framework consisting of both Islamic views and environmental psychology views. Following a survey of the two proposed frameworks, the second one was taken as the reference comprehensive framework in this article. To develop this comprehensive framework, the relation between religious epistemology and experimental science was first discussed. Unlike the modern perspective that sets the religion-science-art trinity against the emotion-intellect-sense one, in respective order, or at most assumes a unity between religion and art by mixing emotion with sense, the Islamic perspective holds that religion rules these three areas, and only one aspect of religion is strongly associated with emotions,which is "faith". In the second step, the Islamic version of environmental psychology debate was analyzed in three areas of the individual-entity system within the framework of the anthropology of religion, the collective-social system within the framework of religion’s attitude toward society, and the body-space system within the framework of religion’s attitude toward the body, not as separate distinctive areas, but as three spatial human-environment experiences. That is to say, the fundamental difference of environmental psychology from an Islamic viewpoint is so vast that it expands from the "bodily area" to the "spiritual aspect" in the individual-entity line, from the "corporeal world" to "incorporeal world (the invisible)" in the body-space line, and from "routine patterns of life" to the debate on the "united ummah as a timeless entity" in the collective-social line. In the final step, a three-layer system was devised to discuss the intended paradigm, which includes collective references to the current state of the society and Islamic texts. The first layer includes identifying "local phenomena" as clear points in Islamic jurisprudence and ethics, whose "position" in religious sources is identifiable in behaviors, rituals, sensory perceptions and spiritual perceptions. In fact, theidentified "local phenomena" have not yet really emerged in environmental psychology within an Islamic framework, and if this layer is the only one concerned, this phenomena can be more or less studied in experimental environmental psychology. For practical purposes, the phenomena can be classified in two areas –"general local behavioral-psychological phenomena", indicating phenomena with no direct relationships with the environment,and may only be affected by it, and "specific local behavioral-psychological phenomena", indicating phenomena with an established bodily-environmental aspect. The second layer, which is the first real step toward an "environmental psychology" within the framework of Islam, seeks to identify the (correlative or causal) "relationship mechanisms" between "general” and “specific” local phenomena in religion that have been identified in the previous layer. Finally, the third layer emerges from linking and creating connected loops of general and specific mechanisms of the second layer and through creating a sub-system, and may have certain concepts and components in common with experimental psychology. According to the results, two approaches are applicable in the development of an Islamic environmental psychology paradigm: a conscious approach and a meta-conscious one. The first approach is informed and based on the rules and regulations of jurisprudence and Islamic orders. In this approach, attempt is made to extract the basic concepts by reference to the original Islamic sources and to understand the Islamic position on man-made environment irrespective of the external determination of the past centuries. The second approach is meta-conscious and normative (relying on values and knowledge), is based on the recommended or prohibited behavioral patterns, provides a system for the regulation of behavior-body relationships, and takes priority over mentalities and even time and place values. Although an axiom of all religious doctrines, this approach has been less emphasized in theorizing, compared to symbolic concepts. Compared to the mainstream "behavioral sciences" as "subjective" perspective on the role of social behavior, this approach proposes a middle perspective in forming architecture and an "objective" perspective, based on the role of the subject and object and the third factor, culture, in relation to the role of architecture in society. The final outcome of the present study, that is the Islamic environmental psychology paradigm, aims at producing theoretical and practical knowledge and addresses four conditions: past conditions, i.e., the quality of life before modernism (the popular culture), present conditions, i.e., the current quality of life, desirable conditions, i.e., the quality of life deserved by humans from the viewpoint of Islam, and possible conditions, i.e., the quality of life that can be handled by humans, in order to create behavioral benchmarks in accordance with Islamic view point. The authors recommend that both conscious and meta-conscious approaches can be used, since the conscious approach is based on jurisprudence and orders and thus acts as a framing shell, prevents distortions to some extent, and is also the doorway to theoretical knowledge and implications. also, the second approach as the meta-conscious one, should ideally create environments that are affected by the recommended behavioral patterns of Islam.

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Knowledge and understanding of human nature and existential dimensions of man, guides individuals to control and direct their needs against diversity and rapid change of styles. Nowadays, art and architecture aim to satisfy public opinion. Diversification and complex forms are changing constantly to satisfy needs according to style, culture, taste, and current technology without considering their inner side, and what goes unnoticed here is attention to the contextof humanity which does not advance up to date and is always obsolete. Therefore, consideringhuman as both the containing totality of microcosm and the creator and user of the art piece,plays a significant role in the understanding and utility of variety of sciences, including architecture.On the other hand, ignoring this important role can createa gap between desires and true needs. Therefore, current article is shaped based on the following questions: What are human existence dimensions in the realm of epistemology? What have they got in common with design trends which are based on public preferences? And to what extent should the epistemological understanding of architects and consumersbe considered? In present discussion, descriptive-explanatory method and logical reasoning is used.Viewpoints of intellectuals like Avicenna,MollaSadra, AzizuddinNasafi, Al-Kindi, and contemporaries such as Jersild, Bergson, Freud, Jung, MortezaMotahhari, and AllamehJa'farion dimensions of human existence were studied at the first step. A common view between all above-mentioned intellectuals point to a unique and immutable essence that propels human being towards innate, sustainable affairs and excellence. Since the transition of matter has become plural and diverse,this concept becomes invariant in the course of time, but under the impact of influential factors. Holy Quran, confirming this content and meaning, mentions "Disposition" as the main factor in pluralizing the unique essence of humankind. With the help of the recognition of this content, necessity of its role in architecture and urban planning- interpreted as the exhibition scene and defined by threefold classification of human role as subject, object and finally exhibition location. But the importance of public viewer and consumer, attention to preferences of individuals and giving authenticity to non-spiritual desires, leads authors to call it collective preferences approaches. For this reason, and to prevent confusion between human cognitive concepts and approaches based on collective preferences, different aspects of these two approaches are studied, which as a result will be distinguished from each other in four levels: time preference, common and social preference difference, commonality of collections and pluralism of desires. It should be mentioned that in this study, time preference refers to style and diversification in a certain time period,common and social difference deals with interpretation of the content of community(Gemeinschaft), and its larger part of society (Gesellschaft), and also the extent of its ethical and value-based content is specifics. In a smaller scale, commonality of collections refers to the placement of dissimilar values in a similar environment. Ampleness and endlessness of materialistic desires of individuals that can only summarize in pluralism is also the fourth used explanation of this study, which according to AllamehJa'fari, resembles a nonstop and flowing liquid. What we can see in the content of each of these explanations is the descent of inherent dignity of physical human which notes him to a plurality of items known as association and individualism. While, depending which side of the structure an individual architect or consumeris, the epistemological promotion will express its benefit to the individual in a way that the promotion of epistemological contexts of the consumerto himself and the his desires, strengthens the relationship between architect and consumer in expressing righteous desires. This study recognizing the environment, its effects and impressions as the preventionofits nurture and discusses that by banishing hidden libels in meaningless works,repetition will be prevented. On the above mentioned basis, researchers considered the utmost level of fulfilment of the righteous desires, dependent on gaining the cognitive knowledge of the consumer. In this view point, architect as the possessor of the technology and reminder of human values, comes to the scene where the consumer needs a reminder of his values, and the technology for implementing a work deserving his dignity. This procedure needs the enhancement of the cognitive background of the architect about self, consumer, work of art, and environment, and also the cognitive background of the consumer about self, environment and work of art as the most important cognitive elements that this study referred to. Priority of these factors in traditional architecture show that the necessityof gaining technique as learning tools was short and concise, but earning cognition was a permanent and never ending process. Epistemological aspects of the microcosm, occasional researches on the application of cognitive sciences in art and technique and codification of strategies and solutions mentioned in the conclusion of this study could be considered as a new groundwork for future research.

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To explain the strategic plan to achieve a new Islamic civilization in its various fields and dimensions, a general and scientific structure must be exploited which in accordance with facts of existence from the universe and of human being.

This research believes that this general structure along with its entire steps, resources and the foundations of every single one of those steps has been discussed in depth and is infallible based on doctrines of the divine religion of Islam. Yet still, the structure can be achieved, explained and proven from a scientific, rational and divine dimension and can be further explained and analyzed because it entails facts of the universe (signs of existence) and human being (potential and actual talents, will, authority, works and course of descent and rise of human race) can be explained and analyzed.

The research method is based on areas and degrees of wisdom (logical reasoning) and quotations (words of God and traditions of the Imams - May peace be upon them) and it is descriptive, exploratory and interpretational.

The most significant accomplishment of the research is the explanation of the general structure of human processes, steps and its associated Islamic resources and in particular its bases and principles (strategic-conceptual) and solutions (applicability-practicality) in all steps from the perspective of the Islamic culture. Meanwhile, in each step misguided and incomplete contemporary western practices (modernization and ultra-modernism) are assessed and reviewed. The overall achievements of the research are applicable for all teaching, research and administrative topics and are particularly reliable for exploitation in the fields of art, architecture and urbanism.

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Environmental crises are one of the major challenges that human community is facing. Different schools have expressed different solutions to solve these crises, for example: Conservationism, Preservationism, Social Ecology, Animal Rights, Land Ethic, Ecofeminism, Stwardship, Sustainable Development etc. Sustainable development is a recent solution of human society proposed in response to inappropriate human exploitation of the environment. Sustainable development has been defined in many ways, but the most frequently quoted definition is from Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report: «Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world›s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment›s ability to meet present and future needs.»

All definitions of sustainable development require that we see the world as a system—a system that connects space; and a system that connects time. In the extensive discussion and use of the concept since then, there has generally been a recognition of three aspects of sustainable development: Economic: An economically sustainable system must be able to produce goods and services on a continuing basis, to maintain manageable levels of government and external debt, and to avoid extreme sectoral imbalances which damage agricultural or industrial production. Environmental: An environmentally sustainable system must maintain a stable resource base, avoiding over-exploitation of renewable resource systems or environmental sink functions, and depleting non-renewable resources only to the extent that investment is made in adequate substitutes. This includes maintenance of biodiversity, atmospheric stability, and other ecosystem functions not ordinarily classed as economic resources. Social: A socially sustainable system must achieve distributional equity, adequate provision of social services including health and education, gender equity, and political accountability and participation.

However, there are still environmental crises and pollutions in the world, and failure to fulfill its goals would be owing to the roots and fundamental view of this approach to the human and environment as well as the relationship between human and the environment. Therefore «Human» should be studied in Western Philosophy.

Islam Religion has also recommended specific procedures for the use of nature and human relationships with it. The Holy Quran, The Sunnah, wisdom and Consensus are four fundamental sources of rules and laws. They contain provisions on how to best handle the environment and ensure sustainable development. God Almighty made all other creatures and blessings in the universe (e.g., water, air, animals, plants, inanimate creatures, the earth, sun, moon) accessible to human beings. That means that human beings are entitled to utilize and search for these resources to build their own lives and the universe, in accordance with God’s instructions.

Methodology

This article compares these two thoughts (Sustainable Development of Islamic religion) through a descriptive-analytical method. The methodology of this research is descriptive-analytical. The present article first investigates the relationship between human and the environment during classic era (Ancient) and Middle Ages and also its evolution to the Modern Ages and then, implies to the Sustainable development and its characteristics. Next, human and the environment are defined in Islamic philosophy and texts, and the relationship between them will be also explained. Finally, the relationship between human and the environment will be compared under these two thoughts.

Results

It has been shown in the present research that changing in the concept of human and the replacement of human with God in the Universe is one of the causes of environmental crises. The solution to overcome this problem is changing the people’s attitude to the concept and position of modern human. Sustainable development accepts the so called definition of Human during Renaissance, and then focuses on the sketchy concepts regardless of the causes of these crises. Sustainable development wants to fight against the pollution and environmental degradation through those ruling patterns causes such environment for human, and wants to get the help of the same methods and procedures of destructive development.

Thus, From the perspective of Islam, nature is a living existent, intelligent with reason; although it has been created for human, but human is not allowed to use it all that wish, because it is trusted to human and human, as the “Steward of God” must be trustee to the other creations of God and do all its assignments. While the focus of sustainable development is regarding the fact that nature is a place for the growth and development of human and it must be also used by the next generations. Meaning that, nature is not respectable by itself, but also it is important due to its function. This is why it is not clear how to use it and human community has different interpretations of exploitation of the nature, since there are different views on the human prosperity and development. The results show that there is a need to the revolution and changing conceptions of human and also re-illustrate nature and human relationships to resolve these crises. The place of nature and human within the universe must also be revised.

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“Islamic-Iranian Model of Architecture” is the strategic scape proposed for future of architecture of Iran. So guiding higher education courses towards this goal could be seen as their mission. In this respect and among architectural graduation courses the course of “architectural technology” has the potential to take leading place because it is attached directly to institute of technology as progressive force of the world today. But this may be its weakness as well as the technology tends to deny any locality in its nature. In its syllabus the current architectural technology course has been ill-attached to cultural priorities. So most recently a two-credit unit is added to its content called “Wisdom of art and technology in architecture”. It seems that the main mission of this class is to describe the technology from the view point of Islamic Wisdom so that prepare an appropriate theoretical stand for architectural technology students. This article is aimed to draw a conceptual framework for technology within Islamic system of world-view. So at first it is tried to locate religious view amongst context of philosophy of technology. In this respect the four-part categorization of Carl Mitcham is taken as main framework of discussion where technology is seen from four directions: physical products, types of knowledge, forms of procedures and goals. He makes a differentiation between religious technology, craft technology and scientific ones. To make a proper relation between Islamic views and current philosophy of technology another division of Mitcham is also taken into account: humanities views versus engineering ones. Humanities philosophy of technology refers to those attempts of philosophers who try to make descriptive insights to essential qualities of man-made tools so the traditional branch of Hikmat (philosophic work of Muslims) can be interpreted as a kind of engineering philosophy of technology. These philosophic analyses try to make a spectrum of creative force from God to human and describe why all man-made world is related to unity of the world. There is no obvious critical debate among traditional philosophic works of Muslims. Three subdivision here are Mash’a’ philosophy of Farabi and Ibn-e-Sina, Ishraq of Sohravardi and the composite reading of Molla Sadra that their influences on debate of technic are respectively considered in Ehsa-o-loloom (Farabi), FotovvatNames (unknown authors) and Resaleh-Senaeieh (Mirfendereski). The critical stand point of humanities branch could be traced among some current attempts of Islamic intellectuals who are originally affected by western critical views. These works are categorized in three groups: social oriented ones are those who see some weakness in Islamic society relation with new technology but put the blame on Muslims’ social approach not modern technology. The so-called Islamic enlightment throughout 150 recent years pursued this way. Among this group Ali Shariati’s thesis of four human’s prison is studied here. The second approach that could be called new-realism that is affected originally by works of Islamic cleric Allame Tabatabaii and then rational positivism of Poper is mainly known with name of Abdolkarim Soroosh who after a modest criticizing of modern technology without denying its positive effects, puts self-protection and independent will towards non-consumerism society as main tool for damping negative effects of new technology. The third approach is a Heideggerian one merged with intuitive school of Sohravardi and Ibn Arabi. Its proactive leader was seyyed Ahmad Fardid and until now has its own followers. In terms of technology this approach is more Heideggerian than Islamic and sees the rescue from evil force of modern technology unavailable unless a great change occurs in in human ontological world.
All six approach described here have some basic weaknesses for current situation either from descriptive view or from critical perspective especially in terms of architectural technology problems. So a new approach is designated here that looks for a fundamental map of relation of three major players: Islam, Human and Technology. Three keywords are used to reach to a basic platform for the debate: humanized Idealism (Kamal), ethical duty orientation (Taklif) and intellectual religious scrutiny (Ejtehad). The first term (Kamal) makes the main criteria of human change in the natural world and describes why the God (Allah) not only allowed the mankind to make changes in nature but also wanted him to do so. But Kamal is at the same time a restrictive term in Quranic view because it makes dependence among all creatures so that the growth of them is linked to each other.  This semi ethical meaning of Kamal is strengthen by more ethical concept of Taklif. Taklif in Islamic context in contrast to Kantian sample is not an ultra-real one but is a deep real and objective phenomena that draws brilliant lines between various rights and duties of not only humans but also all creatures. Here four basic types of Taklif in Islamic view are used to make the main model of ethical evaluation of technology that are four responsibility of human: responsibility for Allah, for the self, for the others and for the environment. Each of them has its own content in Islamic context and has a specific relation with technology that makes them very appropriate for the aimed model-making. Here otherness of every four is considered priory to unity of the “I” and them. So the responsibility is definable and evaluable. Finally this new approach is summarized in a table that can be used for weighting technological inventions in architecture.This table views every technological changes from to basic point: 1. If the technology is harmful for any of the for basic rights. 2. Whether it is generative for the four human relations or not. All evaluations are linked to the Islamic life style but the models of this text can be seen as independent from Islamic context as well.

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Urban renovation is a strategic issue in Iran urban development, and it is considered in many urban documents. The deteriorated areas of cities may cause to a variety of social and economic problems for their inhabitants. Living in such areas, may deprive residents from opportunities (such as access to educational space, access to health services, and sense of belonging to a good neighborhood), and so, distort their human dignity. For this reason, urban planners should try to define goals and strategies for renovating urban deteriorated areas. In Tehran, the comprehensive plan (approved in 2007) has identified strategies for the renovation of urban deteriorated areas. In terms of economics, the comprehensive plan of Tehran proposes a "No Cost" renovation strategy which means the renovation process should be realized with the municipal incomes from inside of deteriorated areas (without other incomes of municipality which are gained from rich areas of the city). Is such a strategy based on human dignity? This is the question of this research. In other words, is it consistent with the concept of human dignity to provide the budget required to support renovation in deteriorated areas through the taxes of from the place of renovation?
Since human dignity is a relatively complex concept, and there may not be a complete consensus on the definition and criteria for its measurements, this paper focuses on the views of one of the major thinkers in this area. Sayyid Musa al-Sadr can be a good reference for defining the concept of human dignity, because he has books, speeches and even certain social attempts to address the concept of human dignity. According to the humanitarian and Islamic context of his ideas, this paper, by explaining the views of Sayyid Musa al-Sadr, has tried to present a theoretical framework for measuring human dignity in urban development programs. Then, based on this framework, this article evaluates the economic strategy of Tehran's renovation. In order to evaluate the urban renewal strategy in Tehran's comprehensive plan, this research has conducted a semi-structured interview with two groups of experts: First, the experts of the Tehran Center for Urban Studies and Planning (as the conductor of Tehran Comprehensive Plan), and the second, the experts of the Tehran Renovation Organization (as the responsible organization for urban renewal). The interviews proceeded to a theoretical saturation (a total of 15 interviews).
Research findings show that human dignity can be measured by seven criteria: "maintaining and promoting unity in society", "creating opportunities for progress for all human beings", "considering people equal, except for superiority in piety, endeavor and science", "dealing with people's affairs", "responsiveness of all people to each other", "the responsibility of all citizens towards each other ","human freedoms" and "institutionalizing the empowerment of the disadvantaged". According to these criteria, this paper shows that the economic strategy of "No Cost Urban Renewal", which has been emphasized by the comprehensive plan of Tehran, cannot be based on human dignity.

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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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The concept of human dignity means honoring the essence and existence of man as God's highest creation. This concept can also be spatially interpreted in urban planners' programs and interventions. For example, it would seem to be possible to distinguish between neighborhoods who provide higher levels of human dignity for their residents than those who do not meet this criterion. Old and traditional neighborhoods of Iranian cities, may have weaknesses in meeting the new expectations of residents because of infrastructure degradation and changes in urban needs. However, they are more attractive than new neighborhoods yet because of their respect to some qualities. This study aims to answer the question that what are the criteria of human dignity and have the newly built neighborhoods (case of Hakimieh in the west of Tehran, Iran) succeeded in preserving human dignity at least as much as the old ones (the case of Iran Street neighborhood in the central historic context of Tehran)?
Accordingly, this paper is developmental comparative research. The definition of the criteria of human dignity is based on the opinions of Muslim scholars, as well as the works of non-Muslim scholars. Data collection has also been done through the archival and field survey methods. In this framework, some questions have been formulated to form a semi-structured questionnaire to measure each criteria of human dignity (derived from the provided theoretical framework). In each of the two neighborhoods, 100 questionnaires (a total of 200 questionnaires) were completed. The sample size was estimated using Cochran formula and random sampling. It should be noted that the two neighborhoods had similar conditions in terms of land prices and income levels, but they were differed in time of constructions.
The results of the survey show that the criteria of human dignity as a characteristic of the desirable Islamic city in the traditional and old neighborhood of Iran Street have been realized more than the new and modern neighborhood of Hakimieh. Findings show that the Hakimieh neighborhood is not far from the traditional Iran Street neighborhood, in terms of physical facilities and services (measures of intrinsic dignity such as "facilities for education" and "level of well-being and infrastructures"). However, according to spiritual values of dignity (such as "unity" and "participation in charities"), Hakimieh is significantly weaker than Iran Street neighborhood. As a result, it may be possible to claim that purely physical approaches to urban planning (such as providing services per capita) have failed to generate sufficient human dignity in the newly formed neighborhoods. Future studies can first replicate this assay in different neighborhoods of Tehran and other cities of Iran. Secondly, they can evaluate the programs and human dignity in them: programs such as comprehensive plans, renovation plans, and other interventions in the residential contexts.

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