Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Performing diverse activities in urban spaces were assumed a part of the past culture. Moreover, now urban spaces do not have a specific definition in terms of quality. It seems that today’s materialist world is more seeking to increase return in investment and economic quantities and this quantity-oriented state have kept it behind the qualitative issues. For this, faded presence of people in spaces, makes performing this research essential. The effort of this study is to evaluate and have an adjustment comparison between components making urban spaces from the view of western theoreticians and Iranian-Islamic scientists. It seems that remarkable presence of social relations is among the most effective components in increase of urban space’s quality. The data of this study were evaluated in two qualitative and quantitative sections. In qualitative section by help of content analysis method the viewpoints were compared. The quantitative section was conducted by use of analytical description method and a questionnaire was prepared and it was studied in three neighborhoods of Tehran. The data extracted from this questionnaire was inferentially analyzed via SPSS software and they were analyzed beside the other findings gained from literature of the subject. The three neighborhoods of Hafthoz Square, 2nd Sqaure of Niroohavaee and 15 Khordad Street were selected in terms of morphology. The findings of this research indicate that highlighted presence of activities for communication and recreation is highly effective in improving the urban space’s quality. The need for comfort, removal of the need for food and eating is among other components which were effective in the view of people that all of these components in Quran are mentioned as specifications of the space around human being. As a result, the main components of urban space’s quality questioned in this study were convergent to the components introduced by Islamic resources which are neglected in contemporary urban planning despite the emphasis of western resources and scientists.

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Since the energy consumption has become one of the crisis of modern buildings, modeling the Iranian past architecture patterns could be helpful. The shopping streets as one of the main sectors consuming energy locate near the open spaces it seems, therefore, they need more thermal comfort. However, using passive techniques, the Iranian traditional bazaars architecture solved the problems regarding thermal comfort. The present inquiry aimed at investigating thermal comfort of traditional and modern commercial buildings from the perspective of solar radiation to compare traditional structures (with traditional design and materials) with modern ones (with modern design and materials). Therefore, Vakil (traditional) and Mollasadra (modern) Bazaars (with the same orientation), located in Shiraz with a semi-arid climate,  have been chosen. Vakil bazaar situated in historical context of city and Mollasadra situated in the first modern part built in 1980. A naturalistic approach was applied to investigate the relation between shadow on surfaces, shopping load and cooling needed in summer and the relation between the solar radiation on surfaces, shopping load and heating load in winter first, a number of questionnaires were used to survey 120 samples including both customers and shopkeepers to show the relation between shopping load and cooling or heating need second, Ecotect Analysis 2011 was employed to simulate surfaces with shadow and solar direct radiation in winter and summer to evaluate the relation between the surfaces received shadow and heating or cooling need. The results showed that along with a full shade in summer, the customers of Vakil Bazaar are interested to do shopping almost in all hours since there is no obtrusive solar radiation in contrast, customers of Mollasadra Street experienced a shadow from sunrise to 11:00 in summer morning thus 73.3% of customers in Mollasadra made complaints about the existing shadow since there is no shade in crowded shopping hours and points especially in summer afternoon furthermore, 93.3% of shopkeepers in Mollasadra used cooling and heating equipment which demonstrate congruently of orientation and quality in sunshades with climate. At the end, some suggestions regarding the mentioned problem in Mollasadra have been proposed.