Redefining the Semantic Implications of Facades in Adaptation to Emotional Response of Observers Case Study: Shariati Street, Tehran

The issue of facade is a fundamental and important topic, not only for urban designers, architects and professionals but also for the administrative institutions related to the urban problems. This is really an important issue because of the fact that the facades are the symbol of visual identity and are like the urban window which is seen by the observers in their first contact with the city. Despite this, the trend of urban facades’ construction and their design ignore these considerations and as the results the codifying and implications are not proper. So not only the environmental perception, but also receiving visual information have encountered with problems and due to these the level of arousal and pleasure decreased and visual equilibrium could not be creates. In this regard, a glance on the urban window of Tehran as the capital presents the dissonance, chaos, inconsistent visual identity. This paper aims to define the process of environmental perception and also to explore the influence of emotional aspect on the interpretation aspect and semantic implications. Then, based on the models of environmental preferences, the implications of the different facades are determined. For revealing the semantic implications of facades in Shariati Street (as the case study) experts and observers viewpoints have been considered. Research methodology in the first step and in data gathering phase is based on picture survey. In this step, according to theoretical framework, the data was analyzed via qualitative method and four types of facades were defined including exciting, relaxing, boring and stressful. This step is considered as the base for other phases of this study, and also for avoiding of interpretation by the researcher, this typology was checked by experts at the first step. In the next step, for specifying the semantic implications, qualitative method and Delphi technique was used in two rounds (using 20 designers). The data analyzing method is qualitative-quantitative in this step. Considering the fact that meaning has cultural and the semantic implications and is influenced by socio-cultural context, the viewpoints of 160 observers were also analyzed. For this quantitative method (closed questionnaire) and statistical analysis were used. The results show that the sematic implications of facades are adaptable to the emotional response, and revealed the factors which should be avoided in order to prevent from formation of boring facades. For example the results determined that the repetition of forms, lack of diversity in color and material, uniformity, lack of harmony and coordination, too much simplicity and lack of pattern may form a boring facade in the spaces. This is due to the fact that lack of innovation, amazing and complexity in a standard level, may decrease the level of arousal in the facades and thus the sense of pleasure may decrease. As a conclusion in the first step, it is important to find the position of a space or a façade based on its identity and function in the emotional network and then to find the characteristics of facades’ elements which lead to environmental arousal and pleasure. Doing this, the codifying the facades might be appropriate and logical.
components of the structure. The landscape principles reflect the cultural signs of both the immigrant and habitants communities while displaying specific visions and meaningful perspectives on the spatial structure and urban landscape.