محمدآزاد احمدی

In this study the relationship between learning styles and academic performance of the students in theoretical courses and architectural design workshop is addressed based on one of the existing theories in learning styles that belongs to "Felder-Silverman". Theoretical basis of Felder-Silverman theory is based on the duality structure (lateralization) of brain processing which composed of left and right hemispheres. They used a five dimensional dichotomies including the perception (Sensory-Intuition), processing (Active-Reflective), input (Verbal-Visual) organizing (Inductive-Deductive) and understanding or apperception (Sequential-Wholistic) dimensions. In order to study the relationship between the academic performance and learning styles two types of tests were selected that the first one classified students in learning styles based on "Felder - Solomon" questionnaire and the second one analyzed and integrated academic performance of the students in architectural design workshop and theoretical courses. The results of this study showed that the number of 4th year students compared to 1st year students in intuitive, visual and wholistic styles was significantly higher. The assessment of student performance indicated that the first year students had the best performance in introduction to architectural design I course with reflective and visual styles and the 4th year students had the best performance in architectural design IV with wholistic, visual and reflective styles. Also the first year students had the best performance in construction materials (which is a theoretical course using written material) with verbal and reflective styles and the final year students had the best performance in Introduction to Islamic architecture II (presented descriptively using PowerPoint) with visual and sensory styles.

This study analyzes the constituent layers and effective factors in the construction of permanent buildings, as well as how to evaluate and classify the types of signs and semiotic and semantic views in, to emulate the original Iranian architecture. A comparative content analysis and a semiotic and semantics approach were used to analyze the data gathered through library and field studies. Different levels of semiotics and the views of theorists in this field were studied, and then a comparative study of the two museums was carried out and the similarities and differences between the basic components of these two buildings were studied. Then, with the initial coding and categorization, while analyzing the concepts, explicit meanings, implicit meanings, and symbolic meanings were extracted. The research findings show that museums are composed of different layers that are in unity and integration with each other and meanings and concepts through five layers with the titles of construction layer, environment, access, physical-functional layer, and landscape. The study shows that the legibility of the architecture of museums is achieved by paying attention to the layers of its structure and making sense of the design according to those layers. The designers of the museums under study have tried to pay attention to the levels and layers that make up museums while paying attention to the desired functional aspects. Reflect the aesthetic concepts of Iranian architecture while paying attention to the needs of users, recreating the concepts of Iranian architecture.

The appearance of a city can influence the creation of good or bad feelings to a large extent, depending on the structure and characteristics of the physical elements of the city. Citizens remember a city with an image of its urban spaces, especially the streets and squares, or of certain views, and it is their experience of the city’s physical environment that creates the image. On that basis, visual perception of the physical spaces of the city has a greater effect than other senses on the creation of different emotions in citizens. Appropriate urban views can play an effective role in the formation of clear, legible perceptions in people and in the acquisition of pleasant feelings about the city. Moreover, different perspectives can have different visual effects on the citizens of a city. A large number of studies have been carried out so far on various aspects of urban view. The present research analyzed urban views and their visual impacts on citizens, and sought to identify  them along with methods of their categorization and explanation and conditions and factors that create and influence them. Urban views can have two major impacts on citizens in the form of likes and positive emotions or dislikes and negative emotions. Accordingly, attempts were made in this study to categorize the effects of urban views in general, which helped to draw the final conclusion.

Theoretical framework:

Data collection and analysis was based in this study on an interpretive paradigm within a contextual examination of popular feedback from urban perspectives and expert views thereon. Hence, the main framework of this research was based on Jack Nasar’s definition of mental activity and emotion. He argues that the environment involves a large number of variables, and viewers go through some, pay attention to others, and evaluate what they see depending on internal and environmental factors. This assessment can include variable amounts of mental activity, and may also involve emotion, which is directly related to the structure of the form (visual environment), and requires little perception and mental activity.

Due to the nature of this research, the main approach adopted in the design was a qualitative one using the grounded theory method, based on Corbin and Strauss’ approach, including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding data analysis. Other important reasons besides the comprehensive nature of the research included the nature of the research questions and the lack of an established theory on classification of urban views. Attempts were made here to step into the participants’ world and observe the subject from their point of view, to achieve new discoveries in the field, and to develop empirical knowledge in the field.The researcher first selected the sources of information and observation, and then used data from the participants for exploration and completion of the final model. The data were collected through library and field studies, interviews, and semi-structured questionnaires. The population and the participants were selected using theoretical sampling, where sampling continues until the data are saturated. The participants in this research included residents of and experts in Sanandaj.

The results of the research showed the selective categories of observation effects and emotional responses including excitement, relaxation, pleasantness, and communication. Moreover, the causal conditions that create urban views, the contextual conditions, and the intervening conditions and their effects were obtained. The relationship between these categories and the outcome of the research was formulated and presented in a comprehensive model. The final core category was also summarized in the statement The city is a homogeneous or heterogeneous network of diverse urban views developed to upgrade or diminish citizens’ emotions.

The study demonstrated that a large number of factors are involved in identification and analysis of an urban view, in isolation and with respect to each other. Therefore, an urban view is highly complex, and is not easy to compare to another, with many factors involved to be examined and analyzed. It is better for the effects of different views on a city to be proportionate, so that their effects on citizens are desirable and balanced in the long run. For example, axial views may evoke a sense of dynamism or boredom in citizens, but broad or panoramic views may be exhilarating. According to the principle of diversity and complexity in aesthetics, these effects had better be combined, intertwined, and coexistent in a balanced manner for citizens’ different applications in response to their different emotional and spiritual states.

Today, the issue of visibility assessment and visual impact (dominance) of a building on its surrounding context is considered as one of the most important issues of urban landscape. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the visibility of two high-rise buildings in the center and west of Sanandaj using raw input data and processing them by GIS and ArcGis 10. For the visibility analysis in urban landscape, the mutual visibility between high-rise building and its surrounding area is calculated. This is done traditionally by taking photos from urban areas. However, in this method, the whole region is studied by considering all points and places. The available vegetation such as trees with an approximate transparency ratio is considered to obtain more accurate results. Also, for better evaluation of differences between the amount and trend of visibility, the areas around both buildings (region number 1 is relatively flat and has a river-valley with low depth and mild slope; region number 2 involves dune hills) were classified into the close, intermediate and far fields. The visibility of these two high-rise buildings in their surrounding areas is in the form of output GIS images which is calculated separately for both buildings and all their floors. It means that for building number 1, which has 17 floors, 17 output maps of visibility to surrounding areas are obtained by the software. Also, for building number 2 with 14 floors, 14 output visibility maps are obtained. The findings show that visibility trend of different floors of these two buildings is not a constant and linear trend, it has variations in some points. Among these points, visibility and its effect, relative to surrounding areas, is more important than other floors in the triple fields. The points where visibility curve has track change, steep change and sudden increase show the greater importance of their visibility and their relative dominance than other floors. These floors can visually have more effect on their surrounding environment. Therefore, the design style of these particular floors (milestones in the visibility curve) in high-rise buildings can be important. The changes in floors visibility trend and their values were different for the two buildings. By evaluating the related diagrams, the reasons for this difference were found in three cases: first, the difference in average height of buildings around of two buildings; second, the difference between the tilt around the two buildings; and third, the dune hill in region number 2. Finally, we can say that visibility analysis is considered to be a tool for modeling the visibility in planning high-rise buildings. Before constructing such buildings, visibility analysis can be an effective method to estimate that a floor or an apartment will or will not have a good view after completion. Therefore, this tool can be used to investigate the positive or negative value of a region. Also, the extent to which a building is or is not visible can be very important in decisions about determining the height of a building relative to its surrounding texture (especially in cities with historically valuable texture and touristic landscape).

Isovist and Visibility Graph analysis tools are used to quantify and measure the quality of space, and despite their lack of maturity and evolution, they are considered to be the future of space analysis tools by researchers. This study was undertaken with the purpose of introducing the aforementioned tools for analyzing Sanandaj’s urban areas. In this study, four different urban areas in Sanandaj were selected and after the software was prepared, the areas were analyzed by Isovist and Visibility Graph analysis. Then, the charts and data obtained from these regions were compared. The interpretation of the findings of the Isovist and Visibility Graph analysis reveal that in the old region builders used a sort of inherent and collective standard for measurements despite building without modern urban development maps. Amongst all the four urban areas of Sanandaj, this region has the greatest visual richness and diversity; in addition, the special analysis of neighborhood size indicates harmony and balance in this region. Moreover, the results illustrate that the nearest wall and special neighborhood size indices have the highest correlation, followed by jaggedness which has the highest correlation with revelation. However, openness factor and the nearest wall have the lowest correlation. The openness factor indicates the degree observers feel themselves in the space and also present their visual dominance over the space. In this factor, the standard deviation values of the new and the middle areas are low which indicates that the openness coefficient is the same in all areas and the individual experiences monotony and boredom. The feeling of being in space and attention to the environment in these regions (especially in new areas) is significantly reduced. In addition, in this index the high standard deviation for informal settlement areas is merely due to the diversity of the streets and sidewalks, but in the old area, the high standard deviation is due to the combination of sidewalks with squares and various open spaces spread in the region. Thus, the only area with visual richness and diversity is the old area. The nearest wall index signifies the domination of the wall in the informal settlement area over the spaces. In the middle area, the surrounding long streets and linear views along with visual opening and open spaces with lower degree of circumscription appear. According to this index, the old area has the lowest standard deviation which indicates visual space sequence and the feeling of the existence of a united identity in the area by the observer. Since the revelation index indicates the rate of change in the field of view during movement, the highest value of kurtosis and drift in the revelation index of the old area indicates that this area has the most variations and changes in vision for the moving observer and meets the quality of mystery in vision and visual richness. Finally, the results concerning the four types of regions in Sanandaj indicate that the Isovist and Visibility Graph analysis factors reveal the similarities and differences between these regions in terms of space properties and visual quality. Therefore, using these tools in decision-making related to urban design can significantly contribute to the promotion of the visual quality of the urban fabric.

Natural tourism planning is the first step in tourism approach natural resource management in which prone areas for recreational planning is zoned. Aimed to identify the different forms of tourism zoning in Abidar natural forest park in Sanandaj City, a systematic analysis method was used. We produced a recreational potential map using systematic analysis model in GIS. The results of this evaluation indicated that the study area lacks first class concentrated recreation potentiality and the maximum surface area of the study area has been consisted of the second class potentiality. To evaluate the impact of factors affecting tourists, 450 questionnaires were distributed among the tourists. The survey results indicated that most tourists have selected the area because of the access to water resources. The buffer map of water resource was prepared to promote the systematic analysis model and to assess the effect of water resources on different recreation classes of the model and it was integrated into a recreational potentiality map of system model and the final map of the recreational potentiality was prepared. The evaluation results showed that 6% of the area has first class concentrated recreational potentiality, 28 percent of the area has second class concentrated recreational potentiality, 35 percent of the area has first class discrete recreational potentiality, and the rest 31% of the area has second class discrete recreational potentiality. Comparing two recreation potentiality maps showed hat in systematic analysis model, the region does not have first class concentrated recreation place. However, scoring the water resources factor made 6% of the region earn first class concentrated recreation potentiality. The results of this survey indicated that water resources, herbal coverage, accessibility ways, and physical factors (gradient and direction) have the most effect on the evaluation process of recreation potentiality in the region as they are mentioned in order of effectiveness. While the effective parameters in recreation potentiality evaluation in systematic analysis model are gradient, soil, direction, water, plant, and climate. Based on our findings, it was found that recreational activities expected in broad zones include things like walking, trekking, visiting landscapes and snow skating, etc., which do not need to deploy and service of recreational trails, except in designing walking routes in certain circumstances. But, in areas having concentrated recreation zone, activities such as camping, family picnics, etc., require suitable facilities for establishment of tourism.

Tourism is inevitable for humans and is a behavior to satisfy their psychological needs and requirements. Travel to other parts of the world is one of the aspects of life in the twenty-first century. This is a descriptive study in 1389 in the tourist district Abidar located within the city of Sanandaj. In this study, a comprehensive questionnaire was used to collect data consisted of 23 questions and a total of 450 survey questionnaires were filled. The validity of the opinions of the experts were assessed which confirmed the contents of the questionnaire. The study variables included age, sex, education level, occupation, and monthly income, place of living, knowledge and attitudes of visitors to protected areas of the Abidar Park. The results of this study showed that mostly men and married men visit the park. To improve the facilities of the park, most visitors are willing to pay a cover charge and almost all tourists emphasized the natural landscape and the beauties of the Park Abidar and were excited about them. The research showed that Abidar visitors pay particular attention to the protection of natural areas and all aspects with aesthetic importance.