Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the construction industry in the production of Islamic housing

Islam has perfectly organized all notions involved in human excellence through its material and spiritual guidance; settlement and housing are no exception. Therefore, real Islamic housing can be of concern to architecture researchers in Islamic Republic of Iran. On the other hand, the severe shortage of residential units, low quality of construction, short life span of buildings and low financial ability of home buyers are other challenges facing architects in Iran. According to the experts, industrial construction is an appropriate solution for these challenges. In this paper, the uncertainty and dissatisfaction with industrialized construction are discussed in terms of identity issues such as Islamic housing. Since the Iranian society theoretically seeks Islamic architecture for its houses and on the other hand, construction necessitates the application of industrialized building methods, the relationship between these two realms must be investigated and their facts should be analyzed to achieve a reasonable approach to the problem. Hence the research questions are about how these architectural realms interact with each other and which requirements of industrialization divert the residential architecture from its Islamic aspects. These questions seem novel because they have not been addressed in any research. It appears that many industrialization parameters are not opposed to Islamic features of residential architecture, but totally coincident with them. In this study, the data is collected through library research and some indexes are derived by reasoning and represented in corresponding tables to be surveyed by the experts of both realms. It is an applied research based on a descriptive-analytical methodology. The data collection is accomplished through field research using interviews and questionnaires. The data is analyzed using an inferential analysis which has the most coordination with the descriptive-analytical methodology. The analysis is performed through a parametric paired samples t-test using an AHP model. Statistical data is analyzed in Excel, the information obtained in the discussion and conclusion section is conceptually analyzed and the final results are presented. The results of research show that the set of industrialization components agrees with jurisprudential and physical principles of Islamic housing by 63%, which indicates an acceptable consistency. The set is compatible with semantic principles of Islamic housing by 17%, which indicates a contradiction between industrialization and semantic principles of Islamic housing. Thus it can be concluded that the relationship between industrialization and Islamic housing is a consistent and positive relation with contradictions just in ​​“design constraints”. Therefore, industrialized construction can be an optimal solution to the current and future problems of housing in Iran, after elimination of its slight contradictions.