Proposing the Sustainable Investigation Model (Physical-Semantic) of Iranian Architectural Heritage Conservation

Thousands of historical sites, buildings and monuments that represent the history, culture and identity of this nation need to be conserved. Today, conservation is considered to be more of an intrinsic activity based on values, and values have always been the main reason for preserving heritage. It is clear that no society will try to preserve something that is not valuable to them. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and classify values before any inspection, diagnosis, and determine the degree of interventions in the conservation process. In all scientific researches about architectural heritage, the sustainability of the conservation process has been limitedly analyzed. Therefore, it is not possible to gain a clear understanding of the architectural sustainability involved in the conservation process. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the sustainable (physical-semantic) protection of architectural heritage in order to explain the model taken by experts. The research method in this article is qualitative-quantitative; So that after identifying the physical and semantic values of architectural heritage, by examining the literature and in consultation with experts, by linear regression test, the effect of the main and sub-main components of semantic conservation on the variance of physical conservation has been determined. Then, to explain the relationship between semantic and physical conservation and related subcomponents, the Pearson correlation test is used and the final model has been presented. The reliability of the test was confirmed based on Cronbach’s alpha technique and content validity based on the experts’ opinion. According to the obtained model, it can be concluded that the conservation of the authentic architectural heritage is possible only with the continuous interaction of physical and semantic conservation with their relevant sub-components simultaneously. Also, the main subcomponents in the physical conservation of historical buildings include elements of materials, ornamentation, structural system, façade, geometry and in the semantic conservation are cultural, identity, economic, integrity, historical, aesthetic, social, and authenticity values.