نشریه نامه معماری و شهرسازی
سال سیزدهم شماره 30 (بهار 1400)

Based on a study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics about the average hours per day spent in primary activities for the urban population, people spend most of their time at home, at work, and commuting between these two locations. The urban population of the world has multiplied from 751 million in 1950 to 4.2 billion in 2018. Today, 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Projections show that urbanization, the gradual shift in the residence of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world's population, could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050. This population needs accommodations. One way of responding to this demand is high-density developments (densification). Densification means no front or back yards and limited access to a natural environment on the property. As a result, the benefits that citizens could gain from those interactions have diminished. Access to natural environments such as public open spaces and parks provide people with numerous health benefits. Access to vegetated areas such as parks, open spaces, and playgrounds is associated with multiple physical and mental health benefits such as positive perception about the living environment, reduced stress levels, reduced depression, and more (Kaplan, 2001). Recent research has also demonstrated that the green landscape can promote the cognitive functioning of the human brain and help people recover from attentional fatigue. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) indicates that sustained attention is one of the critical factors in successful cognitive functioning. It is also one of the cornerstones for maintaining focus, ignoring distractions, and constructive human interactions.  So, it is essential to increase individuals’ interaction with nature and maximize the benefits that citizens can receive during their limited interaction with natural elements. This research aims to explore: “Do daily micro-interactions with natural green elements can induce similar mental reactions in people as it would occur after their presence in nature?”. An experimental study was conducted to answer this question. Researchers compared the results of the sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) from 150 residents of a high-rise residential building. Participants were randomly assigned to experience one of the two versions of a building’s lobby modeled in a 3D virtual reality environment, one with and one without natural green elements. Two lobbies were modeled in Rhinoceros 3D software. The experience was conducted by using immersive virtual reality (VR) goggles. Participants completed the cognitive task twice. Once before experiencing the lobby to establish the baseline of their sustained attention and once after that. Participants of each group also filled out the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) after experiencing the building lobby. PRS was used to evaluate participants’ perception of the lobby’s attention restoration potential. The results indicate that those who interacted with natural green elements in the building lobby for 50 seconds obtained a higher SART score and demonstrated fewer cognitive errors. Also, only the people in the group with the natural green elements in the lobby evaluated the space as being capable of having a positive impact on their attention level. It can be argued that this research outcome is a testimony of the positive effect of micro-interaction with natural green elements on people’s perception of their living environment, attention restoration, and increased sustained attention.

One of the most important components of a building that influences physical properties, environmental behavior and responses, and energy consumption is the building envelope. Therefore, accurate decision-making in this regard will be of particular importance. Most of the measures taken to reduce energy consumption in buildings are somehow active and mechanical strategies that not only impose the increase of construction cost on employers but also the emission of greenhouse gases in the global environment. Regarding the importance of the role of architects, if the initial decisions in the design process are made based on environmental issues and climatic approach, a considerable saving on cost and energy consumption can be achieved. In the meanwhile, passive systems are the most efficient and clean ways to meet the thermal needs of a building by means of utilizing renewable energy resources such as solar energy, wind power, and so on. In this type of system, fossil fuels and mechanical powers are rarely used. Among the mentioned methods, the element of shading device is one of the most effective solutions that has been widely used in traditional Iranian architecture. This solution has a high potential to be implemented in contemporary architecture as well. Measurements and simulation studies have shown that balcony form and solar protection can significantly affect the thermal comfort of occupants on the balcony as well as in the adjacent room. In this research, one of the existing buildings equipped with a glass-covered balcony was selected as a case study and experimental measurements were taken by two data loggers located in the balcony and adjoining room in order to record the temperature fluctuation. The simulation process was validated by comparing the experimental results. The base case building was modeled in Openstudio software (2.6.0) and Energyplus 8.9 and was then utilized for annual energy simulation. The depth of semi-open space, the window area of the adjoining wall, and its thermal conductivity coefficient in the two types of balconies and porches were considered as the variables. The effect of shading strategies such as movable louver and glass cover on thermal performance was comparatively investigated. The simulation results indicated that the use of an open-angle louver as well as a movable glass partition in summer and winter respectively would enhance the thermal performance of the room adjacent to semi-open space. Regarding under-construction buildings, the effect of using attached shading devices on thermal performance on cold days of a year increases based on the depth of the semi-open space along with window to wall ratio. Although the reduction of the thermal conductivity coefficient of window would make the attached glass partition more effective in the winter, the negative effect has to be considered in the summer. Based on the research findings, this paper concluded in determining a design guideline for the application of a movable attached shading device of semi-open spaces in residential buildings in Tehran metropolitan city.

Juvenile Center of Tehran is a prison for minors (people who are 6-18 years old), who have committed moral or social deviance, and it is dedicated to provide care, education, rehabilitation, and refinement for delinquent children and is like a security building. Although international rules are developed for the construction and operation of such buildings, and despite the great attention of the center's officials, the interior design is in contrast to the international standards and lacks appropriate spatial qualities. According to available evidence, the impact of prisons on the conversion of criminals to ordinary citizens compared to its negative effects is negligible. In other words, the process of learning criminality is reinforced within the same organizations, in which they have been established to provide rehabilitation programs and services. Additionally, criminal labeling distorts the credibility of a person in the social environment which makes him more inclined towards criminal activities and distance him from conforming to social contracts. Prisons, regardless of their degree of success in the rehabilitation of prisoners, have prevented them from committing a crime, and the fear of unpleasant living conditions in the prison might also act as another deterrent. The prison, however, creates a paradox for criminals, as it is regarded as an unpleasant place that deprives them of their freedom: on the one hand, unfavorable living conditions might deter the potential offenders from committing a crime, on the other hand, it makes it difficult to achieve rehabilitation goals.  Although the harsher the prison conditions, the less the deterrent effect, it is different for the juvenile offenders. The delinquency of children varies based on causes, motivation, and quality of committed crimes compared to adults. They often commit offenses in a group, or with the formation of temporary gangs, whereas adults tend to act individually and have innate motivations. The types of crimes committed by children are also different from those of adults, their common crimes are the offenses against the property (such as theft and destruction of property) as well as the offenses against the person (such as direct physical harm). The project titled, "Environmental Factors Affecting the Design of Behavioral Spaces" started in 2018 in the Juvenile Center of Tehran. The aim of the project was to extract and develop principles to design detention centers as temporary housing for juvenile delinquents. Data were collected from 99 accepted questionnaires from delinquent children of the Juvenile Center of Tehran, and significant relations were observed between several design factors. There was a significant relation between child's age and selected shape, child's crime and selected color, and between child's crime and type of materials used for the housing, which approves three hypotheses that part of the design patterns could be extracted by developing field research in the intended areas as well as consulting with the specialists in behavioral sciences. Finally, this study suggests that due to the lack of a significant relationship between most factors and age groups of the crime, the test should be repeated among a group of non-delinquent children as an effective step to disseminate the findings. It is recommended to use the obtained results for a period of time in a part of the Juvenile Center.

Since children spend a significant proportion of their life in school, one of the important issues for designing such environments is to provide them with the proper setting for development and childhood experience in these spaces. This paper seeks to provide a theoretical framework for identifying the main variables, explaining the relationship between the physical characteristics of the children’s environment and the childhood experience in this environment, and defining the children’s place-development model. Thus, the questions of this paper are: what are the environmental components of the childhood experience? and how do they affect the childhood experience? Accordingly, by reviewing the literature, different views on what an ideal children’s learning environment is and important environmental factors are identified, and the basic views that consider childhood experiences as continuous (children’s experience based on the continuous needs of different environments) are evaluated. Then, to achieve a theoretical paradigm with a developmental-ecological approach, 30 children living in co-operative families were selected. The research method is qualitative with an ethnographic approach and tools of interviewing, tour interviewing, observation, and Q method were used in data collection, while content analysis was used for analyzing the data. The findings show that childhood experience is affected by how the psychological needs of children are met in the ecological context that they live in. In this context, the physical characteristics, the environmental affordances as well as the psychological and social characteristics of the children’s environment are of high importance. Also, the children’s experience in one setting influences their experience in another one. The main themes that were obtained from the data represent the psychological needs (cognitive, social, and emotional) that are met through interacting with the environment (control, opportunity to be alone, comfort, freedom, coziness, sense of ownership of the place, implicit learning, exploratory learning, etc.). Regarding the theoretical aspect, this research proposes the following theoretical model based on the literature review and its empirical findings on the environmental factors affecting children’s psychological development: 1. Environmental affordances that are responsive to the symbolic and spiritual tendencies consist of the semantic components of the environment that affect children’s emotional development, 2. Environmental affordances that are responsive to physical interaction with the environment consist of the cognitive components of the environment that affect children’s cognitive development, 3. Environmental affordances that are responsive to interpersonal communication consist of functional components of the environment that affect children’s social development. In conclusion, enhancing the children’s environment, particularly the continuity of childhood experience requires considering theoretical as well as practical aspects and addressing basic and common needs in all environments for children. Therefore, a reflection on the environments that are more responsive to the childhood experience and their impact on the mental development of children would be helpful in designing overlooked environments such as schools. The results of this research can lead to a holistic view in designing children’s environment on a large scale and it could also result in designing environments based on the needs of the children on a small scale and ultimately enhancing and sustaining the childhood experience in the environments.

Aesthetic values and visual aspects of landscapes is one of the most important and influential determinants of the presence and continuity of living in rural areas and can be considered as a basis for the planning and design of such areas. Therefore, identifying the effective indicators and criteria and how to evaluate them in order to reduce cross-sectional interventions in these areas is of high importance. There are two major theoretical approaches in landscape aesthetics that are based on landscape evaluation methods The subjective paradigm with a direct approach that compares people's preferences to reach a consensus as well as the objective paradigm with an indirect approach that evaluates the landscape based on having certain characteristics. The main objective of this study is to identify qualitative indicators that have an impact on the evaluation of rural landscapes to improve their visual quality. In order to achieve this objective, indicators of rural landscapes were extracted from the literature. 10 villages in Alamut region of Qazvin were tested and a total of 50 images from the 10 villages were assigned for initial evaluation. The process of image selection was on the basis of having the most diverse features of the landscape. The selected images were categorized and then the operational and proposed framework of research was developed by using a logical reasoning strategy for the qualitative-visual evaluation of rural landscapes. A questionnaire was prepared to survey selected and categorized images of villages. The target participants were landscape architects (students and graduates of this field) and the questionnaire was sent electronically and at the end, 80 completed questionnaires were reviewed. In the next step, a more detailed questionnaire was prepared to measure the visual beauty of the images based on the components and criteria obtained from the operational framework of the research. A total of 120 questionnaires were analyzed for visual evaluation. T-Test was used to examine the score of each of the components and criteria in the visual beauty of each selected image. Then, in order to assess the relationship between the perceptual aesthetics of the selected images and each of the criteria of the operational framework, multivariate regression analysis was used based on the Stepwise method. In this research, the visually selected images from rural landscapes were evaluated using multi-stage image evaluation techniques with questionnaire and T-Test and regression analysis were used to analyze the results of the questionnaires. Findings of this research provide qualitative criteria and indicators affecting the visual evaluation of rural landscapes as well as introducing the indicators with the highest impact in this research which includes "Visual area", "Earth in Landscape", "Lack of Visual Disruption", "Existence of Spectacular, Unique and Symbolic Elements", and "Distribution of Landscape Characteristics". Following the explanation of rural landscape evaluation indicators, the results show that each of the presented indicators has different degrees of effectiveness in evaluating rural landscape images. Therefore, identifying indicators based on the degree of effectiveness can be a useful guide for rural landscape planners and designers.

To date, widespread scientific research has been carried out that focuses on the definition of corruption, its dimensions and strategies to prevent and combat it. These studies can be classified in a range of micro-scale studies about administrator’s activities to complicated studies that focus on identifying and combating systemic corruption. This paper aims to, in the first step, clarify the network corruption and differentiate it from other forms of corruption and then, pursue network corruption in metropolis management. Accordingly, network corruption in metropolis management is defined as a network of independent and dependent actors in government, public, and private sectors and NGOs which are formed around a set of corrupted activities in several missions of metropolis management and it can be seen on different levels of urban policymaking, planning s well as implementing urban plans and projects. The key point in network corruption is the trade-off between members around corrupted activities that benefit all the members and damage the public interest. Also, this paper aims to resolve the lack of a base study framework in network corruption in process of policymaking of metropolis management by presenting a base framework on this subject as the main finding of this research. This research is a qualitative study and an integrated/critical literature review methodology is used to review related library resources and documents. Regarding the definition of corruption, there is no universal agreement. Despite the many definitions and contextual uses of corruption, the most used definition of corruption is the abuse of public resources and administrative authority for private gain, however, since this definition is mainly focused on the public sphere, Transparency International (TI) has redefined it as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. This new definition encompasses other sectors such as the private sector and NGOs. In this paper, the Karklins' definition of corruption is used which is defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain at the expense of the public good, although the latter is implicit in the notion of misuse, since the focus in this paper is on metropolis management and its missions, this thorough definition has been chosen. Also, in this paper, network corruption is pursued as a notion concept like Carvajal's research in which he classified the four steps to explain network corruption from creation to stabilization, including: 1. Setting of the corrupt nucleus 2. Expansion through a network of accomplices, 3. Exponential growth, and 4. Stabilization, however, we have also added 5. Termination to complete the circulation from birth to death of a network corruption. In addition to elaborating on the definition and process of creating and developing a network corruption, policymaking process in metropolis management is discussed in this paper. Several authors like Brouwer and Deleon (1983), Howlett and Ramesh (2020), Brewer, May and Wildavsky (1978), Anderson (1975), and Jenkins (1978) tried to explain this process, therefore public policy processes are consisted of: 1. Agenda-setting, 2.Policy formulation, 3. Implementation, 4. Evaluation and 5.Termination. In this research, these two theoretical frameworks have been combined to design a network corruption study framework in metropolis management. This framework can be applied in different fields and missions of metropolis management like architecture and urban planning, recycling management, and traffic and public transportation programs and projects.