فصلنامه هویت شهر
پیاپی 46 (تابستان 1400)

The Mongol invasion of Iran occurred at a time when Iranian City was considered as the capital and center of power for several centuries. During the Pre-Mongolian system, the Iranian city was united with power, and defined not by itself but within an urban organization on the scale of vast territories. The Mongol invasion massively destroyed great parts of the Iranian cities, particularly in northwestern parts of Iran, this together with the reduction of the population helped the farmlands and villages to be destroyed and deserted. The taxation policies of the Ilkhans, coupled with their nomadic way of living and cattle, breeding waned the agricultural products resulting in the serious fall of the number of cultivated villages and leaving behind many acres of uncultivated lands. This rendered meaningless the pre-Mongolian urban system, which was based on the concentration of power in the city and administration of the suburbs from there. The present research is aimed at surveying the development of the concept and stand of the Iranian city and the subdivisions thereof (such as suburb and township) during this era and after a period of relatively powerful urbanism (of the Seljuki and Kharazmshahi rules); therefore, responding to the questions as to what impacts the decline of urbanism at the beginning of the Ilkhans dynasty and its re-birth at the middle and toward the end of this period had on the concept of a city in Iran; and how the structure of the Iranian city which consisted of the castle, township, and suburb changed with the occurrences of this era as compared with the preceding era, become very important. To achieve this aim and to answer the above questions through a collection of written documents and library studies at first the historical texts remained from those eras as well as analyses of the contemporary historians were reviewed through a historical interpretative method, and situation of Iran and the factors affecting the physical, economic, administrative and social aspects of the Mongol rule were analyzed. Then by using the logical deduction method, samples of urban development of the Ilkhan era were examined, and urban features of this period and its differences with the pre-Mongolian era were carefully examined. Due to the turbulences of the Mongols rule and their nomadic way of living, many cities and habitable areas around them were physically destroyed and the economic decline arising from the policies of the Ilkhan rulers gave the destructions further vastness and depth. These incidents changed the previous internal-external urban relations. Mongols alienation with the issue of the city on one hand and their nomadic tradition on the other caused them to follow up urban development through a different method even when their attention was drawn to the issue of the city. We observe development in the concepts of city, township, and suburb in this period. Construction of new cities and suburban townships such as Rashidiyeh, Kazaniyeh, and Soltaniyeh, shows a new structure of the cities that are partly stratified with several cores.

Urban agriculture encompasses all production activities in urban areas and their surrounding regions. While in the past two decades, worldwide interest in urban agriculture has rapidly increased, Iranian administrations and researchers did not pay adequate attention to this significant field of landscape and urbanism. Persian garden is one of the main capabilities of Iranian cities in the field of urban agriculture. Although many studies have previously been carried out on the Persian garden, the agricultural landscapes of the historical gardens have yet remained neglected. However, one aspect of the Persian garden that has received little attention is the circumstances of integrating the agricultural and recreational landscapes into the garden design system. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to provide functional suggestions on acquiring the multidimensional identity of the productive landscapes of the Persian garden as a multifunctional open space for the landscapes and green spaces' design projects to be carried out in the future. Landscape architects in Iran are educated and trained to understand design considerations for establishing a public green space. But most of these professionals do not have sufficient experience in utilizing the Iranian tradition of landscaping. For a long time, the agricultural and productive identity of the Persian garden has been forgotten and neglected. Thus, this study seeks to answer the following questions: What spatial features in Persian gardens can provide the criteria for designing new multifunctional landscapes? Based on the Persian garden model, which planning and design considerations should be considered by landscape architects to integrate agriculture into public landscapes? This study was benefited from two research methods, including the design of research and case study. The basic data were collected from library sources, interviews with garden managers, experts and consultants, and some gardeners on seven historic gardens. Field studies were also carried out by the author in three different provinces (South Khorasan, Yazd, and Kerman). Having a specialized toolbox of the guidelines for integrating the agricultural landscape into the development of open spaces can be a significant challenge for landscape designers. This study showed that historical landscapes and Persian gardens can provide local and traditional criteria for planning and designing productive landscapes (consisting of edible and non-edible plants). As a basic guideline, the agricultural fields and the recreational zones should be separated. The second guideline states that access to the edible landscape in the Persian garden has special rules that provide access to the garden fruits under a hierarchical system. Thus, by applying the creativity of the environment design, the agricultural scenery will come to the attention of the visitors in the form of discovery and intuition. Besides, the visual combination of both edible and ornamental plant systems enhances the aesthetic sceneries of the landscape. Therefore, under the experience of the Persian garden, the visual approach to urban agriculture should not be underestimated. The next guideline is the importance of continuing physical separation and visual composition throughout the site and not limiting the application of these guidelines to some places.

Ornament, has a special role in the understanding of the user, in the scale of the building, its function, and structural expression, so that the amount of ornament used, the location and the relationship with the components of the building, make it an effective and special element in the history of architecture. Shortage of coherent studies between ornament and mentioned factors caused this research to done.  The question of whether ornament can influence the perception of the user in understanding the above factors is important. Therefore, the present research hypothesizes that in the periods of history, the ornament has been in the pursuit of goals such as functional clarity, scalability, and clarity in the structural expression, and in periods has disconnected with clarity of these factors. Previous studies have surveyed ornament from the point of geometric dimension and semantics without considering these three factors mentioned above. This paper has a comparative- analytical approach. Accordingly, the components of "scale", "functional clarity" and "structural expression" are described with a focus on the subject of "ornamentation" in the two periods of modern and postmodern architecture, were surveyed using content analysis and referring to written and visual sources of Architectural examples of each two periods (Famous works by vanguard architects). The comparison is carried out in two phases of qualitative (for some famous building) and quantitative (by a checklist) methods in architecture. Selecting and evaluating the selected statistical society was done in the form of a checklist. The criterion for completing the checklist was based on logical reasoning and the authors' assessment of the available evidence. In selecting case studies, at first 100 samples of buildings - 50 samples for each period - were selected as target samples. The reason for being targeted at this stage has had the selection of the appropriate works of the famous architects. Then, 50 cases (25 samples for each period) were selected randomly to achieve the validity of the samples which was used in the quantitative evaluation. Then, among the works of the indexes of the mentioned periods, some of them were purposefully explained the results and their quantitative description.  Finally, it was concluded, from quantities and qualities analysis, that the type of ornamental approach could play a role in understanding the scale, functionality, and structural expression. In modern architecture, the style of Chicago school, there is an organic approach to ornamentation, it has united with the materials and to increase the effective exposure of the three indicators considered in this article. Also, in modern European architecture, with the removal of ornament is emphasized on the clarity of the scale, building function and in the expression of the structure in most works of that period. But in postmodern architecture (initial and shell oriented postmodern), with the disconnection of the decorative shell with the interior space and orientation of the decorative wall to the environment and the effect of it, a different approach was seen and vice versa than in the previous two periods.

Cities as the biological context of human societies, like other living beings, experience obsolescence, a key factor of the vulnerability of cities over time; and this phenomenon is natural and inevitable. Therefore, vulnerability is an inevitable phenomenon occurring in all urban textures; and leads to social, economic and physical decline in the urban context; and in total, decline in urban life.     In Iran, vulnerability is occurring in cities with much more speed and intensity; and therefore, in recent decades, considering vulnerable urban textures by preparing management projects and plans has been carried out. But less attention to social and cultural dimensions is an obstacle to the fulfillment of these plans. As a result, vulnerability continues to appear in urban textures. Therefore, addressing the social and cultural challenges of managing vulnerable urban textures, is crucial; because managing vulnerability, to high extent, depends on the will and demand of the local community.    Thus, this study aims to identify and analyze the social and cultural challenges in managing vulnerable urban textures. In order to achieve this goal, Hasir Foroushan neighborhood from the old and vulnerable texture of the city of Babol is chosen as the case study; and the qualitative research method is used to produce grounded theory. Grounded theory, is a theory that is extracted directly from data gathered during the study and analyzed on a regular basis. The key point is that collecting and analyzing data must be done simultaneously.  With the help of open and in-depth interview technique with 24 members of the neighborhood, whom are chosen on purpose; the useful data has been gathered, coded and analyzed. Then, according to the research method which is The Grounded Theory; seven main categories and twelve sub-categories are obtained. These categories and sub categories are: “Community engagement, Values according to the old texture (including two sub-categories titled as: Moral, social and cultural values dependent on the old texture of neighborhood; and Valuable lifestyle of people living in old textures) , demographic features of the local community (including two sub-categories titled as: Impacts of aging population living in the neighborhood; and Impacts of the dominant presence of men in the neighborhood) , local community’s perception , social class conditions, costs and benefits of managing vulnerability (including two sub-categories titled as Low profits from spending for reparation of old textures; and Difficulties of repairing old textures) , and the local communities distrust of urban planning and management organizations, management plans, regulations,  and practices (including three sub-categories titled as: Distrust of institutions involved in management of old textures, Uncertainty of management projects and regulations and rules, and Negative attitudes against renovation of old textures) ”; are identified as the social and cultural challenges of managing the vulnerability of the neighborhood.   The results of this study, help forming the theory arising from gathered data. This theory which is comprehensive and abstract, is titled as: “The key role of social construction and cultural background in the willingness and action of the local community in managing vulnerability of the neighborhood”.

Today’s chaotic and disturbed changes in the field of architecture in Iran have more dependent variables on cultural elements and sociology, rather than from aesthetics or necessity-based requirements of architectural engineering. In this paper, the relation between the form of the house and architecture with the elements of sociological and cultural is examined. One of the factors that affect the cultural-social aspects of the architecture is the "presentational" variable that is facing a lack of cultural considerations in our country. For the first time, the presentational variable entitled as "Dramatic Cultural" in 1959 AD was the use of the concept of the show as a metaphor of cultural demonstrations in societies. This issue in architecture, as part of material culture, defines architecture in relation to another, which reflects a wide range of meanings that are dependent on its supporting philosophy of thought. However, it covers that part of the architectural necessities that are not actually generated by the user themselves, but in response to the other, the user either requires or has to respond to the architecture. Therefore, understanding the relation of the presentational variable with architecture is part of the understanding of the relation of culture and architecture. Nowadays, the dramatic architecture in society as a public affair is a barrier to policy-making with a cultural challenge in the field of architecture. From the point of view of culturalism, presentational variable has associated with cultural while culture affected from time and field, can be derived from each of the cultural layers or areas; ideological culture (Culture of specialist forces, books and articles), custom culture (Common culture), elite culture (Imported culture) or foreign culture (Religion and Nationality). The purpose of this research is to identify the various components of the presentational variable in relation to culture and architecture. The research method in this study is an analytical-interpretative one. At first, the concepts of the Presentational variable are extracted from the texts and views of the relevant scholars (influenced by the views of the thinkers of the critical and uncritical pole), and then the components of the Presentational variable are presented in the form of a conceptual model, and finally, in a comparative view, it has been discussed and concluded. The results of the research show that the presentational variable is related to today’s cultural view, due to the "loyalty" affected by "the deepening growth of the media". On the one hand, as a reality based on power, wealth, media, and modern technologies, imposes a distinction on society. On the other hand, this issue contrasts with the traditions and customs of our society, such as simple life.  The evidence available in the architecture of today's Iranian society, shows that the presentational variable in architecture follows popular culture more than any other culture. Of course, proving this claim can be a question for future research. In conclusion, it is certain that architecture derived from customary culture was inadequate in terms of value, and in today's Iranian society, art and architecture should be supported by elite and ideal cultures.

The growing number of cities in the world face a wide range of hazards, which are affected by factors such as the increased urban population and climate change. Urban development and climate change are closely related and interlinked. Today, the direct and indirect effects of climate change can be seen in countries with the lowest effect on global warming and climate change. Cities that are exposed to the risk of climate change are very vulnerable. Climate change is a globally widespread phenomenon. These cities can be said susceptible. In recent years, to cope with the adverse challenges caused by climate change, the concepts of urban ecological resilience, specifically, climate resilience have been introduced. Climate resilience is a type of urban ecological resilience, which is defined as urban resilience to climate change. In this respect, in recent years, two urban resilience concepts have been introduced to reduce these negative effects. Resilience is the ability of a system to absorb the disturbances while maintaining the basic structure in the same way and the functional methods, the capacity for self-organization and the capacity to adapt to stress and change and the capability to build back the system into its condition before a shock or intense change. Adaption to climate change focuses on reducing the vulnerability to these negative changes. Resilience has different aspects, among which climate resilience as a subcategory of urban ecological resilience is considered in this study, which includes the adaptation to and mitigation of the risks and adverse effects of climate. However, urban green infrastructure has various vital functions, including environmental, social, etc. The urban green infrastructure (UGI), according to research, has been effective in reducing the impacts of climate change in cities and enhancing climate resilience. Reviewing existing literature on the urban green infrastructure related to its role in creating urban (climate) resilience, it seems that the features  of green infrastructure and which one is effective based on the development, analysis, and evaluation of urban resilience to climate change. These have not been properly addressed so far, and in general, no exact factors have been provided to assess this kind of resilience. It seems that the characteristics of urban green infrastructure can be used as an important factor affecting climate resilience in cities to achieve such factors for assessing the quality of climate resilience. Moreover, the neighborhood scale has not been fully studied in the existing literature. Given the theoretical gap existing in this field, this question arises: "How and based on which features of the green infrastructure can we assess and analyze climate resilience in a city?” To answer this question, landscape ecology principles and the relationship between them and green infrastructure in cities were studied. The relationship was developed in the Yousef Abad neighborhood of Tehran and was qualitatively tested using aerial images, field surveys, and preparation of basic and analytical GIS maps. Finally, ‘effective qualities in assessing climate resilience in cities using UGI based on landscape ecology were obtained.

Among different types of housing, high-rises construction is considered by many architects and urban planners as one of the most common types, especially after the industrial revolution and advancements in engineering techniques. Construction of tall buildings from its beginning as a result of modern architecture, for reasons like speed of construction (industrialization), high density (accommodation of more people) etc. grew considerably, but gradually it caused other types of problems including mere consideration of performance, less human interaction, and etc. on the one hand, today, any lack of attention to social interactions in designing process has been changed into one of the major challenges at residential complexes. On the other hand, we have establishment of residential complexes as an effect of population increase, expensive price of land and also economic benefits in our country which may cause further changes in structure of residential spaces and omission of interacted spaces from Iranian architecture. The results are lack of responding to social necessities of people and a reduction in sense of place. Residential apartments have different aspects that should be consistently considered in all stages of their construction, including planning, studies, design and operation, in order to achieve a desired environment and improvement in quality of life. One of the most important factors in evaluating residential complexes is social sustainability that enhances quality of living. In definition "social sustainability in residential complexes is a situation where residents enjoy living in the residential complexes and neighborhood with other residents and they are satisfied”. In other words, human is a social creature and to meet their needs they have to communicate and interact with others. Therefore, considering psychological - social factors besides other indicators like economic and environmental-physical factors are important  for achieving satisfaction as the main criteria for measuring quality of life. In this paper, using field study and questionnaires, social interaction rates in several residential complexes have been evaluated and its objective is evaluation of socio - cultural indicators in residential complexes, determining the position of design in improving social interactions, explaining the role of social interaction in improvement of living quality and finally presenting strategies in this area. In this context, at first the concept of social interactions in housing area and views of scholars in this field have been reviewed and then position of social interactions in the design process to achieve the criteria for comparison of case samples have been analyzed and then considering the results some strategies have been presented at the conclusion. The results indicate that there is always a direct relationship between the amount of social interaction and higher quality of living environment. Moreover, it can be said that the more social factors are considered in the design process, the more willingness of residents to the social interactions are seen and residents feel more satisfaction with their buildings. Communication and social interaction among residents as one of the most important social factors affecting collective living always increase the sense of belonging and continuity of presence in places.

From the moment of birth, human beings grow with the formation of their physical, physiological, and security needs, and then they are placed in the space of knowing the psychological realm and providing psychological and social security needs, as well as being respected and loved and loved. Due to the insufficient provision of these needs for human beings, he experiences the spiritual realm with the provision of respectful and self-fulfilling demands. All these areas and requirements are formed in an environment that is based on the two elements of earth and sky. However, being surrounded by the modern world, the contemporary man is influenced by self-made architectural space, which is led to mental and physical disease due to the elimination of natural elements such as the sky. Moreover, human needs are categorized based on the response to his physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects, which affect his activities according to the theory of thinkers. Also, the dependence of art on nature has caused people to express what they have learned from nature through art. In this regard, Iranians, who have had a special respect for nature from the past to the present, have been inspired by nature. According to Iranian mythology, the sky, as the father of nature, vast and glorious, has played a key role in shaping Iranian art. Iranian art from the past to the present, including stories and legends, poets, miniatures and paintings, music, carpets, shows the role of the sky in meeting human needs. On the other hand, the representation of the sky in the arts can prove its effect on the health of the human body and soul to emphasize the importance of the existence of the sky in the living space of human beings. In order to show the effect of the sky on the improvement of human life, two views have been applied, including Western and Islamic ones based on Maslow's view, and human areas, based on the Islamic view. Study of the existence of the sky in Iranian art and especially in painting and analyzing the meaning and concept of the sky in this art shows the special place of the sky in the body and mind of human beings and also considers the existence of the sky necessary to meet human vital needs. It should be noted that a large part of the image in blue or gold color shows the role of the sky in meeting the material, psychological and spiritual needs of human beings.  By using the qualitative approach, a descriptive-analytical method, and logical reasoning, the present theoretical research studies, how to extend the sky appears in the prominent Safavid paintings as well as which humans aspects are considered based on the pieces of evidence , are from the published library sources and the graphic works (Shahnameh, Shah Tahmasebi and Khamseh Nezami). The results show the sky in  the school of Isfahan causes meets spiritual needs in the Safavid era, flourishing spiritual arts in a way that motivates a man to communicate with the metaphysical world.