فصلنامه مطالعات محیطی هفت حصار
پیاپی 47 (بهار 1403)

One of the characteristics of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology is to pay attention to the place of the body and the role of the body in the process of sensory perception of the world. A photographed image is unreliable evidence of the real quality of the architectural space. Therefore, examining the role of the body, understanding the human position, and his experience of architectural space, provide him with a different perspective on understanding space. In traditional architecture, especially historical bazaars, deep attention has been paid to the presence of man and his perception of the main lines of the bazaar and the surrounding spaces, which, by involving the five senses, has a different understanding of the space compared to the image prepared of that space. The main question of the research is: What are the influential components in bodily perception based on Merleau-Ponty's theories in the Iranian bazaar? The purpose of this research is to investigate the human position and the different types of perception in the presence of humans, emphasizing the theory of Merleau-Ponty's bodily perception. In fact, in this research, by examining Merleau-Ponty's theory and the theories proposed about bodily perception in the architectural space, the influencing factors on the different perceptions of man and the effect of his presence in the architectural space are investigated.

The research method is based on the onion model, where each layer is affected by the other layer. The structure of the research is based on the qualitative method of grounded theory. This research is in the form of qualitative research and a descriptive-analytical research method has been used. The method of collecting information is library and field, and the means of collecting information is by recording observations and interviews.

In the results of this research, which was carried out with an emphasis on Merleau-Ponty's theory based on female perception, the components influencing the presence of man and his different vision, such as depth, distance, movement in architectural space, perspective view, atmosphere of space, change of observer's view and parallax have been obtained.

The findings show that these components show up well in the space of the historical market; the attention of the past architects to the role of man in space, and the engagement of his perception by creating a sense of movement, the horizon of vision and movement depth, rhythm and repetition in the walls and exposure, is deeply felt and the role They have a decisive role in understanding the architectural space and human experience in the Iranian bazaar.

According to the statistics of the American Psychological Association, secondary depression, which is caused by a physical illness among patients, has been identified as the most common mental disorder. Also, the continuation of stress and anxiety of patients will lead to depression in treatment spaces. Therefore, the environmental conditions of treatment spaces affect controlling and reducing the level of stress and depression of patients. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effective factors in reducing the level of depression of patients from the dominant perspective of patients in hospital design. The research carried out up to now is mostly based on the general examination of physical and environmental dimensions, and a focused study on these dimensions has not been done about environmental psychological pressure and the creation of stress, anxiety, and depression in chronic patients in the design of therapeutic spaces. Considering the needs of a large group of patients, it is necessary to pay more attention to the design of treatment spaces to reduce the level of mental illness and depression of patients.

The current research was conducted using the qualitative-quantitative method and data analysis using confirmatory factor analysis in SPSS software. After the experts' questionnaire was distributed in two stages, the users' questionnaire was compiled. The research community at this stage was the patients admitted to Namazi Hospital, and the sample size was determined to be 200 people using Klein's point of view. So, the research method is summarized in four stages: 1- document content analysis, 2- Delphi survey in two stages, 3- compilation and distribution of user questionnaires, and 4- confirmatory factor analysis.

This research has paid attention to the treatment of depression in hospitalized patients and through appropriate design for these people, it has provided the basis for reducing depression for patients. So, the interpretation of the rotation data matrix and the factor load of each variable shows that seven factors with indicative meanings can be defined from the patient's point of view. The results show that the seven factors of visual perception, naturalism, functionalism, physical safety, logical process, psychological safety, and diversity in hospital design are effective in reducing patients' depression.

The use of artificial light at night in the indoor and outdoor spaces of the hospital, the presence of water, and the planting of different plants in the outdoor space increase the legibility of the space through the dimensions of the space by its function, the variety of light and color are some of the things that are effective in reducing the level of depression. So by using the seven factors of hospital architectural design, it is possible to create the necessary conditions to reduce the level of depression and improve the quality of treatment spaces. Therefore, it is an effective suggestion for treatment and environmental experience through physical characteristics to reduce the level of depression in patients.

The yard is one of the most important elements in a person’s residence which goes way back in history. The presence of a yard provides features like shading, natural ventilation, lighting, etc. for peoples’ houses, it can also affect one’s performance as an environmental factor. But in today’s residences, the presence of a yard or Vegetation has been somewhat neglected and this neglect of these elements has caused some mental disorders and has jeopardized the resident’s physical and mental well-being. Therefore, the purpose behind this project has been to monitor the influence of yards and vegetation on the resident cognitive performance which has been carried out in descriptive-analytical style.

For this purpose, three of the most crowded areas in the core center of the city of Ilam were monitored from the beginning of Tir till the seventh of Mehr. Alongside academic study, Physical presence in these places, and conducting field studies, at the same time the responses of 502 passers-by to the questionnaires were recorded. The collected data has been validated in a new way and through logistic regression fitting, the role of influencing variables in predicting the probability of being placed in the acceptable cognitive performance of people (standard) has been determined with 24SPSS software.

The findings showed that people living in houses with yards that have vegetation can improve people's cognitive performance. Also, the presence of vegetation in people's residences and living in villa houses (with a yard) can predict the probability of people's cognitive performance up to 0.967%.

Examining the cognitive performance status of people based on gender also showed that there is a significant difference between the cognitive performance of women and men, Women's cognitive performance is stronger than men's in terms of verbal, time and place awareness, memory and visual-spatial/executive variables, and they had weaker cognitive performance in terms of abstraction and attention variables. Finally, it can be said that the yard and vegetation affect the performance of people, especially women.

 Participatory culture in architecture can create effective communication between the employer, relevant organizations, architects, and space users. This research seeks to prioritize the components of participatory culture in housing architecture, in which special emphasis has been placed on issues related to low-income groups. The main question of the research is "How can the components of participatory culture be evaluated based on the opinion of low-income housing experts?"

 In the theoretical studies section, to present the components of participatory culture, the descriptive-analytical research method was used; Then, the field method and information-gathering tools were used through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with experts in the field of architecture and urban planning. In the data analysis section, after field surveys and the use of questionnaire tools, to use the questionnaire data, first the data were classified and coded, and then after entering the categorized data into SPSS 25 software, tests related to type determination were performed. Cronbach's alpha test for research reliability; The Friedman test was used to determine the priorities and the multiple regression test was used to describe the linear relationship between the components of the participatory culture. The results of Friedman's test show the significance of the rating of the components of participatory culture from the point of view of experts and practitioners of architecture and urban planning so that they have different ratings of these components.

 In housing policies for low-income groups, paying attention to the participatory culture can play an effective role in reducing the gaps between all interested groups in different stages of planning, design, construction, and exploitation of space and be effective in improving the housing situation of this group. In the output of the Friedman test, it can be seen that user participation in the operation and maintenance of housing has the highest average rating (9.52) and then the importance of the steps in user participation to create optimal housing with an average rating (8.87), means According to architecture and urban planning specialists, the highest priority in creating a participatory culture is to involve users in operation and maintenance of housing. On the other hand, the component of user participation with other sectors in the existing housing plan has the lowest average rating (2.06), and then the quality of housing projects under construction average rating (3.30) is dedicated to itself. This means that at present, residents of housing do not have sufficient communication and necessary participation with other sectors or the ability to create appropriate participation is not provided for them.

 The participatory culture in low-income housing emphasizes the coherence between the three areas of participation among stakeholders in the housing plan, seeking participation and participation among the stakeholders, and the way users (residents) participate in the housing plan, and shows the priorities of the participatory components from the experts' point of view. It determines the ability and effectiveness of participation in these components.

Today, criticism is one of the main pillars of the prosperity of science and art in advanced societies. However, in the architecture, the criticism remains abandoned without a clear and specific mechanism and so far, it's not been able to emerge as a specialized activity and regulated process. The Insufficient efforts to research architectural criticism reflect that “the importance and necessity” of this topic is not yet clearly understood. Therefore, this paper seeks a response to the question of what are the components of the importance and necessity of architectural criticism as stated by domestic and foreign scholars? And What are their priorities?

In this research, first by defining the meaning of “the importance and necessity” and then by extracting its components, the opinions of 100 domestic and foreign scholars and critiques who have researched about architectural criticism during the last thirty years have been studied. The collected information has been encoded and classified by adopting a qualitative approach of the directional and inductive content analysis method by using MAXQDA 2020.

Then the results of information analysis have been achieved in form of 174 sub-categories, 41 categories, and 10 super-categories which present the main components of the importance and necessity of architectural criticism based on the opinions of the selected scholars and critics. These 10 components include 1. The special place of architecture is a complex interdisciplinary and meta-disciplinary, influential on and influenceable by different sciences. 2. The special place of architectural criticism as a key field of study in architecture.3. Architectural criticism creates the link between architects, researchers, critics, and users. 4. The existence of several problems in the architecture. 5. The existence of differences in the definition and nature of architecture and issues related to this field among architects and scholars. 6. The existence of various crises about architectural criticism. 7. The impact of criticism on the growth and promotion of architecture. 8. Promoting the culture of scientific and disciplined criticism and improving the quality of architectural criticism. 9. Turning architectural problems into crises. 10. The Continuation of the process of decay and inefficiency of architectural criticism. 

Furthermore, Analyzing the results shows that the major emphasis of scholars is on the component of “the existence of a crisis and problems about architectural criticism”. Also, the statistics captured from the study of scholars and critics show the severe shortage and absence of professional architectural critics in Iran compared with the West and more neglect of this important category in the country.

Recent research has shown that the built environment affects human mental health. This research has often been done in the fields of psychology and has been less studied in the field of architecture as the main link field of space design. Since humans spend most of their time indoors, especially in the interior space, its impact on human health cannot be ignored. One of the parameters of mental health is emotion. Many components have been influential on human emotions, among which the architectural space has had the greatest impact. Therefore, the focus of the research is also on it. Also, the emotion component can be measured with the new paradigm of neuro-architecture.

To measure the interior space, the apartment type has been considered due to its greater prevalence in the city and the 40 years (after the Islamic revolution), and selected samples of 96 apartments that were the winner of the Architecture Prize(due to their spatial quality) have been selected. After gathering samples, they were grouped into four categories and modeling was done based on them. The display of four architectural spaces is done by VR glasses. The questions are as follows:  How does the physical residential interior affect human emotions and brain activities? And how do these emotions appear? To answer these questions, we used the correlation research method, and to record the dependent variables, an EEG device with 19 active channels and an elastic cap was used. For EEG data analysis, the EGLAB toolbox was used, the inferential statistical method of the Wilcoxon test was used to review the data significance among each group, and the Kruskal-Wallis H method was used to check the data of all groups. The statistical population of the research was 24 people with an average age of 28 years, 10 males and 14 females.

Based on the data analysis, in the Spac1 experiment, the most activity occurred in the Prefrontal cortex (PFC). In Space 3, the most activity took place in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). (ACC) Theta band modulations are about 52% and in the alpha band, 71% of changes were recorded in about 5 minutes. The number of changes in the theta band was 4 and the alpha band was 8 Hz. In Space 2, the most activity was recorded in the temporal lobe, and Space 4 in the parietal lobe. In the figure below, the brain map shows the average changes in each space.

The results of the present research showed that the architectural interior space with dominant curved forms such as arches, and brick materials and its pure color had the greatest impact on emotion and pleasant excitement. In the long term, this issue can create peace and achieve mental health. In addition, since the issue of esthetics has always been of interest to architects, the results of this research have shown that the interior space with wood materials and even rectangular forms is experienced from the user's perspective as beautiful.

The increasing growth of the population and its concentration in metropolitan cities have led to the development of planned cities, the primary goal of which was to attract the population overflow. These cities were located near metropolitan areas based on the self-reliance and spatial organization principles with predetermined goals. This is an emerging phenomenon in the urban livability of Iran; moreover, an abundance of problems relevant to this issue has prompted researchers to pay special attention to different aspects of it. One example of this phenomenon is the planned city of Pardis, 17 kilometers northeast of Tehran. The authorities approved the location of Pardis in March 1990. Absorbing immigrants regardless of the social and cultural context of the destination and incompatibility of the population has led to the formation of identity diversity, identity confusion, and social isolation of residents. These residents did not develop a sense of belonging to this city and did not have the desire to experience the urban space. The purpose of this research is to analyze the components causing identity confusion formation in the current situation of this city.

This applied research follows a qualitative method and content analysis strategy. Considering the theoretical saturation, the target population is 28 individuals and includes two groups of urban management staff and citizens. The data was collected from semi-structured interviews. The data analysis was performed using MAX QDA, a qualitative data analysis software.

A total number of 430 codes were conducted in three stages. As a result, four primary and twelve secondary categories were extracted.

These showed that the citizens considered the lack of welfare services indirectly affecting the unwillingness to experience the urban space and the weakness in maintaining the population. On the other hand, the urban management staff considered the failure to fulfill the proposed recreational and tourist role for the planned city of Pardis by the upstream documents as the reason for the lack of urban identity by the residents and the absence of a distinctive image of the city

Urban spaces play a vital role in shaping human behaviors and social interactions. Despite being man-made, buildings and spaces have a significant impact on both individual and social behaviors. The presence of security is essential to ensure a lively and dynamic city where residents can make use of public spaces and participate in social activities. Security is considered a fundamental human need, ranking second in importance according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, following physiological needs. Factors affecting urban security can be categorized into physical groups (including environmental and human-made factors) and non-physical groups (encompassing background and social factors). Physical spaces can reinforce norms, enhance feelings of security and comfort, or contribute to mental distress within society. Urban scholars and experts argue that by implementing urban planning principles, crime, and criminal activities in urban areas can be reduced or prevented, thus enhancing the city's and its residents' security.

The main goal of this ongoing research is to identify the morphological criteria that influence urban space security and examine their impact on safe and unsafe areas. Therefore, the research focuses on identifying and evaluating effective morphological criteria for urban space security to provide morphological recommendations that enhance public space security. The methodology of this applied research is descriptive-analytical. Through library studies, analysis of relevant sources, examination of scholars' theories, and data screening, a new classification of dimensions, components, and indicators of urban space security was presented. Also, based on the research goal, a configuration approach (architectural-based) for analyzing selected areas was considered.

The research area encompasses neighborhoods within District 22 of Tehran Municipality. By utilizing the most recent data from the Law Enforcement Organization, crime reports, incidents, and resident interviews, high-crime areas were identified. These areas were then mapped out as crime hot spots using GIS software and the kernel density method. Based on these maps, a section of Sharif University's neighborhood known for its high security, and a segment of the Sadra neighborhood, identified as an unsafe area, were selected as case studies for this research. To examine the designated indicators and their influence on security levels in the study area, in such a way that it also deals with morphological indicators, techniques like "Space Syntax" and "Urban Network Analysis" (UNA) were applied utilizing software such as "DepthMap" and "ArcMap".

The findings indicate that the examined morphological factors (including street visibility, accessibility, spatial geometry, clarity level, visibility, and surveillance capability of space) have a significant impact on public space security. The objective of this research is to improve the security of the analyzed areas, particularly the unsafe zones, by proposing location-based strategies and recommendations through the development of a visual map. These strategies, based on the principles of "Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design" (CPTED) theory, include Territorial Reinforcement, Natural Surveillance, Access Control, Target Hardening, Maintenance, and Activity Support.

With the ever-increasing population of cities, especially after the Industrial Revolution, the factors influencing the urban management system and human settlements have greatly increased, and during time, traditional methods and non-participatory approaches have lost their effectiveness. Concepts such as participatory approaches have been proposed among decision-makers in the urban management system. The basis of these concepts is decision-making with and for the people. Undoubtedly, a city whose decisions are made without the effective presence of its citizens cannot meet the needs of its residents. The purpose of advancing this research is to identify and explain the factors affecting the two-way communication between people and city officials and the formation of collaborative planning to realize beautification projects to improve the quality of life of citizens in the Tehran metropolis.

This research is practical in terms of research objectives and its method is descriptive-analytical. In general, the method of conducting this research is based on document analysis, content analysis, and meta-analysis. According to the statistical population of the research, which are citizens of Tehran city, 384 questionnaires were completed, and also the interview was used to get information from the managers of the beautification organization. The analysis of the questionnaire was designed to measure the components and variables of the leading research done by SPSS software. to check the reliability and validity of the research, the confirmatory factor analysis method was used to ensure the selected main factors, correlation analysis to find the relationship between variables, and aggregate analysis to determine the amount of variance calculated by main factors

Based on the results obtained from the research, 19 factors have been presented in 4 categories, which include social-cultural, subsistence-economic, administrative-organizational, and legal-organizational.

From the respondent’s point of view, indicators related to the economic dimension with an average of 4.565 have the highest priority, indicators related to the administrative-organizational dimension with an average of 4.368 are in second place, indicators related to the legal-organizational dimension are in the third place with an average of 4.316 and finally The indicators related to the socio-cultural dimension with an average of 4.215 are in the last category. Also, ambiguity in identifying the target groups of actions, legal, administrative, and organizational obstacles, and weakness in creating a culture of participation among the community are the main obstacles to the non-realization of citizen participation in the beautification of the Tehran metropolis

The spatial structure of cities has been the subject of various research and studies in urban planning. Land use changes have a great influence on the transformation of spatial structure. Land use in Iranian cities is mainly formed in the form of comprehensive urban plans, so urban planners in preparing urban development plans, while solving existing problems, seek to draw a favorable and optimal future for cities. Spatial structure analysis at the macro level is considered a suitable tool because one of the main outputs of urban comprehensive plans is the map of the city's spatial structure. However, there has not been sufficient research in the country regarding the possible changes in the spatial structure caused by land use changes in the urban spatial organization. Therefore, the current research seeks to measure and evaluate the degree of flexibility of the spatial structure of Sari City, as the center of one of the important provinces of Iran, which is under pressure from various forces in terms of population and activity changes, against the changes related to the zones.

The current research is descriptive-causal. In this research, using the available documents, the spatial structure changes affected by the decisions of the Article No.5 Commission of the Supreme Council of Urban Planning and Architecture in Sari City are investigated. In this way, firstly, the range of the authorized level of users is determined and how the level of each user changes in each area is determined in terms of acceptance or rejection. Then, by McNemar's statistical test, it is determined whether the changes have led to a change in the area or not. The answer to this test is again attributed to each zone in the nominal measurement scale.

The results of the research indicate that out of 101 areas in this city, 48 areas are inconsistent with the approved comprehensive urban plan due to crossing the permitted area determined for each of the uses. 

This confirms the necessity of preparing a model for determining tolerable thresholds in comprehensive plans, following the main components of the city's spatial structure, including land use, which is considered one of the main outputs of the comprehensive plan.

In most of the existing literature about identity, the influential role of place in the formation of identity is mentioned and its importance is emphasized. On the other hand, addressing the issue of Identity of place has also been the subject of some research in the sector of environmental studies and planning. The present article first examines and analyses the background of the research in two dimensions: 1) the background of theories and 2) the background of the methodology of research in place identity and has identified the shortcomings of the background of research methodology in identity of place. In the background section of theories, these theories are divided into two main categories, including earlier theories and late theories about the definition of the identity of place. The movement from earlier definitions to later definitions in recent decades is the result of paying attention to the numerous non-physical dimensions and components that make up the identity of the place, especially the dimensions related to the political economy and social forces of the place.

Using the exploratory and inductive research method, after reviewing the existing literature on the identity of place, the conceptual framework (content) and the procedural framework (process) of the formation of the identity of place have been explained. In the second part of the article, based on the review of the existing literature on research methodology, among the available methodologies in the qualitative approach, the discourse study methodology and the narrative research method as its subset are introduced as research components in place identity. In the following, the narrative research method is explained and the capabilities of this method in investigating the identity of the place are pointed out, including the ability to investigate the temporal process of the formation of meanings, the investigation of disputed meanings between different social and political forces, and comprehensive collection of information, and data and a holistic and systematic analysis of the findings and data collected.

As the result of the article, the ways using the narrative inquiry method in investigating the identity of place are briefly discussed and the general framework analyzed based on the discourse analysis method is overviewed.

Based on what was discussed in this article, the methodological approach of validity research can be introduced as one of the most comprehensive research methods in spatial identity. One of the advantages of this method is that by employing it, critical points in spatial identity are significantly identifiable compared to other methods, and this can be used in the process of presenting a solution.

Among different types of spaces, public spaces are of great importance due to the creation of a platform for social activities and a large part of the daily life of individuals takes place in such spaces. As the social interactions of individuals are formed in such spaces, socialization is considered one of the most important qualities of public spaces. However, this quality has many effects during different time cycles, and for a comprehensive analysis of the nature of the place, it is necessary to examine this nature in different time cycles. The main questions in this research include: what are the time-related and effective socialization factors in shaping people’s behavior and responding to their needs? How is the relationship between different time cycles and the level of socialization indicators of public spaces affected by the time factor? And how much do the socialization indicators change according to time variables? This research aims to determine the correlation between the time factor and the level of sociability indicators of public spaces affected by the time factor, analyze and examine how socialization indicators relate to daily and annual time cycles, quantitatively and qualitatively. 

The research method is descriptive and is a combination of time allocation, ethnography, and content analysis that studies the environment, and behavior, analyzing the place, policies, and programs using Janbaz Square of Mashhad as the case study of research which is one of the most important public spaces of this city. The information is gathered through documentary studies, closed-ended questionnaires, semi-organized interviews, and observations. Information was analyzed using deductive, content, and graphic methods and SPSS and depthMap software.

 Findings show that the effects of indicators on promoting the sociability of public spaces are strongly influenced by the time factor, so most indicators have been successful in attracting people to the place in certain periods, but in other cycles, their effects are greatly reduced. The findings also emphasize that the coordination and alignment of indicators with the needs of the users at different time cycles have a significant impact on the performance of social spaces, public spaces, and community promotion. Also, the effects of indicators on the socialization of public spaces are strongly interdependent in different time cycles, so that in many cases, their effects on increasing sociability have to be explored together.

The research answers in the qualitative part to this research question that what are the indicators of improving the sociability of public spaces affected by the time factor and the quality and quantity of the presence of the audience in public spaces according to these indicators in time intervals; “How are they different” has answered by explaining a perceptual structure consisting of changing indicators in different daily and yearly time cycles.