Ph.D

Mr Maddahi Seyed Mahdi will present his P.H.D  at 10:30 A.M on 26 sep 2015.

Abstract

Growing trends to the cultural study of design methods of the environment and architecture among researchers of art and architecture can be known as the outcome of a change in the process of construction and movement from native architecture towards academic architecture and the resulting consequences. In the last two decades, designers and theorists have always normally been insisting on the importance of culture in artificial environments to a great extent. However, they have less evidently addressed its nature or the way culture and its components and variables influence on man-made environments such as house and the analysis and evaluation of such an effect.

Investigations show that reading house’s spatial organization from the perspective of behavioral studies and native life style has less been considered in a specific theoretical framework in Iran and the area of architectural studies is growing and on the verge of development, which has many unexplored dimensions.

People and their behavior constitute a part of residential environments system such that behavior and the environment cannot be assumed separately. It is also impossible to analyze and evaluate houses ignoring the effect of life style and behavior.

Therefore, recognizing life style, family structure and cultural-social conditions of native residents of the eras of Safavid, Qajar and the first Pahlavi in the case study and recognizing and reading native houses, the present research aims at achieving responses for the role of and the way native residence culture factors (life style and activities system) affect the spatial shape and organization of houses.

In order to perform the present qualitative study, a combinatory strategy has been adopted for collecting and explanation of data. The data related to residence culture and life style have been collected using participatory and non-participatory techniques,
semi-structured interview and questionnaire for native residents and the analysis of the studied eras documents. The data related to body reading and spatial organization of native houses have also been collected using field observation and sampling, spatial typology based on architectural originality and the convex approach in space syntax approach.

The results and findings obtained from the research indicate that life style and behavioral system (activity systems) as the most objective and tangible explanations of native culture, lead to emergence of a special spatial performance organization and hierarchy in native-conventional houses. In addition, mental imaginations, beliefs and native-religious values emerge as an old body framework of patterns, symbols and metaphors and resulted in the creation of meaning in native house spaces. In the houses, various behaviors including food, clothing, speech, movement and visual behaviors have tangible and intangible reflection in the formation of the surrounding environment and each of the house spaces with its own steady and semi-steady components is a product of behavioral system of an individual and family.

However, such a house configuration and spatial organization which has continued until the early Pahlavi era has been revolutionized from that period onwards and the changes are not compatible with native life style and the resulting behavioral system.

In the end, presenting the profile (design values model) of house spatial organization based on native life style and desirable behavioral system of residents according to family, social and neighborhood relationships in native residence culture, the study intends to propose a basis for the design of relationships between internal house spaces.

Key Words: Vernacular Architecture, Residence Culture, Life Style, Activities (Behaviors) System, House Shape and Spatial Organization