Hourakhsh Ahmad Nia

In view of the dramatic increase in the population of world cities, the necessities of aesthetic urban planning have increased. Addressing the aesthetics problems of urban spaces implies working with new models of aesthetic cities for developing comprehensive urban planning. This study highlights the importance of the consideration of urban aesthetics in the urban planning process using the qualitative grounded theory study as the main methodology. The study further showed the need for planners to consider economic and social outputs in planning considerations. The study contributes that the planning process should be tailored to implement aesthetic inherited planning into urban planning management.

The aim of this study is to extend the rationale and comprehensive understanding in respect of the notion of functionality and beauty in the smart skin buildings. Smart skin in buildings plays a key role in improving building functionality, and the future lies in the use of innovative smart skin strategies. The methodology focused on the objectivity and subjectivity of human perception to assess the aesthetic value of a building's smart skin. A theoretical analysis has been conducted based on the results of the investigation model and fortified by comparing the results with the findings obtained through the opinions of experts based in AHP methodology. The study demonstrates that there is a relation between both the aesthetic value and the functionality of the smart skin of a building. The findings revealed the difference in the aesthetic evaluation between the subjective functionality and the objective functionality of the building skin. The findings contribute useful evidence ...

COVID-19, evidently the world’s worst pandemic during the last two centuries, has predicated several challenges for urban designers, especially in their bid to find appropriate designing strategies. Even though there are umpteenth studies in the literature that have focused on the different aspects of COVID-19 related pandemics, very scant studies sought to find appropriate mitigating strategies in designing pandemic friendly urban spaces. Thus, through qualitative grounded theory as a main methodological approach, this study hypothesized that the COVID-19 induced pandemic has direct effects on the liveability of public spaces. Accordingly, by developing a comprehensive review of the literature on the environmental and socio-economic effects of the pandemic, this study proposed a comprehensive framework for understanding its side effects and a comprehensive mitigating strategy to deal with it in the short and long term of designing a healthy urban environment.

This study assesses changing aesthetic values and their characteristics in urban environments based on human perception. With this in mind, a model for assessing the aesthetic values of the urban environment based on the three steps of human cognition has been developed to elaborate the user's perception in different urban environments. The results of the survey confirm that by changing urban morphology the aesthetic perception of the environment also changes. The finding of this research opens up a new window for urban planners to assess the aesthetic effects of the elements of urban spatial configuration for future urban development.

Urban space organization associates with specific characteristics in the transformation of society’s behavior and views; it is composed of principles of dichotomy that work as a system of signs to transfer meaning with conventional interpretation. The urban fabric as a context is full of signifiers that tend to convey a meaning implicitly carved in its space organization system. Therefore, it is not just a simple physical configuration. Instead, it is a translation of human experiences with the different synchronic architectural characteristics that needs a critical examination to segregate discrete layers of structural elements. The association is so prevailing that each portion has a significant role in creating a combination of mental prototypes of interpretation between the different factors that give the urban space its final form. The study aims to find the internal signs system within urban space organization that is a combination of signs that represents the aesthetic values...

In recent years, Urban Heat Island (UHI) has generally become one of the important problems in big cities as a part of climate change due to its negative effects on public health, lifestyle, and finally the role they play in changing the culture of the city. Unfortunately, these days two main fa ctors, " city parameters " and " meteorological parameters " affect the intensity of UHI. Consequently, intensity of urban heat island differ in each city according to the physical, morphological characteristics such as location, size, and density of their bui lt-up areas, land uses, population and air pollution together with climatically characteristics. The traditional part of the city of Shiraz with its unique culture, lifestyle of the people, and the environmental factors (e.g. usage of proper local material s, climate, and etc) is a good example for the whole city that. Thus, the main purpose of the 401 study is to determine the factors that increase the intensity of UHI in Shiraz city to indicate factors, which influence on change in the culture of the people. Both qualitative and quantitative approach methods used in this research and adopted techniques are personal observation and literature review. UHI is one of the main factor in changing human lifestyle, city environment, and urban climate.

Abstract
Urban space organization associates with specific characteristics transformation of society’s behavior and views; it is composed of principles of dichotomy that work as a system of signs to transfer meaning with conventional interpretation. The urban fabric as a context is full of signifiers that tend to convey a meaning implicitly carved in its space organization system.  Therefore, it is not just a simple physical configuration, Instead, a translation of human experiences with the different synchronic architectural characteristic that needs a critical examination to segregate discrete layers of structural elements. The association is so prevailing that each portion has a significant role in creating a combination of mental prototypes of interpretation between the different factors that gives the urban space its final form. The study aims to find the internal signs system within urban space organization which is a combination of signs that represents the aesthetic values of space.  The study aimed to explore the implicit space organization to make out what is internally powerful to work as aesthetic signs of urban space organization of the space organization.
The research concluded that there is a difference as a result of intervening new concepts in the urban space organization without taking in account the existed sign system, those difference could be sources of misunderstanding and confusion in the space organization system and need understanding and re-Structuring through developing procedures.

Key words : Dichotomy; Urban Space Organization;  Society; Semiotic; Aesthetics; Modernism.

This study assesses changing aesthetic values and their characteristics in urban environments based on human perception. With this in mind, a model for assessing the aesthetic values of the urban environment based on the three steps of human cognition has been developed to elaborate the user’s perception in different urban environments.
The results of the survey confirm that by changing urban morphology the aesthetic perception of the environment also changes.  The finding of this research opens up a new window for urban planners to assess the aesthetic effects of the elements of urban spatial configuration for future urban development.

Key words: Residential neighbourhood; Aesthetic Quality; Urban Public Space; Cognition process.

The primary aim of this qualitative grounded theory study is to unpack a method to understand the construction of aesthetic meaning, addressing the context differentiation. It is hypothesised in this study that the process of aesthetic cognition and the indicators thereof have different meanings in different urban contexts. In this regard, by conducting a systematic review of 140 qualitative studies that have been published since 1970s (in the 1970s, there was a movement towards the study of the aesthetic quality of the urban environment), this study proposes an aesthetic design thinking model to elucidate how built and non-built environmental factors of urban spatial configuration affect human perception. Our study demonstrates that every aesthetic response to the environment is derived from a communication between contemplative feeling, sensual desire and an immediate state of involvement. The findings contribute useful evidence to enhance our knowledge regarding to the role of formal and symbolic meanings of space configurations on aesthetic cognition of the urban environment.