Influential Parameters of Urban Landscape on Identity of Oil Supplier Town of Omidyeh

Subject Areas :

Seyed Mohamad Kazem Mousavinejad ¹ (Ph.D., Department of Art and Architecture, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad university, Tehran, Iran.)
Farah Habib ² (Associate professor, Department of Art and Architecture, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad university, Tehran, Iran.)
zahra sadat Saeideh Zarabadi ³ (Assistant professor, Department of Art and Architecture, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.)

Received: 2019-11-15 Accepted : 2020-06-21 Published : 2022-04-21

Keywords: Urban Identity, Urban Landscape, Oilfield settlements, Omidiye,

Abstract :

Abstract
The well designed Urban landscape is one of the most vital factors of urban identity. These days, these two majors are equivalent. To improve city identity, well-designed Urban landscape and its features should be considered simultaneously, which is followed by numerous examination and expert surveys about natural, artificial, and human elements. The Well-designed Urban landscape, functionality, and aesthetic elements of each city enhance the standard of people living there. The main components of urban landscape can be categorized as emotional aspects and the quality of public spaces. These factors can strengthen human needs and help cities to have better social communication, ease of activities, and also brought people together. It is clear that today, the lack of identity is the main issue in the urban landscape; therefore, two beliefs declared. The first opinion is that the origin of the urban landscape is people’s culture; however, others believe that these varieties come from the negligence of those involved like the renewability of the buildings. It is believed that in the recent past, the cities of our country have had a coherent urban landscape and excellent coordination. However, these days, the majority of our cities tackle with identical factors. The main reasons for such a problem are rapid growth in city construction without a proper master plan and copping the architectural styles of modern countries under the name of Globalization. Among the cities which once had a meaningful and identical landscape, Omidyeh was well known. The purpose of the construction of Omydyeh was to protecting from the sunlight and adjusting to its surrounding. The growing number of research has been done about urban landscape and identity inside and outside the country. However, the operation of the urban landscape has always been neglected. This leads to, in this paper, taking account of the parameters of the natural and artificial environment were studied to design a conceptual model that can improve urban identity based on its said sub-categories.
he urban landscape has a great impact on people's lives, from the spiritual order to the urban public spaces for the needs of people and from the psychological and aesthetic urban needs to the creation of the environment required to expand mass communication, facilitate activities, and encourage public participation. Today, the landscape of cities mainly lacks identity. The increased urban construction activities, unlimited urban construction areas, blind imitation of architectural styles, and massive construction in recent years have caused the facades in many cities to suffer from the lack of identity and monotony. Such disorder in the urban landscape arises from the blind imitations of architectural styles and the lack of classified variables to be used in the facade design. This is because the existence of diversity and inconsistency in urban facades has created some lack of identity and the lack of integration and coherence in the concepts related to the urban landscape. Therefore, it seems that promoting the urban identity and increasing the senses of belonging and memory of citizens depend on the formation and beautification of facades in a city, which is achieved by identifying and utilizing specific principles developed for the urban landscape. Identity, in general, and urban identity, in particular, are among the issues that are important because of their role in recognizing people, objects, communities, and places. Unfortunately, what is formed in the minds of the general public in most of the current cities is nothing but a collection of tall buildings, streets, offices, and parks, which, as a result, gradually lessens the belonging to these spaces. Urban managers and designers have seriously attempted to impose their views on the built physical structure of the city by developing the laws, and on the other hand, citizens who are subject to the culture and cultural elements of their society insist on directing the physical structure of the city based on their perception of urban identity. This has created numerous problems in the process of forming the physical structure of cities. However, due to the lack of necessary training and thoughtless imitation of Western manifestations and modern patterns, contrary to the original identity of the Iranian city, many cities are being formed and expanded. Meanwhile, historical urban spaces, including settlements in the oil-rich southern regions, have a special place in the identity of these oil cities due to their role in shaping the mental image of the citizens. Among the cities that have landscapes with a special identity but have become extinct over time, the oil town of Omidiyeh can be mentioned, which has a special place due to the role in shaping the mental image of citizens. In this area, traditional vernacular architecture has given way to engineering construction, and almost all office buildings and workers' and employees' dwellings have been taken out of their traditional form and replaced with steel structures. However, the main purpose of building these settlements was to keep safe from direct sunlight and to adapt to the climate. Also, the cultural and economic differences of the inhabitants in these areas gradually separated these settlements from other neighboring urban areas and they have had a separate identity that is still preserved today. This study aimed to identify the effective criteria of the urban landscape in residential areas owned by Omidiyeh Oil Company to improve the identity of this area and how to use urban landscape criteria to generalize identity to the renovated areas of the city. The present study was performed by a descriptive-analytical method based on documentary studies and field observations. The theoretical foundations of the research were obtained through the library studies and the subject measuring indicators were extracted in a documented table. Then, the extracted indicators were collected in the study sample and the important and influential factors of the landscape in reviving the identity of Omidiyeh town were identified by analyzing the dwellings and urban fabrics in each area with the views of space users and urban planning and architecture experts (especially landscape architects). Finally, based on the obtained indicators, a questionnaire was designed by leading experts in the field of statistics based on the 5-point Likert scale, which was done by the visitors and residents of Omidiyeh town regarding the review of the most effective indicator. The number of questionnaires was 96 to be valid for the analysis based on the sampling using the Cochran's formula with the error rate of 0.1. Also, the validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the Delphi method with the approval of prominent professors of urban planning, architecture, and landscape, and the reliability was confirmed with the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.85. By completing the questionnaire and using Excel software and expressing the impact of each criterion on each other, the impact of the city's landscapes on the identity of Omidiyeh town was extracted and finally, the identity promotion model was presented using the landscape indicators of southern oil-rich cities (Omidiyeh). In the Omidiyeh oil town, following other southern oil-rich areas, with the existence of a "company-cities" pattern established by the British at the same time as the oil extraction and the change in the pattern of urban planning and also architecture of current situation, a new identity was established in these areas which has a great impact on the modernization of urban planning in Iran in its own way and possesses specific identity characteristics. The form of streets, buildings, green spaces, fences and hedges, materials and architecture adapted to the climate, creation of modern public spaces, etc. are among the influential indicators of the landscape and, ultimately, the urban identity of this town. Based on the analyses, the authors proposed a model to improve the identity of the town where the natural, human and built components of the urban landscape along with the social-operational, perceptual, functional, physical, and aesthetic indicators, natural structure, geographical structure, and finally indicators of each criterion were taken into account. This is a very comprehensive model and has a multidimensional view on the urban landscape in which the aesthetic, perceptual, social, and historical criteria are studied, and it is innovative in this respect.

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