Representation of environmental capabilities based on perception process with emphasis on culture (case study: Dochi and Yaghchian neighborhood of Tabriz)
Subject Areas : Urban planningMina Heydari Torkmani 1 , Parisa Hashempour 2 , Azita Balali Oskui 3
1 - Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran
2 - Professor, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran
3 - Professor, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran
Keywords: environmental capabilities, perception process, culture, neighborhood,
Abstract :
Neighborhoods have always played a role as one of the pillars of the spatial organization of urban tissues and a physical-social unit. Undoubtedly, the neighborhood has been a place under the influence of various cultural dimensions. It has produced a suitable platform for people's lives, which has distanced itself from its real concept and capabilities in the shadow of interventions based on modern patterns and has moved away from responding according to the norms of society. This research aims to investigate the effect of different cultural dimensions of the neighborhood on the dimensions of the neighborhood's capabilities and its reflection in historical and new neighborhoods to build a desirable and suitable place. The questionnaire tools are descriptive-analytical research methods and methods of collecting information through library-documentary studies and field surveys. The hierarchical technique has been used to analyze information using export choice software. According to the research findings, the cultural dimension in the Duchi neighborhood has the highest score, with an average of (0.667), compared to the Yaghchian neighborhood, with an average of (0.333). Environmental capabilities in two neighborhoods: Physical ability in the Dochi neighborhood score (0.471) and Yaghchian neighborhood (0.529), social ability in the Dochi neighborhood score (0.612) and the Yaghchian neighborhood (0.389), semantic ability in the Dochi neighborhood score (0.774) and Yaghchian neighborhood score (0.226). The research findings show a significant difference in the semantic capability of the Dochi neighborhood compared to the Yaghchian neighborhood. Based on the corresponding relationship between different cultural dimensions and the dimensions of environmental capabilities in historic neighborhoods, the semantic dimension of culture has had the greatest impact on the neighborhood's semantic capabilities. Based on the greater influence of the semantic dimension in historic neighborhoods on the neighborhood's culture, culture has influenced the architecture and space of the neighborhood as a collection of spiritual achievements of a society. It also has had the greatest effect on improving the semantic capability of the neighborhood.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
The man-environment relationship is a two-way relationship established through percepts. If the man or the space perceiver is viewed as subjective and the surrounding environment or the perceived space as objective, the objectivity-subjectivity relationship will become one of dialectics, i.e., one that involves a discourse and a contrast. Environmental Psychology is concerned with dialectic relationships between objectivity and subjectivity. This reciprocal relationship sees man as both the cause and the effect, affecting and at the same time being affected by the environment. From the perspective of Environmental Psychology, the agent and the environment are connected by environmental affordances, thereby affecting people’s behavior in the environment. According to previous research, the notion of environmental capability is an encompassing notion involving various interpretations due to various evolving concepts in the living environment.
Citing Lang’s theory, this study reveals that affordances derive from a specific model of the environment constructed based on the manner of design and materials and how they are assigned to a specific group of people. capabilities can thus be defined in two levels: an explicit sense or a direct affordance and a symbolic/implicit sense or an indirect affordance. A direct capability requires people to physically interact with the environment and engage in interpersonal and social interactions. An indirect capability, meanwhile, helps to meet people’s needs, desires, and symbolic interactions within the environment, suggesting a deeper level of the relationship affected by the environmental cultural impacts. Speaking of environmental identity, the culture underlies the man-environment relationship, creating and maintaining identity or self-identification in a shared contrast with the environment. Within an environment, the elements are constantly recognized and reproduced by a social culture serving the human residing in the environment through his psychological and social attachment.
As elements of the spatial configuration of urban textures, urban neighborhoods represent the culture, though they have lost their identity in the wake of the evolving changes, thereby distancing from their real senses of affordances under the impacts of model-based interventions and failing to proportionally meet social norms. Since the evolving changes are affected by some various social, economic, political, and cultural, factors, among others, the culture is seen as an underlying agent as it overshadows all environmental capabilities and how they may overlap.
Methodology
The present study had an applied goal and fell under descriptive-analytical research. The method used involved a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. To collect concepts related to the subject under study and derive indicators, and to examine each dimension, the library-documentary method (e.g., books, theses, and dissertations), as well as field observation and interviews with experts were used. The statistical population of the study consisted of the residents of Davachi and Yaghchian Neighborhoods. The FADI formula was used for sampling, bringing the volume of the sample to 384 people. Meanwhile, the statistical software of Expert Choice was used for data analysis, as quantitative statistical data were examined qualitatively and comparatively in the samples under study.
Results and discussion
AHP-based findings showed that all indicators pertaining to cultural and environmental capability dimensions have been realized in the Davachi and Yaghchian Neighborhoods. The comparison of the cultural dimension scores of the two neighborhoods indicated that the Davachi neighborhood held the highest score at 0.667, while the Yaghchian neighborhood held the lowest score at 0.333. Regarding the physical indicator, the Yaghchian neighborhood gained a higher score, whereas the Davachi neighborhood held a higher score regarding the functional and semantic indicators. The comparison of various cultural dimensions exhibited that the two neighborhoods held a marked semantic difference relative to other dimensions. This shows that the semantic dimension was more influential in the cultural dimensions of the Davachi neighborhood. Regarding environmental capabilities in the two neighborhoods, physical, social, and semantic affordances were assigned scores of 0.471 and 0.529, 0.612 and 0.389, and 0.774 and 0.226 in the Davachi and Yaghchian Neighborhoods, respectively. Findings also indicated a greater semantic discrepancy of semantic capabilities in the Davachi neighborhood than in the Yaghchian neighborhood, concluding that the semantic dimension of culture was found to have the highest effect on the neighborhood’s semantic capability considering the corresponding relationship between various cultural dimensions and environment capabilities in historical neighborhoods.
Regarding the semantic and evaluative characteristics of the two neighborhoods, the Davachi neighborhood helped affect the human mind and strengthen its self-identification by covering historically religious buildings and public places that may realize symbolic characters while serving as a place for holding collective ceremonies that evoke memories and help distinguish the neighborhood by its components and the services it provides. This will certainly reinforce the residents’ sense of attachment to the living environment. Meanwhile, the Yaghchian neighborhood, which involves a residential township and falls under newly constructed neighborhoods, has seen a kind of monotony, causing a lack of self-identification and the absence of identifying elements in residential areas and reducing the residents’ sense of attachment.
Comparing the findings, it was concluded that the historical Davachi neighborhood, unlike the Yaghchian neighborhood, featured some spatial integrity and connectivity and served as a readable and vibrant environment acceptable by the residents, due to its geographical and social conditions, as well as its scales and dimensions and construction quality. These neighborhoods reflect the traditions, culture, and livelihood of the residents and simultaneously underlie the semantic characteristics. On the other hand, improving the environmental quality of the neighborhood by creating a desirably subjective image will create a sense of attachment to the place and of identity among the residents. In addition, the harmony between components of the neighborhood and the adequacy of services required by residents will not only help recognize the neighborhood but also develop a framework to realize the specific aspects of the neighborhood or identify it. Meanwhile, the Davachi neighborhood is characterized by its specific functional, physical, and service features, representing its historical and cultural background, geographic, climatic, and local characteristics.
Conclusion
Findings showed that the cultural level of the historical neighborhood was higher than that of the new neighborhood. Compared to the cultural dimensions of the historical neighborhood, the semantic dimension held the highest influence, representing the neighborhood’s fabric, meaning, and identity. It is widely known that any space with an identity may have varying degrees of severity and weakness. Compared to new neighborhoods, historical neighborhoods are self-identified. Speaking of a neighborhood’s identity, it is meant something not existing in the appearance and shape of the neighborhood; rather it is within the building block of it. Each neighborhood’s identity is derived from a sense that is based on the human worldview. The identity of the urban fabric is said to be a qualitative subject and derives from the human’s higher values and senses, involving dynamism and continuation within its substance and shaping the city’s fabric. Dynamism and continuation are actually embodiments of this subjectivity. Not only do historical neighborhoods not consist of human actions and urban fabrics but they carry over their specific senses and narratives, with a neighborhood expressing a language that conveys these senses and uttering its narratives.
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