Guidelines of Designing the Urban Agriculture Landscape According to the Persian Garden Prototype

Subject Areas : architecture

Mohammad Reza Khalilnezhad ¹ (University of Birjand, Faculty of Arts)

Received: 2019-12-04 Accepted : 2020-12-21 Published : 2021-06-22

Keywords: Urban Agriculture, Edible landscape, Design guidelines, Persian garden,

Abstract :

Urban agriculture encompasses all production activities in urban areas and their surrounding regions. While in the past two decades, worldwide interest in urban agriculture has rapidly increased, Iranian administrations and researchers did not pay adequate attention to this significant field of landscape and urbanism. Persian garden is one of the main capabilities of Iranian cities in the field of urban agriculture. Although many studies have previously been carried out on the Persian garden, the agricultural landscapes of the historical gardens have yet remained neglected. However, one aspect of the Persian garden that has received little attention is the circumstances of integrating the agricultural and recreational landscapes into the garden design system. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to provide functional suggestions on acquiring the multidimensional identity of the productive landscapes of the Persian garden as a multifunctional open space for the landscapes and green spaces' design projects to be carried out in the future. Landscape architects in Iran are educated and trained to understand design considerations for establishing a public green space. But most of these professionals do not have sufficient experience in utilizing the Iranian tradition of landscaping. For a long time, the agricultural and productive identity of the Persian garden has been forgotten and neglected. Thus, this study seeks to answer the following questions: What spatial features in Persian gardens can provide the criteria for designing new multifunctional landscapes? Based on the Persian garden model, which planning and design considerations should be considered by landscape architects to integrate agriculture into public landscapes? This study was benefited from two research methods, including the design of research and case study. The basic data were collected from library sources, interviews with garden managers, experts and consultants, and some gardeners on seven historic gardens. Field studies were also carried out by the author in three different provinces (South Khorasan, Yazd, and Kerman). Having a specialized toolbox of the guidelines for integrating the agricultural landscape into the development of open spaces can be a significant challenge for landscape designers. This study showed that historical landscapes and Persian gardens can provide local and traditional criteria for planning and designing productive landscapes (consisting of edible and non-edible plants). As a basic guideline, the agricultural fields and the recreational zones should be separated. The second guideline states that access to the edible landscape in the Persian garden has special rules that provide access to the garden fruits under a hierarchical system. Thus, by applying the creativity of the environment design, the agricultural scenery will come to the attention of the visitors in the form of discovery and intuition. Besides, the visual combination of both edible and ornamental plant systems enhances the aesthetic sceneries of the landscape. Therefore, under the experience of the Persian garden, the visual approach to urban agriculture should not be underestimated. The next guideline is the importance of continuing physical separation and visual composition throughout the site and not limiting the application of these guidelines to some places.

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