Architecture and Urban Development (IJAUD)

The environmental concern, ensuring comfort for occupants, pushed us to search for the impact of glazed loggia on thermal comfort of adjacent space in Cons tantine climate, having s trong climatic cons traints. An experimental s tudy is undertaken and described in this paper. Analysis of the in situ results is also discussed. This work shows that in winter glazed loggia benefit largely from solar gains. In summer, it is a thermal regulating space, delaying diurnal peak of temperature towards the end of the day. Overheating can be avoided with natural ventilation and a good use of the relation glazed loggia-adjacent space. This result leads to the possibility of retrofitting glazed loggias in hard climates, such as in Constantine (Algeria). To define criteria being able to return this addition, favourable and adapted to the winter and the aestival thermal comfort of adjacent space, a simulation is carried.  But the only inves tigation is discussed in this paper.

One of the mos t significant concerns of urban planners, at metropolitan cities, especially in old and worn out textures, is the reduction of the quality of life and the environment, so they are always seeking for a way to improve these qualities. Low level of available services and amenities, besides physical and social disorders, have caused numerous problems and have totally become as important factors of unsus tainability in such a metropolitan area. In this article, we aimed to identify those effective factors which contribute to environmental quality of neighborhoods, such as Cyrus in the city of Tehran, which have experienced urban decayed. A research method that was employed in this paper is descriptive – analytical. Data were obtained from ques tionnaires dis tributed to a randomly selected sample of 384 respondents also the interview technique was applied to gather data from residents. After that ques tionnaire was developed using the identified external and internal factors, and determined s trategies adminis tered to 30 experts in the field of urban planning. Further, experts participated in the formal group discussion in order to weight SWOT factors and prioritize the identified s trategies, respectively. The results of this s tudy sugges t that according to the perspective of residents, experts reflected in the s trategic analysis plan by using the SWOT, Internal and External (Matrix IE) and QSPM matrix; one of the key factors and the mos t preferred s trategy to improve environmental quality in Cyrus is considering social factors such as maintaining local and original residents, increasing safety/security, keeping identity of neighborhoods and creating open spaces and decent leisure places.

Urban centres in the world are undergoing facets of changes, these changes are evident in developing countries and more divergent because urban transformation in developing countries is often accompanied challenges which include traffic congestion, overcrowding, pollution and continuous land use succession. This phenomenon is not different with the central area of Minna, Nigeria. Since 2008 the central area of Minna has had different changes meant to address the problems of overcrowding, on street trading, indiscriminate waste disposal and traffic congestion. Against this background, this study assessed the changes that have occurred with implications on human settlement, generally; by exامینing the levels of land use succession, and ascertaining its implications on Minna central area. Data employed in this study includes high resolution image of the the Minna central area and socioeconomic characteristics of Minna obtained through the use of questionnaires using purposive sampling techniques. The data were corroborated with Geo-spatial analysis. The study reveals that between 2008 to 2016 there was a significant change in urban transformations in Minna central area as 75% of the residential area were converted to commercial uses, although the Minna central market was also relocated to a new site in order to address the issues, little was however achieved as this only relocated the problems to another part of the town. This study recommends that urban management and monitoring (development control) of Minna city centre and similar cities should imbibe the current SDGs approach that emphasizes participation and inclusive planning approach to urban development. 

: Land use planning and organized urban activities are the pivot of urban planning. Unders tanding patterns of urban land and property ownership is important because it affects the nature and shape of urban development, especially on the edge of cities with many social and economic features in one hand and some illegal subdivision of lands occur in this place on the other hand that is very important in providing urban sus tainable plans. For implementing the urban development plan; mus t acquire lands that it isn’t an easy work for municipalities. For example the lands located along the southeas tern edge of Tehran, called "Niroo Daryaee", though 80% of them are abandoned and have several social and environmental problems, which was decided to provide urban local plan for it by considering spatial, visual, social and environmental features and using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model. But the shape, form and sys tem of land ownership is serious and has a limitation in implementing different types of plans. Thus municipality of Tehran tries changing res trictions to opportunities; it does not interfere in the form of lands because it is much cos tlier so decides to involve landowners to build their land, attracting public participation in successful implementation of the plan. Respecting citizens’ rights, doing in his obligations has achieved satisfaction of residences as the final and real users of the plan

 Following the growing urbanization, choosing and providing housing has become one of the mos t important issues for planners as well as people. Developing a comprehensive program of housing needs complete identification and deep analysis of widespread dimensions of housing and factors affecting them. In the meantime, addressing housing indices, as the key planning tool forming its main thrus t, can be the mos t critical step of planning. By conducting research on identifying and analyzing different housing indicators, the effectiveness of housing programs can be greatly increased. However, among the policies and plans that have been made due to the overcoming of economic factors and the lack of clarification of the good housing index, the qualitative indicators of housing have remained somewhat diminished relative to its quantitative dimension, and planners have more focused on providing housing. This research seeks to find and compare the angles of unders tanding and evaluating the residents' viewpoints on the desired housing, and ultimately, address the impact of location on the mental valuation of residents about the cons tructive components of housing quality. The research method is descriptive-analytical and in order to achieve the desired goals, the qualitative indicators of desirable housing are surveyed from residents' point of view in Shahrak-e-Gharb and Monirieh neighborhoods of Tehran. In the formulation of the questionnaire, 48 items are developed in two areas of the residential unit and residential environment, of which only 13 indicators have a significant difference between the two neighborhoods indicating that the spatial domain has no effect on residents’ valuation of housing quality indices and also the average values given to the items show the great importance of the quality of housing for citizens. 

 This article addresses the analysis of the mechanism of natural air flow around the residential buildings  and the effect of the form of residential buildings on air flow among four building forms in Tehran. The aim of this research is to study the effect of the form of residential buildings on the mechanism of natural air flow with the purpose of optimally utilizing clean air. The research method is to use computer modeling and model analysis in the related software and conclusions have been achieved using comparison of outputs of the models produced. Accordingly, four samples were first selected from software forms and modeled in one commercial micro-climate simulator software. They were tested by entering Tehran climatic data and results were extracted as simulation images. Since the analysis was conducted in one hour interval in the morning of the 23rd of December 2013 among four selected forms. The results helped us to choose the optimal form among these cases. Thus, a general rule was not given regarding the case that the selected form is the best in all aspects. Research achievements indicate that building forms have a significant effect on local winds and air pollution reduction. Therefore, the general form of buildings affects the degree and type of pollution dispersion due to carbon dioxide and the retention effect of suspended particles.