Socio-Cultural Appropriateness of the Use of Historic Persian Gardens for Modern Urban Edible Gardens

Abstract

Historic gardens have the ability to provide several ecosystem services in cities, including provisioning services (i.e., food production). The historic gardens in Iran (known as “Persian Gardens”) have never been considered as places that could be used for food production. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the Iranian historic gardens’ spatial and structural layout is suitable for modern urban food gardening. We conducted field studies in six recognized Persian gardens in four provinces of Iran via qualitative analysis according to socio-cultural guidelines drawn from a literature review. The results suggested that combining the elements of formal landscape design, non-edible decorative plants, and traditional artwork would increase the Persian gardens’ attractiveness. Regarding encouraging users to become involved in urban gardening, we found that separating productive units containing edible plants from public units using a central meeting spot populated by aesthetic plants and items may attract ordinary visitors who are interested in gardening without disturbing anyone’s activities. Furthermore, the Persian gardens’ multifunctionality, aesthetic value, and health-promoting qualities constitute a considerable historic achievement in garden design, making the gardens a suitable model for edible urban gardening. The results of this study can enhance our understanding of the Persian gardens’ spatial and structural design and provide practical implications for sustainable urban planning and landscape architecture.

Analyzing trends in the spatial-temporal visitation patterns of mainland Chinese tourists in Sabah, Malaysia based on Weibo social big data

“…Standard Deviation Ellipse Analysis (SDE) is often used to describe the directional distribution of geographic features and is one of the commonly used methods in geostatistical analysis [60] , [61] . Through this method, the distribution of elements can be displayed in the form of an ellipse, and the distribution direction of the elements is reflected by the long and short semi-axes of the standard deviation ellipse.…”

IALE 2022 European Landscape Ecology Congress : book of abstracts

“…While urban agriculture encompasses the tangible edible heritage of urban gardens, it also prioritizes engaging civil society in agricultural activities (Khalilnezhad, 2016). In urban agriculture, in addition to the owners of the gardens, urban dwellers benefit greatly from the collective gardening in the urban gardens (Farzin et al, 2020;Khalilnezhad, Golchin, 2021;Amani-Beni et al, 2022).…”

Forgotten edible heritage: the case study of the UNESCO Site of Akbarieh Garden in Iran

“…Despite the prototype concept of the Persian garden as multifunctional landscapes in which both utilitarian and pleasure gardening were integrated, the current Iranian perspective towards the Persian garden has predominantly focused on the gardens as places for recreation and relaxation (Amani-Beni et al, 2021a;Amani-Beni et al, 2021b;Khalilnezhad, 2016). Pleasure in the form of food and consumption of the edible produce has played a key role in social interaction in the Persian garden for the past 2,500 years (Floor et al, 2019).…”

“…Nowadays, these gardens illustrate the pathological perspective of the struggle with some issues such as the elimination of the edible landscape, not involving the citizens in planning and maintenance, neither engaging the citizens in the agricultural activities nor place-making to accommodate the revival of agriculture (Amani-Beni et al, 2021;Khalilnezhad, 2016). Conservative approaches through rules and regulations, with the aim of defining and protecting the urban historic gardens as permanent and long-term land uses, do not guarantee farming activity.…”