Vernacular and historic underground urban facilities and sustainability of cities case study

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underground levels of a city to explore how vernacular and historic underground urban facilities help traditional cities to be sustainable. Therefore, the authors look at how culture, climate and economy affect those facilities. Design/methodology/approach The paper focuses on vernacular and local underground urban facilities in historic cities to find more sustainable processes of urban development that integrate cultural, climatic and economical concerns into design planning. The paper is based on a case study of the underground infrastructure of Dezful, Iran. Findings There are several vernacular building styles around the world, especially in Iran, with different shapes, materials, arrangements and concepts. Building construction has significant impacts on the environment and natural resources. Dezful is a city in Iran with a lot of potential in terms of its architecture. Vernacular cities possess infrastructure that helped them thrive in harsh climates. For instance, Dezful takes advantage of a systematic infrastructure termed the “Underground City.” Originality/value The traditional architecture of Dezful plays an important role in creating underground spaces, especially urban and architectural elements with thermal isolation properties that can be used as housing and as food storage. In this century, building construction could adopt these environmental properties, which could lead to low energy consumption in urban environments. Considering traditional and contextual elements in urban planning and design could revive sustainable community practices in urban environments.

A collaborative approach for urban underground space development toward sustainable development goals: Critical dimensions and future directions

“…As SDGs are a rather new concept introduced only in 2015, they are not mentioned in most works on UUS. However, several of these works deal with the sustainability issues of UUS use and can be broadly categorized into those focusing on the contributions of UUS use to urban sustainability [4][5][6] and those concerned with the sustainable use of UUS itself [28,35,36]. However, both types are interactive, because more often than not, the influences imposed on urban development are considered as an indicator of the sustainable use of UUS.…”

“…In addition, UUS use is viewed as a sustainable means of urbanization [4][5][6]. However, sustainability is a broad topic in that there is no yardstick to measure the relevant contributions yielded by UUS use.…”

Sustainable Hospital Architecture - Potential of Underground Spaces

“…The investigations concerning traditional and historical experience of construction of underground city structures in architecture on the basis of sustainable development of urban environment are also analyzed [4]. It was important to refer to national and historic experience of Iran, where underground spaced was traditionally created in urban environment.…”

Falaj Indigenous knowledge in Oman and Iran

“…Each village builds a small qabīl (dam) that diverts a given portion of the stream and takes it into a canal or an underground tunnel leading to their farmlands (Al-Ghafri, 2013). The ghaili falaj is called a qomesh in Iran and is commonplace in the region of Dezful (Attarian & Najar, 2019). This article is mostly focused on the iddi type of falaj in Oman and the qanat in Iran, which enjoy the same physical structure and hydraulic function.…”