There are an increasing number of optimal-design paradigms used in architectural design nowadays. In these paradigms, a design task is formulated, or partially formulated, as an optimization problem. Multi-Disciplinary Optimization and Multi-Objective Optimization, as two important optimal-design paradigms, have shown their great potential in improving the performances of complex buildings in recent decades. Nevertheless, current paradigms for ill‑defined conceptual architectural design sti...

Vernacular heritage sites encompass customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions, and values that are innate to a particular place and time. Climate knowledge of the particular place and time is embedded in vernacular settlements and lifestyles along with other environmental, cultural, and societal determinants of the place. Rebuilt, restored, and adapted, vernacular settlements evolved with changing climate, cultural practices, community aspirations, and a gradual influx of mode...

This PhD thesis explores the evolving field of heritage planning, focusing on the cultural significance of heritage properties. It advocates for a value-based approach that recognizes the diverse perspectives of stakeholders, including experts, policymakers, and users. While participatory heritage aims to foster consensus-building, tensions may arise due to varying cultural significance conveyed by different stakeholder groups. Conventional research methods are time-consuming and costly, limi...

This dissertation puts together planning documents and multiple archival sources to demonstrate how urban planning and the role of planners have evolved in an ever-changing transnational context of Iran. It challenges the prevailing approach in the literature of Tehran urban studies that simply flattens the complexity of local-foreign collaboration and labels transnational planning of Tehran a top-down “Westernization” project. To depict a more nuanced picture of Tehran master planning at...

Provision of daylight without the risk of discomfort glare is one of the aspects that determine the quality of the classroom environment. Although discomfort glare from daylight is under investigation for a long time, a knowledge gap concerning the applicability of the existing metrics to the spatial conditions of the classroom is identified in this work. An investigation on the applicability of existing metrics to the prediction of discomfort glare in classrooms has been carried out based on...

In the context of rapid urban transformations, this thesis explores the possible preservation strategies for historic military systems that used to be embedded in extra-urban settings, but that now are absorbed in the development dynamics of complex metropolitan areas. The research stems from the main peculiarity of these heritage systems: namely, the coexistence of cultural and natural values, and their being at the crossroads of the architecture and landscape domains. Although the need to a...

Hospitals are known as functionally complex buildings in various ways, namely due to their non-trivial spatial connectivity requirements. A spatial configuration has an impact on human behavior, human movement patterns and should match with the operational logic of the buildings. In hospitals, there are several typical problems that can be attributed to the configuration of the building, namely the inefficient circulation of medical staff, difficult way-finding for visitors, lengthy and compl...