Lessons from Iranian hot cities for future hot cities

Abstract

Iran is an ancient country with an old civilization. Most parts of this country have been located in hot and dry region. Many cities of Iran suffer from harsh climate and water scarcity both. But we notice a rich urban planning and architecture in these cities which were adapted with this hard situation. We can survey this adaptation in many aspects of traditional urban planning and architecture in Iran. They could build some building with a good energy saving and prepared some spaces with suitable condition for living. Desert has a harsh climate with hot days and cold nights but Iranians build their houses in such a way to keep warm temperature during nights in their walls and then it had cold walls in days to reduce the temperature of the rooms. Besides they divided their homes to two parts, one part for winter and the second for summer. In summer part they used wind tower to catch and bring the wind into rooms. These houses had central yards which contained pool and plants to reduce the temperature of hot days as well. Briefly, there is a special climatic design in traditional houses of hot cities of Iran. Urban planning of these cities respected some features to reduce the effect hot climate as well. For example, there was a dense urban fabric in these cities with narrow lanes. Also, they could achieve the problem of limitation of water by some intellectual technology which called Qanat. Locating of most of the urban elements of cities obeyed from these Qanats. This Qanat provided drinkable water of city and citizens used water by some traditional hydraulic structures such as water reservoir or baths or ice house and so on. Nowadays sustainable design in architecture and urban planning is an important and essential paradigm. This paradigm emphasized on adapting with nature instead destroying it. Traditional architecture and urban planning of these Iranian cities of hot and dry climate contains a lot of features which can be useful for urban development of future hot cities which will be developed by sustainable urban planning paradigm. This paper reviews some features in traditional urban planning and architecture as some useful lessons for recent and future hot cities. Indeed, there are some aspects in these cities which can lead us a more sustainability in urban planning specially for hot cities.