Reinterpreting Yazd watermuseum's spatial quality and performance based on users' viewpoints

Abstract

Museums are treasures of mankind’s memories and history which, by displaying and teaching past generations’ heritage, encourages the contemporary society to deepen its thoughts. Therefore, visiting them is influential in improvement of future life. considering the water crisis in Iran, it is necessary to pay attention to proper architectural space and performance in water museums as well as proper planning to increase people’s participation. Since one of the problems in the Iranian museums is relying on object-centered approach, displaying, and protection, perhaps it could be effective to utilize users' points of view in order to recognize the criteria of desirable museum spaces and functions. This may ultimately increase the users’ interaction and satisfaction and lead to the prosperity of the museum. to this end, Yazd Water Museum was chosen as a case study. Then, semi-open questionnaires and “Q” methodology were used to determine and analyze the intentions, expectations and interests of visitors as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the museum. Information from the “complaints and feedbacks” office were also coded and classified and consequently users’ opinions were analyzed. Finally, by using the extracted viewpoints, some solutions for architectural design and performance of Water Museums were suggested. Therefore, this research tried to be a model for Improving the performance of Yazd Water Museum sa well as other museums in the conuntry to increase their popularity and visiting rate through designing a suitable space and more effective performances.