Architectural Issues in Earthquake Rehabilitation of Iranian Building Construction

Iran, like many other places, lives the curse of frequent, sometimes devastating earthquakes. Prevention and conservation of the Iranian building heritage should be a prime priority not only at the national level but also internationally.While, a major part of the 2800 Iranian Seismic Code is related to the architectural issues but there is nothing referring to the prevention and conservation of historical buildings.The survival of Iranian historical buildings shows that such buildings possess the potential of resist earthquakes. In spite of the use of weak materials, which resulted in the collapse of many ordinary residential buildings in earthquakes, historical buildings present us with samples of appropriate design and construction methods To some extent traditional building construction has always been in a state of change with new materials and developing techniques, but the most significant changes occurred with the changes to the physical forms of cities generally, and the development of new building materials such as steel and reinforced concrete.To understand the characteristics of the historical and modern heritage, this paper will consider and describe the building construction process. It focuses on the material and ways in which construction operates and considers the environmental and socio-cultural conditions of the country and their effects on construction process. It also gives a few examples to demonstrate the potential and values, as well as the constrains and limitations to construction methods, from which we may learn possible lessons to rehabilitate rather than the changes in the context of the Iranian cultural heritage.Unfortunately the changes occurred without any detailed consideration of the existing techniques and the earthquake risk involved.

کلیدواژه ها:

Cultural Heritage ، Earthquake ، Prevention ، Conservation ، Conventional construction methods ، Modern ، Iran ، Construction Process ، Environment