Regeneration of the Persian Garden’s design concepts system in the Iranian-Islamic Garden-city through thematic gardens’ approach

Throughout history, the Persian Garden Concept has provided a dynamic basis for various thoughts and paradigms. It has been acknowledged in shaping the natural and built environment of vast expanded territories from the Persian Empire in the East to the Andalusia culture (Spain) in the West. It has influenced many functional places, and emerged in the forms of Shrine garden, Courtyard gardens, School gardens, and so on. The Persian Garden idea therefore, presents a comprehensive and integrated process and multi-level systems of structure and function i.e. geometrical, spatial, meaning, feeling, space, place, locality, ecosystem and climate, and habitat within specific culture. Such process consequently led to the making a genius loci, and or spirit of place in different situations. Design and Building the Persian garden therefore, should not merely reproducing or imitating its structural form; which seen as a naive view to Persian garden order to a broader extent. It would rather need careful attention of researchers and designers in their investigations. Unfortunately, this ancient architectural prototype has been subject to ignorance in recent decades. And its vital role is forgotten in our modern cities and societies’ life. This in turn has led to the fact that these spaces being turned into the abandoned spaces with no involvement into the people and societies daily life. In some other cases the changes in the gardens’ function may turn them into the museums for leisure and recreation usages. However, historical evidences indicate that there have not been such usages observed for the Persian gardens. Investigation of the Persian Garden concepts and design patterns reveals its total adaptation and full relationship with dynamic urban life as well as contextual parameters, ecosystems and climate conditions. The main question in this research therefore, is how to restore the missing roles and functions of Persian gardens and how it could adjust to the modern cities land use; while maintaining their ecological functions into the greater surrounding ecosystems and structures. This research tries to find solutions for the re-generation of Persian garden philosophy and its applications into modern cities as a new prototype for Iranian-Islamic-Garden-city which will be termed as “Thematic Gardens” idea. The study investigated firstly, the usage of this ancient paradigm beyond its physical and structural entity. It sought for its socio-cultural context with other land-uses in the contemporary cities. The literature review suggested that man-landscape relation has a long history and its roots can be traced in different cultures. Today, it is believed that natural environment can help to reduce stresses for urban societies. Using natural elements like water, trees and plants, wind and sun in design and shaping our environment are seen important in creating balanced and tranquil spaces; and enhancing wellbeing and mental health of people particularly in urban areas. There are arguments on the power of nature and natural elements in eliminating thinking and that people’s negative thought could be turned into positive if they are in close relation with natural atmospheres or attracted to the natural features. The Persian garden paradigm is seen by some researchers as an attempt to shape a symbolic/spiritual man-made space beyond aesthetic and spatial values. They maintain that Persian garden has been made to help in establishing a better and tied man-nature relations. In contrast, some other emphasized on the wise combination of water, plants and building (pavilion). On the other hand, there are agreements over the fact of Persian garden being viewed as a synthesis of Iranian tradition, ideology, culture, needs, function, context and climatic considerations that are put together through a creative design and planning approach. Despite its affordability and functionality in the past, fewer attempts have been made to regenerate genuine Persian garden ideas and design principles, and put their beneficial characters in practice in the modern or contemporary cities’ structure. Some reasons for this are claimed the economic forces and costly land designation, and partly due to the limits on urban land for such usages. Under circumstances, the paper discusses the opportunity of the most derelict land-uses and abandoned urban parks as potential for this purpose. With a new approach to re-create and reproduce essence of Persian garden tradition for modern citizens’ life, and ecological improvement of urban areas this research then, presents the findings on the quality of perception and identification of gardens by viewers, and the sense of place, and its semantic layers in order to take their advantages in designing contemporary urban landscapes and green public open spaces through thematic and conceptual approach. Whereas, the land economic values in cities regarded as one of major challenges to increase the amount of green space per capita especially in metropolitan areas, findings of the research shows that long distance between home and parks, and monotonous dull and repetitive greenery design of the parks make these places less attractive, less functional and meaningless for the people. These shortcomings may be overcome through conceptual and thematic gardens approach based on Persian gardens idea. Evidence from this research show that thematic gardens approach might fulfill the contemporary needs of citizens through their integrated geographical distribution, coping with other land-uses. Other advantages are including: easy access for the residents, help the diversity of the urban green spaces and parks, use of native or local plants, as well as enhancing the local neighborhood identity, and encouraging sustainable and ecological design. Application of the thematic gardens approach may help in turning the current unattractive, less desirable parks into dynamic, livable, viable urban spaces, as well as creating environmentally responsive and functional places that provide a medium for promotion of both society’s basic needs and quality of life. Thematic gardens in city might lead to the improvement of environmental conditions, enhancing cultural values and economic considerations based on neighborhood context and capacity. A variety of examples and themes are given as: the book garden, philosophy garden, culture garden, botanical garden, and recreation garden. Other findings: orientation systems and involvement of senses systems are discussed as two principles in detail. Keywords: Persian garden, Regeneration, thematic garden-city, Iranian-Islamic city.