Review on Shifting to Energy Efficiency in Recent Architectural Studies in Iran

Traditional architecture of Iran, the same as traditional architecture of other ancient countries, is witness of valuable energy efficient architectural buildings and monuments. Literature review of the paper shows that traditional architecture of Iran is a rich treasure of authentic buildings crystalized energy efficient approach toward architecture and planning, especially in architectural design process. Contemporary Iranian architecture such as other related trends in contemporary architecture of developing countries suffers from lack of enough attention to energy efficient strategies toward architecture and planning which reflected in deficiency in conventional building sector. International approach towards high performance architecture and planning has made a progressive changes in contemporary architecture of Iran and other developing countries in order to meet energy efficient architecture and planning. Significance of comprehensive reviews on the related fields especially in contemporary architecture of developing countries such as Iran, enhance the level of necessity of the research; while programing and planning for better sustainability and better energy efficient architecture is need of enough information regarding to recent studies. It is believed that information about recent trends, is the first and the most essential step towards crystalizing a comprehensive, useful, optimum and successful plan to endorse energy efficiency in the field of architecture. The paper is to question the role of climate and other related issues in contemporary Iranian architecture. The paper aims to analyze and discuss shifting to climate and energy efficiency through research papers published in Iranian journals in recent 10-years. Theoretical framework of the paper is based on a wide range of literature review of the paper, based on different disciplines such as architectural design process, energy efficient architecture, high performance architecture and planning, traditional architecture of Iran. Inference mechanism of the paper is based on a kind of “content analysis” model which ask six main issues in each case such as: 1- research approach, 2- scale of study, 3- method of sampling, 4- research tools, 5- analytical framework and 6- location of the case. Based on theoretical framework of the research, an analytical matrix has been designed and adopted to investigate the trends and categories in shifting to climate and related issues in energy efficient architecture, in recent studies. The content analysis process is based on the extraction of keywords and clustering them in selected scientific papers. Sampling technique of the paper is “total population sampling” as a type of purposive sampling  technique that involves examining the entire papers which have been written in related fields in journals those are validated by Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran in last 10 years. Some essential criteria such as research approach, scale of study, method of sampling, research tools, analytical framework and location of the case; examined carefully by the means of the designed matrix which roots in theoretical framework of the research. In other words, first, the related papers in last ten years which have been published in scientific journals in the fields of architecture and planning gathered as samples of the paper. Second, content analysis research method has been adopted to analyze the cases. Finally, the results gathered to show recent major advances and discoveries, significant gaps in the research and especially ideas about where research might go next in order to meet high performance architecture and planning. The results of the paper show that there is a considerable number of scientific and technical gaps in research those are interested in energy efficiency in architecture and planning. Based on the review it can be said that the “quantity” of papers is increasing drastically while the quality of research could not be called increasing especially when the research set the number of citations as a meaningful criteria to understand the level of “quality”. A general review on the papers which has been published in recent 10-years implies that these research papers were more descriptive and less practical, more analog and less computational, so most of these articles had no significant results which could be applied in architectural design process. These cases were more in general issues rather than concentrating on specific groundbreaking research. Most research done to date has focused on traditional buildings those enjoys energy efficient strategies in architectural design process. The results of the paper propose some clues for future steps to meet better energy efficient architecture such as some recommendations to future researchers in related fields. Research papers might shift to be more practical and computational expressions to reduce energy consumption. The results indicate some kind of shifting to high performance architecture in contemporary Iranian architecture as well as architectural studies and research papers.