Evolution of Socio- spatial Meaning in Iranian Houses: Comparative Study of Arak’s Traditional Houses and Contemporary Single- family Houses

Considered a multi-aspect and complex issue, a house is a social institution that has major effects on the lives of its dwellers. Today, turbulence and interference of people’s daily activities and their effects on intra-family and extra-family social relations, and lack of appropriate relations between patterns of personal relations and allocated spaces to houses have led to dwellers’ dissatisfaction. The main goal of this study is to investigate those semantic changes, pertaining to patterns of daily activities and social relations. In this research, historical and ethnographic methods are employed to study traditional and contemporary houses respectively. Results show there have been changes in people’s activity pattern, entertainment programs, doing and dividing works, time management, health care system, domestic food production and intra-family and extra-family social relationships.
These changes have occurred along with spatial changes; therefore, the socio-spatial meaning of the part related to social relationships and activities has been integrated into contemporary houses; in a way so that in some spaces the socio-spatial meaning is totally changed, in some spaces the new meaning, in line with the past meaning, has gained a new form and in some others the same past meaning is retained. Among socio-spatial meanings which survive in new forms, one can point to the role of father in the family and its socio-spatial effects. Among the totally changed meanings, we can mention the role of woman at home and its socio-spatial impacts. On the other hand, these changes have affected, with varying degrees, different things from the patterns of activities to physical features of houses. Issues like object-orientation significance vs. space-orientation, weakened role of spatial form and geometry, tendency for closed spaces vs. open ones and individuality are instances of these changes.
House as one of the noble human heritage has always been considered from various angles and as a social institution has a great effect on the lives of its inhabitants. And alongside human life, which has many challenges and complexities, the house is also a complex subject with different semantic layers. Considering the fact that the house as a social institution has a high status in society, therefore, social meaning among other meanings of the house is of particular importance. Therefore, in this research, how this meaning is defined in the spaces of the house is dealt with.
The turmoil and interference between the activities of people who are today most likely to be seen in homes indicates the inappropriateness and proper relationship between the pattern of activities of individuals and the home spaces. On the other hand, the lack of proper understanding of the pattern of current activities of individuals led to the design of spatial disparities with the pattern of activities in most homes, which led to residents’ dissatisfaction. Because social cultural categories are always created in a long time, it seems that what we see today is created in a historical context. In fact, in order to better understand the current situation, this relationship should be measured in traditional homes so that we can correct the defects by comparing what we are seeing today. In this way, the relationship between the pattern of activities and the spaces of traditional and contemporary houses and the socio-spatial meaning of the subject followed up by the study is measured in a selection of traditional and contemporary houses in Arak.
In this research, a historical method has been used to study traditional houses and ethnographic methods for contemporary houses. Historically, data collection has been used through interviews with the old residents of these houses and the observation of the building (field method) as well as the documents of the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, and also ethnographic studies and historical sociology. The data of contemporary houses in Arak are also gathered through ethnographic method and participatory observation.
Changes in homes are investigated in four factors: activities, social relationships, time, and spatial-physical characteristics in homes. Then, by comparing these four factors and data tables, socio-spatial changes in these homes were obtained.
The comparative comparison of traditional and contemporary houses in Arak shows that a change has occurred in the socio-spatial sense of the house. It is important to note that the transformation of meaning in all the spaces and activities is not the same, so that in some spaces the social-spatial meaning has completely changed. In some spaces, along with the meaning of the past, a new meaning has been found, and in others, the same meaning in the past is spilled in space.