The local people ideas as a basis of post-earthquake housing reconstruction in Bam

Abstract

The earthquake of 2003 destroyed the city of Barn in Iran. The earthquake led to the destruction of large numbers of considerable traditional houses. Unfortunately, during the reconstruction phase, buildings respecting traditions were shunned and new building types with no relevance to Barn identity and people interest have been introduced. This paper aims to investigate the local people ideas in context of traditional houses for achieving the design recommendations for reconstruction of new houses in Barn. In order to connect the people to the environment, the intention is to realize this through a local opinion survey, which can be a unique tool for unifying the new entity with the attitudes and mentalities of the local people.The results demonstrate that large numbers of people are in favor of rebuilding the city to its previous identity and recreate the characteristics of the traditional garden houses as the common living pattern in Barn.