Screening the Criteria of Tradition and Modernism in Iranian Academic Buildings using Fuzzy Delphi Technique

Fundamental changes in Iranian architecture from the middle of the Qajar era contracted Iranianarchitecture flow in a different direction from the past and affected the building. One of theinfluential currents in contemporary Iranian architecture is the formation of modern architecturalcurrents and, consequently, the combination of modern architecture and traditional architecture.Traditional fusion and modernism are clearly reflected in the body of several buildings, includingacademic buildings. This study aims to extract and screen the criteria for tradition and modernismin academic buildings, especially “faculties”. This study uses a mixed methodology. Criteria areexplored using semi-structured interviews using grounded theory methodology. The strategy usedin the quantitative step is screening using the fuzzy Delphi technique. For this purpose, the criteriagoverning tradition and modernism are extracted through attributional analysis and desk research.Accordingly, the text of the interview was edited. The results of the interviews were imported intoATLAS.ti, yielding the criteria for tradition and modernism in the faculties. A questionnaire wasthen developed to assess each criterion's contribution from the perspective of students and faculty.They were purposefully distributed to screen and evoke tradition and modernism in facultybuildings using the fuzzy Delphi and MATLAB techniques. According to the results, for moderncriteria, “Free plan”, “segregation of spatial realms” and “avoiding ornaments and excessivesimplicity”, belong to the rank of VL membership degree. On the other hand, for traditionalcriteria, “confinement hierarchy”, and “yard arrangement using natural elements”, Belong to themembership degrees VL, and VL, respectively.