Decoding Ameriha’s house: a syntactical analysis to investigate socio-spatial relationships and privacy

Ameriha’s house is a uniquely complex architectural object in Kashan, Iran. The scale and complexity of it does not allow one to classify the building as a house, nor can one assume the Ameriha’s house to be a palace. A building of this sort and of this scale combines spatial and visual complexity, suggesting that an analysis of the relationship of seeing and going (visual and connective properties) should help us to better understand something about the part the building played in the everyday life of its inhabitants. This building is not an ordinary courtyard considering its scale and relationship with surrounding urban fabric. The importance of investigating these architectural objects lies in the unique way they express the socio-spatial relationship within the society of the specific time situated in, the programming of space, spatially as well as socially and its representation in the spatial affordance of the building to support these characters. In this paper, by a detailed syntactical analysis in terms of visibility and permeability, the transition between public and private spaces and what they mean in terms of visual access and depth has been investigated to illuminate the syntactical and configurational tools that aided the traditional family to live in a building knitted into the public sphere with strict rules for the use of its spaces regarding privacy and gender differences. The aim is to demonstrate the degree to which public or private spaces of the building are dependent on the depth in configurational properties or the visual access they offer. In order to do so, space syntax analysis has been conducted in the study. The results show that in Ameriha’s house and many houses with the same context the privacy measures were preserved by social limitations and controls not environmental offering of the place in itself.