Soad Sarihi - Lecturer at Pishtazan Higher Education Institute, Shiraz, Iran, M.A.. in Architecture, Shahid Beheshti University

Adaptive Architecture is a multi-disciplinary field concerned with buildings that are designed to adapt to their environments, their inhabitants and .Today, upon reflecting on the various settings and experiences of our lives, architecture should be able to adapt to environment. This has been previously achieved in Iranian vernacular architecture where the architects devised design principals on the basis of climate, geography, available materials, and cultural beliefs. Therefore, vernacular architecture can be considered as a case of adaptable architecture due to consideration of energy effectiveness, optimum usage of available materials, and the use of wind and solar power as well as enhancement of interaction between inhabitants which address environment, inhabitants and architectural elements as components of adaptable architecture. Hence, this research reviews the components of adaptable design and discusses the design principals of Iranian vernacular architecture that are in complete congruence with adaptiveness in order to provide the architectural criteria, issues, and insights that had to be addressed in architecture to achieve adaptation with nature, environment and the society.

Adaptable architecture, Iranian vernacular architecture,Sustainability, Environment