G Raheb - Assistant Professor, Building & Housing Research Center, Tehran, Iran
A Tarkashvand - Ph.D., School of Architecture & Urban Studies, Iran, University of Science & Technology, Tehran, Iran

Concrete has been used since the 1970s in construction of rural houses in Iran. Despite extensive use of concrete in rural housing in Iran and the huge allocated budget, the quality of construction is not acceptable. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the influence of using concrete in construction of rural houses in Iran. For this purpose, the effective factors on the development process of rural housing have been identified first. They could be counted as: 1. Efficiency and Effectiveness 2. Compatibility with climate, economy and social aspects 3. Dynamism and Flexibility 4. Stability and Durability 5. Cultural continuity and visual desirability Then, sample cases -25 villages- have been surveyed through these factors by authors. Minimum of 3 houses have been surveyed in each village. The result of this research recognizes some problems of using concrete in rural housing in Iran. The most common difficulties are providing materials with good quality, lack of technical knowledge in villagers as the main workforces and lack of required equipments.

rural housing, feasibility, concrete