Comparative Assessment of the Change in Privacy Levels in the Adaptive Reuse of Listed Iranian Traditional Houses from Qajar Era (1789 to 1925) According to Different Functions

In recent decades, adaptive reuse is one of the key strategies for conserving cultural heritage and its significance. Tabriz, as one of the historical cities of Iran, includes many cultural heritage sites and buildings. In this regard, the traditional houses of Tabriz, as a source of heritage values, play an important role in presenting these values to the present generations and transferring them for future generations as well. Therefore, the re-use of traditional Tabriz houses with new contemporary functions can be an effective way of conserving and expanding their heritage significance. Besides, privacy as an intangible aspect of culture has played a major role in the spatial organization of traditional Iranian houses and provided the hierarchy of access to the interior spaces. Therefore, setting the most appropriate function in terms of accessibility as a consequence of reusing traditional Iranian houses, provide the opportunity to sustain and present their heritage significance. In addition, limiting access (high level of privacy) is one of the obstacles that arise from the inappropriate private function, which may prevent presenting heritage significance. The purpose of this study is assessing the level of privacy in original and reused states of selected traditional houses in Tabriz in order to contribute to a better understanding of compatibility of the new function in terms of accessibility for both visitors and inhabitants within adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches are used for the data collection and analysis in this research. The qualitative approach of the research contains the observation of each case study by taking the photo of component spaces. In addition, by considering the analytical approaches of “space syntax methodology”, “justified graphs” have been provided based on plans of each case. Likewise, the privacy layers graphs have been prepared according to the justified graphs. Numerical outputs related to the syntactic properties are calculated through Excel software. In addition, the comparison of the depth of each space are illustrated in linear charts and compared with privacy layers graphs both in original and reused states of Tabriz traditional houses from the Qajar period. The findings show that, by changing the use of these traditional houses, the level of privacy in interior spaces has been reduced. In this regard, the findings of the numerical analysis and “justified graphs”, which are obtained by space syntax methodology and the comparison of features such as the relative depth of spaces and the integration values, show that the depth of space (Privacy) has decreased in re-use mode. Besides, the graphs of privacy levels determine that the degree of privacy varies in the spatial organization of new contemporary functions such as cultural, educational, commercial, administrative function, etc.; which directly affect the level of access of both visitors and inhabitants to the interior spaces of the cultural heritage. Keywords: Heritage buildings, adaptive reuse, traditional Iranian houses, spatial organization, interior space, level of privacy, public accessibility