MANZAR, the Scientific Journal of landscape
Scientific Quarterly Journal

Landscape as a Source of Development (Protection of the Rural Landscape, an Important Step in the Development Process: A Case Study of Villages of Kuhdasht County)

https://doi.org/10.22034/manzar.2025.556542.2379
Volume 17, Issue 73
Winter 2026
Pages 50-63
MANZAR, the Scientific Journal of landscape

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

Maryam Majidi 1
Negin Rajab Bojani 2
Zeinab Rezaei 2

1 Department of Landscape Architecture, Nazar Research Center for Art, Architecture, and Urbanism, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract
Contemporary progress in the field of development has fundamentally transformed the landscape of Iranian villages, affecting not only the physical and functional structures but also the meaning and identity of the rural landscape. This research, grounded in a place-based approach and the concept of landscape as a resource, shows how ignoring the semantic and cultural dimensions of place in development plans leads to the weakening of identity foundations and the destruction of the rural landscape. The research method is qualitative and based on phenomenological analysis of three case studies in Kuhdasht County (the villages of Paye Astan, Khosrowabad, Aboulvafa, and Sorkhdom Laki). The data were collected through field observations and the analysis of development plan documents, and were analyzed using an interpretive analysis approach. The findings show that development plans in these villages, which have been mainly based on a physical and sectoral perspective, regardless of an ontological understanding of place, have led to a break in the connection among historical, cultural, and natural elements. As a result, place-making indicators such as “systematic relations of heritage elements”, “occurrence of communal spaces”, “centrality of sacred elements”, “view and landscape”, and “organicity” have been ignored in the development process. This research concludes that the protection of the rural landscape is not a purely aesthetic or heritage matter, but rather a foundation for achieving sustainable and endogenous development; a development that arises from the understanding of place as a source and from the ontological reading of space. In this framework, paying attention to the concept of landscape as a source in development policy-making can provide a native model that is resistant to uniformizing and non-contextual development trends.

Keywords

Rural landscape
Place-based development
Landscape as a resource
Kuhdasht County
Subjects
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