International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER) www.ijmer.com Vol. 2, Issue.6, Nov-Dec. 2012 pp-4743-4748 ISSN: 2249-6645 www.ijmer.com 4743 | Page Mohammadjavad Mahdavinejad, 1 Mahmoud Abedi 2 1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran 1411713116), IRAN 2 M. A. In Architecture, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran (1411713116), IRAN. Abstract: The meaning of the built environment has always attracted architects and landscape designers. This study is aimed to study meaning and concepts of urban parks in comparison with historic gardens. The literature review of the research emphasizes on impacts of environment on the addressees because of environmental elements and design. To address the issue the study have been done in two categories i.e. urban parks and historic gardens. Theoretical framework of the paper shows that there are three primary emotional responses - i.e. pleasure, excitation and dominance, in perception of meaning. Ten of the bipolar pairs emotions extracted from library state of the art of the paper were classified in these three primary emotional responses. Then a questionnaire was given to randomly selected samples of the research - fifty undergraduate students of the Architecture Departments of Sama Islamic Azad University in Saveh. These students were asked to rate a total of twenty photographs from four sites (Gardens: Arbab Mahdi and Akbarieh - Parks: Amirieh and Shahr) with the help of seven-point semantic differential scales under three headings; namely: pleasure, excitation and dominance. The results show that there are differences in perception of meaning between urban parks and historic gardens. In addition some invaluable aspects of historic gardens are missing in contemporary urban parks. Keywords: concept, semantic differential, urban parks, historic gardens I. INTRODUCTION Looking from the theoretical point of view, the necessity of the protection and enhance of landscape visual quality is one of the environmental design fundamentals, which is essential while creating the ecologically stable, ergonomically comfortable, aesthetically attractive, and semantically meaningful landscape (Kamičaitytė-Virbašienė & Janušaitis, 2004).The idea that some places possess more pronounced character than others has been an underlying premise of many geomantic traditions in both eastern and western cultures since antiquity. More recently, humanistic geographers, environmental psychologists, and planners have revived this notion in concepts such as place, sense of place, place character, and genius loci (Altman & Low, 1992) (Seamon & Mugerauer, 1985). In addition it can be used to determine the relationship between perceived use and urban design characteristics. Many studies have been made to the physical characteristics of the communication and integration between the built environments and find a reaction of participants. Researches are related with the tourism development and Sustainable design as the recreational resource (Ansari, Mahdavinejad, & abedi, 2012) (Mahdavinejad & Abedi, 2011). The results of public opinion analysis in 1972 showed that vicinity is beautiful when there is water (71%), forest (64%), expressive relief (27%), and structures (13%). According to the results of the research performed in 1986, the natural landscape visual type is beautiful considering its structure when there is 52% of water, 47% of relief, 32% of vegetation, 4% of architecture of buildings. A townscape is beautiful when the architecture of buildings consists 58%, vegetation – 50%, water – 13%, and relief – 10% (Kavaliauskas & Kurševičius, 1977). Although these studies analyze specific physical attributes, they do not include an in-depth analysis of the structure of observer emotional image reactions and how that relates to their overall evaluation (Llinares & Page, 2007).The conception of the visual environment includes an object i.e. the material environment, and a subject, i.e. the society, according to which the environment is analyzed. Therefore, seeking to create landscape of a particular visual quality by means of environmental design, there is a need to know not only objective indicators of landscape visual quality but also the evaluation of these objective indicators by society – preferences of experts and laity (Kamičaitytė-Virbašienė & Janušaitis, 2004). It is important to emphasize on participants conceptions and needs to meet sustainability in architecture and planning (Mahdavinejad & Abedi, 2011: 337-344). It is in need of architectural design criteria of socio-behavioral approach (Mahdavinejad & Mansoori, 2012: 475 – 482). Community-led method in art education and learning (Mahdavinejad & Moradchelleh, 2011a: 554-560) as well as community and social class (Mahdavinejad & Moradchelleh, 2012: 1068-1077) has a lot to do with Traditional architecture of developing countries especially in Iran (Mahdavinejad & Moradchelleh, 2011b: 677-682). It seems that the role of vernacular architecture in design of green areas e.g. urban parks has a lot to do with comfort and satisfaction of participants (Mahdavinejad et al., 2012: 65-68). Regarding to the literature review of the research, the purpose of this study is three fold: (1) describe characteristics of historic gardens and urban parks, (2) examine how these characteristics might differ between historic gardens and urban parks, and (3) describe how different types of landscape changes are liked and perceived, so we tested three hypothesizes: (H1): there is no difference in the perception of emotional concepts in the field of "pleasure" between urban park and garden audiences. (H2): there is no difference in the perception of emotional concepts in the field of "excitation" between contemporary urban park and garden audiences. Evaluation and Comparison of the Meaning and Concepts of Contemporary Urban Parks and Historic Gardens