Studies of historical buildings in Persian architecture have resulted in knowing a kind of masonry structure with a harmonic lattice geometry, which has been titled “Karbandi.” The most important and highly acclaimed feature of Karbandi is the correlation and coordination between its architectural and structural functions, which results in creating esthetic and meaningful spaces. The use of this structure is highly demanded in contemporary Persian architecture, but very little information about historical techniques survives to the present day and accordingly, there are ambiguities about its drawing and geometric design. Therefore, this research aims at discovering geometric relationships and principles of Karbandi to regulate and facilitate its design process in contemporary architecture. Toward this end, its historical samples were analyzed and their geometric features were found. As a consequence, the connection distance of dividing points on the circle is an important parameter for creating various types of Karbandi on a base. For instance, the height of a Karbandi and its elaboration are directly related to the connection distance. In addition, it was clarified that the height of a Karbandi and the size of its Shamseh are in an inverse relationship. Finally, a comprehensive classification was presented based on found geometric features.

The use of symbolism in contemporary architecture is increasingly gaining momentum, especially so in the Eastern countries currently undergoing rapid economic development. Sociologically, this phenomenon can be related to a desire to manifest a vast wealth of national art and respond to the globalisation and unification of world culture. Taking this tendency as a prompt, this study explores different ways of implementing symbolic ornaments in landscape architecture. Traditionally architecture has been defined through and judged against culturally acceptable criteria that set the norm for appropriate form and expression. Yet, technical advances have altered this process and contributed to a certain level of oblivion of traditional architectural form. Thus, the meaning of many Kazakh ornaments has been lost through time. On one hand, this paper collects historical information on the semiotics of Kazakh ornaments and on the other hand, it conducts field studies focusing on the cultural tradition of the native people in Eurasia. The study introduces the use of symbolism in landscape architecture as an aspiration for luck and prosperity which then dictates the quality of the landscape compositions. The findings show that the use of symbolic ornamentation in architecture is not bound to specific geographic areas but rather motivated by broader underlying principles. Through analytical exploration of different cultures and their use of symbols in architecture, this study identifies four main categories of architectural symbolism relating to floral, zoomorphic, geometric and cosmogonic patterns. Each nation then recognises its own identity in the semiotics of those patterns and incorporates them in the urban realm as part of its cultural legacy.

The Gireh is an Islamic geometric pattern which is governed by mathematical rules and conforms to Euclidean surfaces with fixed densities. Since dome-shaped surfaces do not have a fixed density, it is difficult to make use of a structure like Gireh on these surfaces. There are, however, multiple domes which have been covered using Gireh, which can certainly be thought of a remarkable achievement by past architects. The aim of this paper is to discover and classify the strategies employed to spread the Gireh over dome surfaces found in Iran. The result of this research can provide new insights into how Iranian architects of the past were able to extend the use of the Gireh from flat surfaces to dome-shaped elements. The result of this paper reveal that the projection of Gireh on dome surface is based on the following six strategies: 1- Spherical solids, 2- radial gore segments, 3- articulation, 4- changing Gireh without articulating, 5- changing the number of Points in the Gireh based on numerical sequences, and 6- hybrid. Except for the first method, all of the other strategies have been discovered in this study. The radial gore segments strategy is different from the previously-developed methods.