This research paper reports the process and results of a project to automatically classify historical and non-historical buildings using airborne and satellite imagery. The case study area is the center of Yazd, the most important historical site in Iran. New computational scientific methods and accessibility to satellite images have created more opportunities to work on automated historical architecture feature recognition. Building on this, a convolutional neural network (CNN) is the main method for the classification task of the project. The most distinctive features of the historical houses in Iran are central courtyards. Based on this characteristic, the objective of the research is recognizing and labeling the houses as historical buildings by a CNN model. As a result, the trained model is tested by a validation dataset and has an accuracy rate of around 98%. In Sum, the reported project is one of the first works on deep learning methods in historical Iranian architecture study and one of the first efforts to use automated remote sensing techniques for recognizing historical courtyard houses in aerial images.

This study investigates the semiotic significance of water in Persian garden landscapes, revealing its cultural, spiritual, and religious roots. Drawing on Louis Hjelmslev’s theories and employing a semiotic model for landscape study, the paper conducts a holistic analysis of water’s physical and semantic dimensions in these gardens. The research adopts a triadic approach, starting with an examination of the form-to-substance ratio at the expression level to interpret the gardens’ physical and visual features. The article explores the connection between these features and the gardens’ cultural context and, finally, links structural concepts to broader societal ideologies. Qualitative content analysis of case studies, including Fin Garden and Dolatabad Garden, exposes the multifaceted meanings of water elements, from their geometric organization to their socio-cultural and ideological resonance. The findings disclose a triadic meaning system where water acts as a unifying symbol, reflecting Iranian societal values and enhancing the gardens’ lasting appeal. This study not only contributes to the semiotic discourse by applying Hjelmslev’s theories to the specific context of Iranian gardens but also enriches the understanding of cultural heritage and landscape design.