Recognition of Designs and Motifs of Architectural Windcatchers and Openings Native to City of Bastak

This research has tried to recognize the designs and motifs used in windcatchers and openings of the old texture of Bastak in an innovative approach in order to show how the architects and residents of old buildings are able to use and combine different geometric patterns into beautiful formats, as a legacy left from their ancestors. The purpose of the present research is to identify, analyze, and investigate the frequency of decorative forms used in natural ventilation elements (windcatchers and openings) among the local buildings of Bastak. The data were collected through library and field studies (field observations and imaging) in a descriptive-analytical way with a non-random (targeted) sampling and interviews with 97 users of traditional buildings. These buildings mostly dated back to more than seventy years ago. The results obtained from this research showed that the type of decorative forms used among the elements of natural ventilation depended on the taste, choice, and financial status of home owners. Such naturalistic decorations (including geometric patterns, plants, and animal motifs) are generally located in different places. In windcatchers, they are in space between the highest part of the indentation of the mouth, the highest part of the mouth of the windcatchers entrance, the stem, and the crown. In openings, these patterns are seen in a mesh pattern with different patterns (geometric and plant ones), above the windows, and above doors. The execution on the openings of these windows was used as a symbol of native architecture in traditional buildings. Today, through understanding the aesthetic values of these patterns, architects and urban planners can use them in their designs as a part of urban fabric along with new technologies.