Investigating the Consequences of the Proximity of Villages and Industrial Estates on the Architecture of Rural Areas

The expansion of industries in rural areas with the aim of developing and sustaining their environment has been a policy of interest to most governments and decision-makers in this field in the second half of the 20th century, which can have positive or negative consequences in the economic, social, environmental, and physical spheres. In general, numerous studies have been conducted on the effects of industrial location in rural environments, each of which has looked at this issue from a specific perspective and analyzed and evaluated the consequences of industrial establishment in the studied area. Over the past few decades, following the presentation and implementation of social development plans and the modernization process in the social and economic spheres, rural settlements, like any other phenomenon, have undergone changes and transformations. The establishment of small and large industries in rural areas has had a great impact on these areas, sometimes causing their complete transformation. The developments and changes resulting from this establishment include physical and environmental-ecological changes and changes in the socio-economic structure of the village.



Methodology

The present study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the effects of creating industrial estates on the architecture of rural areas in Qaenat County in 2025. The general approach of this study is quantitative research, and in terms of data collection method, it is based on library data, and part of the information was collected by completing 120 questionnaires using simple random sampling. The statistical population of this study consisted of two groups, including in-depth interviews with elites and specialists and villagers living in villages around the industrial town in Qaenat County. Using the Cochran formula and the stratified random method with proportional assignment, 100 residents of two villages located adjacent to the industrial town and 20 village experts were selected as samples from 270 households living in the aforementioned villages. The data were analyzed using SPSS software. Face validity was used to measure validity in the present study.



Results and discussion

The results of the analysis of variance of the consequences of the proximity of villages and industrial towns on the economic, social, cultural and architectural domains of rural areas were examined separately from the perspectives of experts and villagers. According to the experts, there was a significant level for the economic, social, cultural and architectural consequences, which was obtained according to the perspective of village residents. The highest mean square between the groups based on the experts' and villagers' views is related to cultural effects. The economic consequence with the highest F value is 7.510 and the average is 1.221 according to the villagers, which indicates the high impact of this area due to the proximity of the village to the industrial estate. In contrast, according to the villagers, this proximity has had the least impact on the architecture of the village. According to experts, the cultural consequence shows the highest F value of 2.252 and an average of 0.317, and in this analysis, it does not have a significant impact on architecture. Based on these statistics, from the perspective of both groups studied, the highest frequency of architectural changes was in the number of residential units, and the change in architectural style had the lowest frequency. In a more detailed look, the effects and consequences of locating an industrial estate adjacent to a village on the architecture of the village, from the experts' perspective, indicate that the changes in the architectural plan, building materials, the function of the architectural space, the neighborhood pattern, and the infrastructure of the village are significant from the experts' perspective. On the other hand, experts in the field of architectural style and building facade features assessed these effects as low or insignificant. Also, the experts' opinion states that the effects are greater on the components of architectural design and neighborhood pattern, space function, and village infrastructure, respectively. But in general, the number of experts who believe in changes caused by the creation of an industrial town in village architecture is less than 30 percent.



Conclusion

The results from the perspectives of experts and villagers indicate a significant relationship between economic, social, and cultural impacts in the village, but this analysis did not show a significant impact on village architecture. In the continuation of the research on damaged architectural components in villages, the greatest impact was related to the number of residential buildings and village infrastructure from the perspective of villagers and experts, which is related to increased migration to villages and improved economic conditions in villages. Also, according to experts, the greatest changes in architectural components have been related to the neighborhood pattern and the characteristics of architectural plans, which, in their opinion, fully correspond to the highest changes in the village in the cultural and social spheres. The small and even insignificant effects of other architectural components can perhaps be attributed to the simultaneous changes in architectural styles towards the globalization of architectural patterns and the separation from traditional and indigenous architectural patterns with the creation of industrial towns in Iran.