The Healing Attributes of Persian Garden

An important feature of the garden is that it should be possible to experience it as a whole, marked off from the surroundings. Through the ages the garden has been defined as a piece of enclosed ground [3]. It is important how it is shaped, its well design, give the visitor a feeling of being away and of being safe. The importance of design and its relationship to health cannot be overlooked, since it is the impetus behind a successful aesthetic solution that contributes to wellbeing. They are one and the same as natural laws of health and harmony. Spatial perception is a sensual experience detected by the tangible space qualities such as pattern, texture, and order [16]. Spaces create wellbeing when they are balanced in their arrangement with other spaces and their structures are blessed with the aesthetic characteristics that create pleasure.

Legibility: Legibility is the main factor in traditional gardens. An open space offers information about the environment and if it is legible and understandable, then a mental relaxation appears as a result [5] and this becomes very important for well-being. A sense of calmness and tranquility comes along when the complexity and intensity of textures and patterns is at a lower level [17]. In Persian garden forms and arrangement of trees and running water as well as pools and stable water are so inter-related as well as to other elements.

Such an organization which makes a garden as it is seen is balanced in a complex and intense way. This should be planned so that they look softer in quality. These appearances may draw the feelings of well-being. Using such symbols in Persian garden, a space is created that is used for restoration and spiritual reaffirmation. It can help us experience a space that awakens the subconscious for healing that is personal, effective and integrative of body, mind, and spirit.

Order: Order is the arrangement of forms that brings equilibrium to the organization of space. The structure of a space is defined by its organizing patterns controlling its function, its progression, and its aesthetic appearance. Since order is a principle of spatial organization, balance, unity, and rhythm may be seen as aspects of order when used within this context. Balance is the most significant psychological as well as physical effect on human perception. Equilibrium is our firmest and strongest visual reference, both conscious and unconscious basis for making judgments' [18]. Balance brings a perception of wholeness or completeness. The concept of balance is an important consideration in a Persian garden (Fig. 3). It fortifies and integrates the elements of color, form, texture, and scale into a healing design. Strong edges and repetition of these through the Persian garden, gives the garden organization, legibility??, and aesthetic order. It is built through a geometric order. Elements in a geometrical arrangement form the garden spaces. A classical or symmetrical order in Persian garden divides the space along an axis or around a center point and arranges the garden forms in a mirror effect order. This offers a very ordered, structured, and balanced appearance to the viewer that makes a universal harmony which is also important for the health. Linear path enhances the visual perception by placing the space within boundaries. Persian garden frames the space through vertical elements; which are trees and corner walls (Fig. 2). There is a focal point in every Persian garden that addresses healing, for instance the 'focus of tranquility', which is placed at the center and it becomes 85 ??less forceful by the elements located around. It provides an orderly and strong placement of spaces and defines their places and values through hierarchy, repetition, pattern, and rhythm. In the garden the pavilion acts as a land mark. It is suggested that visual landmarks facilitate orientation and consequently provide a sense of ease and rest [7].

Circulation pattern: The garden is created in a circular pattern that functions with the space and defines a legible ??pattern of movement. According to Lynch, this causes a feeling of relaxation [19]. Paths define the circulation pattern and so circulation defines garden’s pattern. Persian garden has a movement inside itself. Circulation and the arrangement of paths form the geometry of garden. All the elements are placed and formed in the light of what the paths define for the garden. Pleasantness of the garden is derived from its appearance; rhythm, symmetry and balance, and they are seen in paths. So it can be said that unity in garden, is based on a physical arrangement basis. Figure 3. Persian garden (Fin Kashan garden, Iran, Kashan) Order and circulation pattern can be seen in this plan [2].

Earle describe unity as the 'spirit of the design' [20]. Unity in the space defines the space as wholeness. Perception of unity in space arrangement is understandable and presentable. ‘Unity or the production of a whole is a leading principle of the highest significance, in every art of taste or design, without which no satisfactory result can be achieved[21]. It is naturally believed that as a motivating principle unity carries us forward in our perception of environment. ‘For the best organization, the parts should be organized in a way that the whole is seen before the parts’ [18].

What we introduce in the unity of the garden is not only emotional or mental features but also it is a base? affected by them but that it created an experience, like the one in another world, and the world of garden. According to R.H Robinson, experience rather than space in design makes the viewer accept or reject the space [16]. The environment of the garden as a whole space with space alternation and sequence and mental and emotional stimulants create environmental experience, and, according to Cornell, physical healing and spiritual transformation can occur [22]. It is in this layer that the world of the garden is felt by accomplishment of spatial experience. The focal essence of space is presented. We may sometimes get involved in games in the garden, so that we may forget our position in the world and enter the garden’s world since the garden itself is a complete world [8]. The garden pulls us into its space-world by its internal and external attractions. Seeking the garden equates with seeking the self, when the garden is experienced to its fullest. Such an experience makes some kind of movement and florescence inside us.

If we consider space a language [23], and consider the garden or any other special space as a statement, then the feeling of reading it will be the same as experiencing space. Some are superficial, while others are mind-blowing, appetizing and astonishing. There exists some that make you modest. Unity of spatial experience in the garden’s world can be expressed as a statement that seems to carry fragrances from other worlds. It is arousing and feeds the person experiencing it. It becomes exciting like a beautiful poem or verse. Space, context, ideology, knowledge, and religion have all gather together to make a creature in the form of the garden. Persian garden presents life’s natural rhythm in the form of a unity of the body, mind, and spirit that brings about full restoration.