Relationship of economic and environmental factors with the acceptance of earthen architecture technology: A case study of young educated couples in Yazd, Iran

Since time immemorial, earthen architecture has been prevalent in Yazd; however, in spite of its merits and benefits, tendency for it has decreased over recent decades. The main objective of this research is to clarify the relationship of economic and environmental factors with the acceptance of newly built earthen houses. The research is a cross-sectional study conducted through a survey method. The sample population consisted of 145 young educated couples in Yazd selected based on the Cochran formula and through a multi-stage cluster sampling procedure. The results showed that the acceptance of newly built earthen houses among the respondents was higher than average. The perceived usefulness of this architecture in terms of both economic and environmental factors had a positive and significant correlation with the acceptance of that, while none of the demographic variables associated with acceptance. Using the regression model, environmental and then economic factors were found to account for 39% of the variance for the acceptance of the earthen architecture. According to these results, it seems that taking environmental and economic factors into consideration can affect people's interest and their acceptance of newly built earthen houses. In this regard, certain architectural solutions are presented in the paper. This research findings provide motivation for further and broader studies in this field.