The process of urban change in Iranian cities such as Tehran are characterised by political and economical forces that led to its rapid and radical changes. While in remote villages that far from direct state politics, the trend of urbanization and driving force behind it are varied. This paper examines the impact of urbanization process on both traditional structures and social life of people in historical village. Khoosf, the oldest desert village of Birjand, possessing courtyard house with wind-catcher, solid volume, dome ceilings and adobe is chosen as the case study. In 2000, Khoosf officially was classified as city through providing an Urban Master Plan, yet after ten years it possess much of its rural characters. During implementation of the urban development plan, the structure and morphology of historic area remain relatively immune from physical intervention; however, the pattern of growth of city marginalised the historic centre. As most of the commercial and administrative buildings with new feature and material were concentrated in new developed districts, there is an increasing trend toward depopulations of the historic core and many traditional houses remaining abandoned and deteriorated. New house-typology and non-native material, which clearly differ from the traditional pattern, are introduced by native old residents who could not afford to relocate to modern part of the city or by new migrants who came from villages near Khoosf. However, not all changes are through rural urbanization, natural disasters notably draught plays an important role for depopulation of the historic area and forced the locals to adopt non-agriculture activities. In order to get a deeper understanding of how historical village and its local people deal with these gradual metamorphosis, the processes of formation of Khoosf and effects of its transformation will be studied.

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