ICONARP - International Journal Of Architecture And Planning
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New Uses for Old Buildings: The case of ‘Soğukçeşme’ Street, İstanbul, Turkey
Get PDFİstanbul has served as the capital of three great empires and is a cultural centre of outstanding importance not only for Turkey but also for the world as a whole. Its historical and cultural heritage should be fully exploited and its inheritance carefully preserved to serve as an inspiration to future generations. The most effective way of lending educational end inspirational significance to the old buildings that fall into this category is to convert each one of them into a living entity. On the basis of these arguments, this article aims to explore changes to important examples of such original buildings over time and how to convert them to suit contemporary usage values
On the Nature of the Conceptual Schemata Development of Architecture Students
Get PDFEmbedded within the theoretical and conceptual frameworks implied by the schemata theory and studies on architectural precedent knowledge, the present study is based on a research that investigates and evaluates two major issues within the context of architectural education. First is the level and characteristics of the conceptual schema of the students of architecture have had just before their education in architecture starts, and second, the nature, and the characteristic of that precise conceptual schema’s development and transformation throughout their formal education. This study, on the other hand, reports a comparative analysis and evaluation of two particular stages: 1st year, before their formal education starts, and 3rd year, as it was assumed by the study, as the stage when their disciplinary schemata is already roughly “formed.” Findings showed that students not only developed their conceptual schemata and their existing schemata is transformed into a more specialized and field-specific one, but also they have developed a set of skills which might be called “designerly seeing,” and “designerly thinking.
Measuring Intensity – Describing and Analysing the “Urban Buzz”
Get PDFDensity or Intensity?There is much debate about how to measure density – dwellings per hectare, bedrooms per hectare or people per hectare; including or excluding major highways, parks and open spaces; the permanent population only or the transient one too?While this gives urban planners something to disagree about it risks missing the point: great urban places are not created by density; they are created by intensity.And the difference matters. When people describe the buzz of a marketplace they do not say, “Wow - it was so dense!”. They are much more likely to say how intense it was. Density is a word used by planners. Intensity is a word that real people use, and perhaps because it describes the outcomes that people experience rather than the inputs that have gone in to creating them. It is the outcomes that are ultimately more important. But planning professionals like density. Even though density fails to capture the essence of what it feels like to be somewhere, the term appeals to professional instincts. It describes the raw ingredients that planners have to handle and, once you choose which version of the formula you are going to use, density is easy to measure. It involves a simple calculation of straightforward urban quantities such as the number of people, the number of houses or the number of bedrooms, all divided by the geographic area over which those ingredients occur. Easy.In contrast, intensity seems more difficult to pin down, not least because it appears to have a subjectively emotional dimension; it speaks of feelings, of responses, of stimuli, and this raises problems about how it can be effectively measured. But intensity is also a response to context, to place and above all to people - and here we can find clues to its measurement.Observing IntensitySo what are the factors that people are responding to when they instinctively feel the intensity of a great place? For a start, they can not be calculating a planner’s measure of urban density because, even if they were so minded, they could not possibly know about populations and geographic areas when they are walking along a street or sitting at a café table on a public space.What people can respond to though is what is happening around them in the public realm: they can see how many other people there are, and they can see what these people are up to. In other words, intensity is obvious, immediate and instinctively calculable to the person in the street: not only the mobile population of walkers, drivers and cyclists but also the immobile population of sitters, leaners and pausers. Intensity has a static as well as a kinetic dimension. Indeed the stationary people are the essential ingredient of intensity. They are the people who have chosen to be there, to add to the place through their semi-permanence and not simply to pass through on the way to somewhere else. Intensity is not therefore about the population density of an area but the population that is participating in the public realm of an area. And this should be obvious. And everyday. But any attempt to emphasise the benefits of static participation runs counter to the mindset of the traffic engineer and counter to the still-persuasive, kinetic legacy of Le Corbusier, who described “grinding gears and burning gasoline” as the pleasurable objectives of the Plan Voisin.Nevertheless, intense places are sticky places and especially so when people are not only co-present in space but when they are also interacting: talking to each other, sharing thoughts, ideas, opinions. This is the essence of intensity; there is an exchange - a transaction – be it economic, social, cultural, intellectual, factual or simply facile. It is the daily public life of every thriving village, town and city. It is so apparently unremarkable as to go unnoticed, unobserved and unmeasured. Until it is not there. And that is when you feel it most clearly.A number of years ago my colleagues at Space Syntax were working on a sample of towns across the UK, some historic and some new. The towns had similar residential populations and similar retail floorspace provisions across similar geographical areas; in other words, similar densities. But what the team had also done was to count the numbers of people using the centres of each town: how many were walking and sitting in public space. They had counted over several days, from morning until evening. What they found was that the historic towns consistently had many more people using their centres than the new ones - and they knew from other evidence that the historic towns had stronger economic performances. Here then were places with similar urban densities but different intensities of human activity.What seemed to explain the differences between historic and new towns were first, the spatial layout and second, the street design of each place. The historic towns were laid out around radial streets that were designed to carry cars as well as vehicles and which met at the centre of the town in a public space. Behind these radial streets were more or less continuously connected grids of residential streets, interrupted by the occasional large open space. Both cars and pedestrians could use the residential streets, while the open spaces were generally for pedestrians only. There was some limited pedestrianisation in the very centre of each town.In contrast, the new towns often had separate street networks for vehicles and pedestrians, no high street or central public space and usually one or two enclosed shopping malls. Their central areas were typically pedestrianised and spatially separated from the surrounding residential areas by a vehicle-only ring road; these residential areas were separated from each other by large swathes of open space.To summarise, the key differences were first in the intensity of the human experience and second in the design of the street network. Intensity, it seems, is facilitated by an alignment of physical and spatial factors: having the movement-sensitive land uses on sufficiently well-connected streets that are, in the main, shared by vehicles and pedestrians.Measuring IntensityImportantly, both the amount of human activity and the degree of street connectivity are measurable commodities – if you know how. This is the professional specialism of my practice, Space Syntax, and it has two key parts: one part that takes place in the studio, using purpose-designed software that measures the amount of connectivity in street grids and the other part that happens on site using some form of counting device. This device may be a camera strapped to a lamp post or, in recent years, a drone flight. Or it may simply be a set of human eyes, a pencil and a notepad. Onto these ‘foundational’ datasets are added other information, which might be about air quality, land value, crime rates or health outcomes. Statistical software is employed to explore relations between the datasets: how is health or wealth or educational achievement related to spatial connectivity or isolation? The product of this process is an Integrated Urban Model: a quantitative record of urban form and urban performance. A Geographical Information System is used to hold the datasets in one place and a basic form of artificial intelligence is run to explore the links between the data.However it is possible to create a primitive version of a data platform using only PowerPoint and Excel. After all, Space Syntax began its work before the Macintosh, before colour screens, before the internet, before CAD, before GIS and long before BIM. Its observations of pedestrian movements around Trafalgar Square were done with pen and paper, the results coded manually into a simple drawing programme.What matters today is what mattered then: to bring data to life using maps and colours rather than spreadsheets and charts. To make it accessible to the audiences that will be making judgments about the future of places: investors, planning officers, politicians and local communities. Measures of intensity therefore need to speak to multiple audiences and not least to the design community, into whose creative hands is entrusted the responsibility for shaping the aspirations of stakeholders. An Integrated Urban Model must be nimble, capable of responding again and again to the short and intensive programme of a rapid design process. Beware the Smart City “Control Room” stuffed with technicians; eintegratedmbrace instead a portable platform that can respond to the timescale of a creative whim.Creating a Profession of “Urban Intensity Surveyors”So why do we not measure towns and cities in such a systematic way? Why is there not a profession of urban intensity surveyors? And a culture among architects and urban planners of designing for intense human interactions?The problems start when the responsibility for thinking about cities, streets and public spaces moves from the individual enjoying the buzz of the boulevard to the collective of professional institutes charged with creating place. Density prevails over intensity and we revert to simplifications. Assumptions are made - incorrectly as we have seen - that the quality of street life will be in direct proportion to the density of people in an area. That if we have more people then the streets will be busier and the busier the streets, the better the place. But then the counter view is quite reasonably made that people need quiet streets and so densities should not be too high. And a compromise is eventually reached for neither super high nor super low densities; neither towns that are too big nor too small. And if we need big towns then they should be broken up into manageable parcels. Since we want pedestrians then we should pedestrianise.We end up with an urbanism of averages and a morphology of enclaves through an approach that is much too simplistic to ever create great place. It is not born of science and it does not reflect human experience: people know instinctively that you can turn off the busiest street in the city and immediately find yourself on a lane that is one of the quietest; that the intensity of the urban experience can transform itself in seconds. This is one of the great joys of exploring great cities: they are not pervasively busy; they are intensely quiet as well. They have a foreground grid of busy streets and a background grid of quiet ones. If we can systematically measure urban intensity then we will understand how towns and cities work in ways that will transform practice. And by transforming practice we will transform place.The Future for IntensityThe professions will be unwise to avoid the opportunities presented by technology. Both the technologies of data capture, visualisation and analysis as well as the technologies that are affecting human behaviours: broadband, social media, augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI). Human activity is becoming ever more intense and this gives us another reason to systematically measure urban intensity. People are walking more slowly, ensconced in virtual worlds at the same time as participating in physical space; seeing their surroundings augmented with pop-up information. The trend will continue as AR on our smartphones becomes AR on our spectacles. As well as talking to each other we will be talking to objects on display in shops, to screens in buildings and on streets, and to ourselves – our digital twin may appear as an avatar walking alongside us in our peripheral vision or in front of us when trying on clothes for us. This intensity of communication can already be seen in early adopting countries, especially China, and it may seem strange at first. But there was a time, not long ago, when it seemed strangely ostentatious to put down a mobile phone on a table in a public place.The brain has a finite processing capacity and so what goes into handling increased visual information will have to be taken away from the control of bodily function. People may therefore adapt to the amplified intensity of visual stimuli by moving ever more slowly. We will need more space for these intense activities and the obvious place is the street, where we will need more space for people. Road space will have to narrow and footways will have to widen. We will need more places to sit and lean - to be sticky.And this presents a choice for designers: continue to disagree about the best way to measure density or embrace intensity and anticipate the radical transformation of place
Swedish Typo-Morphology – Morphological Conceptualizations and Implication for Urban Design
Get PDFTypo-morphology is a branch of urban morphology that understands physical form, formation and transformation in cities with use of types and typologies. This paper describes three Swedish typo-morphological approaches and discusses urban morphology and typologies in a context of urban design and planning practices. One approach describes architectural styles and typical buildings for different historical periods. The second focuses on classifying neighborhood types and their physical attributes. The third complements the second and argues that the Swedish neighborhood typology describes not only physical spaces, but also social structure
Seismic Design Considerations for Architectural Design Aspects
Get PDFArchitectural design decisions play an important role in the earthquake behavior of buildings. However, architects are very unfamiliar with earthquake response concept. Earthquake resistant design (ERD) initiates generally during the architectural design stage to adhere to these principles. This study was focused on plan geometries, architectural design and structural system configurations for structural earthquake responses. A general-purpose finite element program was used to evaluate several irregularities and their corresponding earthquake responses. In the first phase of the study, the projections in plan view and projection ratios were compared from a torsional response perspective. In the second phase, nonparallel axes are investigated. In the last phase, the effects of shear wall arrangement on torsional irregularity response were analysed by considering 4 different configurations in a school building failure during the recent earthquake (2011) in the city, Van located in the east of Turkey. The number of storys was chosen as a parameter for the latter phase. The mode superposition method was preferred for the linear dynamic analyses. According to the results of the study, the torsional rotation was found to be proportional to the projection ratio in plan. For non-orthogonal cases, structure with an inclined axis more than 30°, torsional irregularity factor exceeded the code-defined limit. Beneficial observations and conclusions were drawn for both architects and structural engineers’ perspective
A Quest for Sustainability of Cultural Heritage Sites: The Hanlar District of Bursa, Turkey
Get PDFToday, many studies have been carried out to support community engagement in planning and urban design processes in Turkey. This study which tries to bring together community engagement and urban design within the framework of sustainability of cultural heritage sites is a part of a scientific research project which aims to create a participative model to develop an urban design guideline for the Hanlar District, a historical commercial district including many inns in the city centre of Bursa, in Turkey. While a series of community engagement techniques were experimented during the project process, the aim of this article is to examine the potential benefits of using educational charrettes as a kind of design charrette to establish a participatory and competitive platform including public, private, voluntary actors and local people in urban design process of heritage sites. It overviews the charrette use in developing adaptive re-use and urban design schemes for the inns and their surrounding public spaces which are not actively used in the Hanlar District which has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 2014, and then highlights the proposals that were developed in terms of the objectives of the Bursa and Cumalikizik Management Plan. Finally, this study presents the usability, suitability and practicability of educational charrettes as a community engagement way in the urban design process of the heritage sites while enabling different actors to create new visions to sustain heritage sites. However, it also emphasizes the need for a participatory and holistic urban design process for the Hanlar District of Bursa including the adaptive re-use strategies for the inns to sustain the district
The Impact of Architectural Design of Shopping Malls on Consumer Behaviours: A Case of Konya
Get PDFSubject of consumer behaviours has been critical importance for business platform and related disciplines from past to present. Being able to understand consumer behaviour and identify strategies in this direction have become the most important condition for survival in competitive conditions. Many researchers produce new studies in order to understand and direct consumer behaviours more accurately. In time, researchers have elaborated these studies and have begun to link various disciplines such as law, economics, geography, architecture with consumer behaviour. In this study, it is aimed to determine the relationship between consumption concept and architectural discipline. Design criteria that increase and decrease consumption preference and quantity have been investigated by determining the extent to which the interior and exterior architecture affected the consumption habits.Method: In this study, based on the literature, a conceptual survey of the daily shopping malls has been conducted from past to present. The basic literature is based on classification and description. By the determined hypotheses, observations, researches and surveys are conducted in the shopping centers located in Konya. Findings are tabulated and compared by morphological analysis technique. Survey data is analysed by SPSS program. In these analyses, differential hypothesis tests (Independent Two Sample T Test, One Way ANOVA Test) and relationship hypothesis tests (Pearson Correlation Coefficient) are used.Result: As a result, it has been found that the effect of interior and exterior architectural design of shopping centers on consumer behaviour is related to preferences, demographic data and consumer behavior. The results of the questionnaire application are influenced by the architectural design of the shopping centers, the amount of consumption and consumer behaviour. Therefore, the relationship between architectural design and consumer behaviour for shopping malls should be considered as an important factor in planningSubject of consumer behaviours has been critical importance for business platform and related disciplines from past to present. Being able to understand consumer behaviour and identify strategies in this direction have become the most important condition for survival in competitive conditions. Many researchers produce new studies in order to understand and direct consumer behaviours more accurately. In time, researchers have elaborated these studies and have begun to link various disciplines such as law, economics, geography, architecture with consumer behaviour. In this study, it is aimed to determine the relationship between consumption concept and architectural discipline. Design criteria that increase and decrease consumption preference and quantity have been investigated by determining the extent to which the interior and exterior architecture affected the consumption habits.Method: In this study, based on the literature, a conceptual survey of the daily shopping malls has been conducted from past to present. The basic literature is based on classification and description. By the determined hypotheses, observations, researches and surveys are conducted in the shopping centers located in Konya. Findings are tabulated and compared by morphological analysis technique. Survey data is analysed by SPSS program. In these analyses, differential hypothesis tests (Independent Two Sample T Test, One Way ANOVA Test) and relationship hypothesis tests (Pearson Correlation Coefficient) are used.Result: As a result, it has been found that the effect of interior and exterior architectural design of shopping centers on consumer behaviour is related to preferences, demographic data and consumer behavior. The results of the questionnaire application are influenced by the architectural design of the shopping centers, the amount of consumption and consumer behaviour. Therefore, the relationship between architectural design and consumer behaviour for shopping malls should be considered as an important factor in plannin
The Evaluation of Trade Area Models and Analysis Methods for Site Selection from International Quick Service Restaurants’ Perspective
Get PDFInternational quick service restaurants (QSRs) have become a stand-alone sector due to their significant market share throughout the world instead of being considered under the food and beverage sector. The success of QSR site selection is directly related to land use and market potential estimation. This relationship has a significant influence on urban texture, identity and cities\u27 development processes, given the high number of QSRs in urban spaces. Diverging from the current retail sector dynamics, the QSR sector brings to the table different needs in terms of trade area characteristics and spatial characteristics. In this respect, the aim of this research is to conduct an analysis on the site selection decisions of international QSRs and to establish a conceptual framework for an applicable model. Accordingly, first, the relationship between trade area analysis and site selection of international QSRs is examined. After that, trade area models of The Proximal Area Model, Reilly\u27s Law of Retail Gravitation Model, Central Place Theory, Huff Model, Analog Model and Geographic Interdependence Model are discussed according to their competence of QSRs’ site selection. Then they are analytically evaluated within the framework of today\u27s economic, social and spatial development variables. Finally, Regression Analysis Methods and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which are encountered in literature and used in practice are examined, and a new theoretical framework for a site selection model integrating Regression Analysis Methods and GIS is proposed
Public Space and Accessibility
Get PDFVirtually everyone experiences a physical disability at some time in their lives; that is to say that their mobility has been restricted. An infant, en adult with an injury, a parent with a pushchair, an elderly person are all disabled in one way or another. Those who remain healthy and able-bodied throughout their lives are few. The physical environment and public services and public spaces in general should be as barrier-free as possible to fulfil the needs of all people equally. People with a disability have the same rights as other people. People with a disability are not a homogeneous group. They may include the mentally retarded. The most important item for the disabled people is the possibility of circulation; namely accessibility. Inclusive and universal design approaches have to be considered especially for the public spaces and public buildings. In this paper, some main items of circulation in relation with accessibility have been detailed as well as a workshop study outputs which has been hold in Selçuk University, Department of Architecture
Designing Neighborhood for Communal Activities: The Case of Low-Rent Housing for Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China
No full textChinese migrants transfer from their rural settlements to establish city lives, but their sense of identity and family network remain grounded in a village culture. The rich communal activities can be understood as one aspect of the adherence to the village culture and lifestyle of their rural settlements. This study investigates the transitional spaces combined with functions shared among such Chinese migrants in their urban settlements are to allow communal activities to emerge. The sharing of certain functions situated in the transitional spaces, namely, in front of the rental room, in front of the rental house and between the rental houses, always provides opportunities for communal activities to take place. I defend that the role played by the transitional spaces must be joined with functions that residents can share or must share with each other. The shared functions situated in the transitional spaces actually allow communal activities to take root