Search results

In the year 2000, a team from Istanbul Technical University (ITU) developed the “Urban m³ - Respect for Life Project”, which was aimed at providing shelter for those people who were left homeless as a consequence of the earthquake in 1999, in the districts of Arizli-Kocaeli in Turkey. This earthquake had a catastrophic effect on one of the most densely populated and industrial regions of Turkey whose population accounts about 20 percent of Turkey's total population. In addition to providing shelter, the major objective of this project was to re-establish those humanistic and natural values that had been lost or obscured in respect of the traditional, Turkish life-style and culture, as a result of the rapid urban-isation which took place after the 1950s. In 2000, research was conducted to evaluate the prospective residents' preferences in respect of their future housing and its environment needs. For this purpose, 400 people, who had been living in temporary housing in the area affected by the earthquake, were the target group of an in-depth survey. The main objective of the study was to determine whether the prospective residents' perceptions and evaluations matched the project designed by the ITU's team. It was assumed within the project planning and design that people would prefer the socially, and physically rich environment offered by the project. Based on the research findings, the ideology, philosophy and concepts underlying the “Urban m³ - Respect for Life Project” could be evaluated as an altenative design approach, which provides not only environmental protection and disaster mitigation, but also a high level of socio-cultural satisfaction. Thus, the paper suggests strategies for improved post-disaster (re-)construction.

Residential satisfaction can be viewed as a part of life satisfaction. There are many studies related to the relationship between residents’ satisfaction with their environments and the quality of those environments. The purpose of this paper is to examine how this satisfaction differs according to the type of residential environment.

It is based on empirical data on the quality of life in the different residential environments of the Istanbul Metropolitan Area. The primary source of information was a household survey.

In an attempt to find solutions to problems with the quality of residential environments, the data were analyzed through several variables related to the subjective perceptions of residential satisfaction. According to the results of the research, residents living in planned neighborhoods in the city are more satisfied than those living in unplanned neighborhoods. The residents who live in the planned sections of the city are satisfied with the attractiveness and accessibility of their neighborhoods, while those who live in unplanned sections of the city are satisfied with their level of attachment to their neighborhoods.

The study was designed to produce baseline data so that future changes in residential conditions as perceived by the residents of Istanbul could be monitored to support decisions for residential areas.

Comparative case studies, especially on planned vs unplanned environments, are relatively limited in number. Therefore, there is a need for new researches examining differences between different residential settings within cities. This study adds value to the field of comparative studies on residential environments.

Residential mobility is a dynamic urban process resulting from the ever changing internal and external factors of households' residential preferences. Factors effecting these preferences are related to households'perception of spatial issues such as the characteristics of a house, accessibility to urban functions and transportation, land values and house prices, neighborhood characteristics, residential satisfaction, and attachment. The effects of these issues vary through the life cycle as well as social, economic, and employment status of a household. As a result of the legal arrangements and state incentives that have helped to develop the construction industry, current housing patterns have shifted in Istanbul since the 2000s'. This study aims to investigate the changing trends in the factors that affected the residential location preferences of Istanbulites from 2006 to 2014. Data was collected through a stratified sampling method from two different surveys in 2006 and 2014. The paper explains the change in the destination choice of residents in the city at the district level and furthermore, changes in the households' intention to move to one of the three different housing patterns which are common in the city.

Although the design studio has formally been the locus for design education, informal education approach has gained more and more acceptance in the world. Informal education, which is the education outside the confines of curricula, includes the acquisition of knowledge and skills through experience, reading, social contact, etc. Workshops cover the essential weight of this informal education. Although the role of the design workshops in architectural design education has been very limited through overall design education’s past, many schools of architecture have taken steps to consider workshops as the part of informal learning and education.

“Culture and Space in the Build environment” (CSBE) Network of IAPS have been organizing “culture and design workshop series” for graduate and post graduate students in Turkey since 2001. In these workshops, a design teaching approach based on the conceptual framework of culture and space interactions is applied. The conceptual framework developed for the architectural design education, takes three fundamental starting points for workshops as the part of informal design education: as a tool for informal design education (method), as a tool for learning & understanding culture-environment relations (content), and as a tool for awareness of different environments/contexts (scale/place). The foundation of the conceptual framework is based on the general approach that discusses the “architectural design process” with regards to environmental context and content.

Within this context the aim of the paper is to discuss and evaluate the importance and the contribution of workshops as tool for informal architectural design education. These discussions will be held on the case of IAPS-CBSE Network’s last workshop “Istanbul as a Palimpsest City and Imperfection”. In the paper, the process, the method, the content and the results of workshop studies will be discussed and evaluated.

As an important indicator of the quality of life of individuals, residential environments are continuing to evolve, due to the rapidly changing production–consumption relations. However, in this evolving process, the effect of the differentiated residential environments on the individuals' residential satisfaction remains unclear. This paper aims to measure the effects of the varying residential environments on the overall quality of urban life (QoUL) in Kayseri, one of the most developed cities in Central Anatolia.

It is based on empirical data on the quality of life in the different residential environments of Kayseri. The research method used stratified purposeful sampling, and the household survey data were analyzed using factor analysis, multiple regression and ANOVA statistical methods.

The most influential factors on the overall QoUL of individuals living in different Kayseri residential neighborhoods were satisfaction with neighborhood and city-level urban services, neighborhood relations and belonging factor groups. The critical finding obtained in this study is that residential satisfaction in low-rise and compact form housing areas in Kayseri is higher compared to residential satisfaction in high-rise neighborhoods. This result reveals that the high-rise building typology that is dominant in Turkey's big cities should be seriously questioned, and urban development policies should be re-evaluated.

The study was designed to produce baseline data so that future changes in residential conditions as perceived by the residents of Kayseri could be monitored to support decisions for residential areas.

Comparative case studies, particularly on low-rise versus high-rise environments, are scarce. As a result, this research contributes to the field of comparative studies on residential environments.