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Urban typogenetics investigates the use of machine intelligence for the evaluation of performance measures as a decision support system (DSS) with a focus on urban aesthetics evaluation. This framework allows designers to address performance measures, urban measures and aesthetic criteria in an adaptive, interactive generative design approach. The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the structure and the nature of the framework and the application of human-in-the-loop design systems to urban design.

Significant literature reviewed lead to the identification of an application potential in the decision-making process. This potential is situated around the use of AI for the evaluation of subjective performance criteria in a DSS. Recognising that the key decisions about urban aesthetics are based on the individual evaluation of the designer, an HITL approach for computational design software to support creative decisions is presented in this paper.

Urban typogenetics for interactive generative urban design allows the exploration of complex design spaces by using a human-in-the-loop design system in the context of urban aesthetics. Hybrid aesthetic evaluation allows the designer to analyse morphological features and urban aesthetics during exploratory search and reveal hidden aspects of the urban context by visualisation of the results of the aesthetic evaluation. Integrating performance measures and urban aesthetics in urban typogenetics addresses major criteria of urban design at the beginning of the creative process.

The use of a broad interactive approach to typogenetic design in an application to urban scenarios is a novel conceptual approach to the design of urban configurations. The suggested adaptive mechanism would allow the user of a typogenetic tool to subjectively evaluate solutions by sight and reason about aesthetic, social and cultural implication of the reviewed design solutions.

The increased flexibility in urban planning practice under neoliberal policies had impacts on urban aesthetics, such as causing cities to lose their unique character and identity, especially in developing countries. However, importance of the control and management of aesthetics has not been adequately addressed in the current planning legislations in the literature. Conventional legislation devices (such as zoning ordinances, building codes, etc.) provide little effect on aesthetic control for the flexible planning era. The aim of the study is to examine how a supplementary legal tool (a checklist) can be developed to provide urban aesthetics control and management for a city under neo-liberal influences by taking into consideration the relationship between urban environmental aesthetics and related legal regulations.

The research focusses on the Istanbul case. In this study, the aesthetic parameters with factor analysis using urban design parameters that affecting urban aesthetics are determined, how inclusion into the planning laws and regulations of these aesthetic parameters are examined and a checklist for aesthetics control and management are proposed.

The findings reveal that although there are different and fragmented legal sources that directly or indirectly deal with the aesthetic control and management for urban design and there is a lack of a supplementary legal tool as control management.

Checklists in the aesthetic control area can be a practical legal tool, which can establish a routine by giving proper attention to aesthetic quality and its related parameters of planning for all developing countries under the influence of neoliberal policies.

Konya developed as a city with a single centre in historical period, the mound (höyük) known as Alaeddin’s Hill. This is still the central feature of the urban settlement of Konya. The tomb of the great humanist, poet and philosopher, Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumii, is also here. The most prestigious section of Konya during the Seljuk and Ottoman periods was the Konya Türbeönü, the space in front of his tomb. The historical city centre maintains its liveliness in the area between Alaeddin’s Hill and the tomb of Mevlana. This historical city centre is the most accessible area in the city and functions fully as such while bearing its historical identity.

The transformation of Konya from single-centred city to multi-centred city resulted in considerable changes in the city’s silhouette. The Konya Türbeönü Square was redesigned and presented for use. While defining the effect of outdoor spaces on human life, they are evaluated as places that meet basic physical, social and psychological requirements. Since the planning process of the Konya Türbeönü Square was not participative, it has remained a focal point of intense discussions and debates about its meeting users’ needs have arisen.

This article studies user satisfaction with the design of the Konya Türbeönü Square and investigates the effects of changes on users. The study survey, asked for demographical information about the users, the sensorial effects of the outdoor space, the effects of its landscape and general satisfaction. The questionnaire was administered to 300 people, including 100 architects who are educated in designing, shopkeepers who are interaction with this area everyday and laypersons. Evaluating the questionnaire data revealed the physical landscape quality and the behavioural and functional qualities of the users along with the visual qualities of the historical urban square’s former/older condition. This study aims to show how participative planning can improve future projects.

This study aims to explore aesthetic atmospheres and their affordances in urban squares to advance knowledge on the research and design of attractive living environments.

Descriptions of pleasant and unpleasant experiences of urban squares were collected using qualitative questionnaires with open-ended questions. The theoretical framework and the lens of aesthetic affordances were applied to pinpoint and understand the connections between the place attributes and experiences.

This study found four distinct aesthetic atmospheres formed by perceived synergies of both the material and immaterial aspects of the environment. It was also found that the atmospheres may shift. A model that shows the aesthetic atmospheres and their potential affordances as layered and emerging is presented.

Everyday aesthetics considered as affordances open new research perspectives for the understanding of what generates attractive living environments – or not.

Aesthetics affordances may provide the design professionals and alike means on how to design places that engender specific aesthetic atmosphere.

Gathering and discussing commonplace aesthetic experiences in everyday life may enhance democratic participation in place development among people with different levels of design expertise.

This study combines theories of place with a novel concept of aesthetic affordances to identify distinct aesthetic atmospheres. A holistic overview structure of how the various constituents of aesthetic atmospheres relate to each other provides new ways of studying and understanding urban aesthetic atmospheres.

The urbanization process that develops in parallel with the increase in population, get volume in vertical level on the ground today just like the underground expansion of urban spaces in antique ages, in parallel with the intensification of spatial expansion, leading to new problems and research questions in urban spaces. Because the increase in the number of people per square meter as a result of vertical concentration on the ground makes the streets or the land we step on become a more rentable market. While this market has been filled with classical artisan businesses so far, street economy actors serve the population (consumer) where artisans are not sufficient for meeting the demand in highly populated streets. This situation confronted law enforcement and street sellers in cities for decades or may be centuries, and urban peace and harmony often deteriorated. In the integrated urban areas, in addition to a series of urban problems, the registration of the informal economy and the adaptation of the street economy actors to the urban identity and esthetics have become the problems that await priority solutions. Street economy is an aesthetic and ergonomic fact of living cities, in accordance with this microeconomic reality, sustainable legal regulations are essential. Such that, these legal regulations should be established on a solid basis not only in certain countries but also in all countries in the world.

This study assesses changing aesthetic values and their characteristics in urban environments based on human perception. With this in mind, a model for assessing the aesthetic values of the urban environment based on the three steps of human cognition has been developed to elaborate the user's perception in different urban environments.

The results of the survey confirm that by changing urban morphology the aesthetic perception of the environment also changes. The finding of this research opens up a new window for urban planners to assess the aesthetic effects of the elements of urban spatial configuration for future urban development.

This study aims to examine the linkages between port aesthetics, destination image, tourist satisfaction and tourist loyalty in Hong Kong.

To achieve this objective, the authors surveyed 247 tourists in Hong Kong. Using factor analysis and structural equation model (SEM) to identify the constructs of port aesthetics and analyze its relationship with destination image, tourist satisfaction and tourist loyalty.

Five-port aesthetics constructs were identified, namely, leisure and culture, design and cognition, atmosphere, recreational facilities and memory. The results of SEM revealed the following: port aesthetics positively influenced destination image; destination image positively influenced tourist satisfaction; and tourist satisfaction had a positive influence on tourist loyalty. This research also found that the indirect effect of port aesthetics on tourist loyalty via destination image and tourist satisfaction.

While the environmental qualities of a port could potentially affect destination image, tourist satisfaction and loyalty, this study developed and validated a measurement instrument of perceived port aesthetics from a tourist’s perspective. Specifically, this research proposed a structural model to explain the relationships between port aesthetics, destination image, tourist satisfaction and loyalty.

The non-material benefits which people derive from ecosystems, cultural ecosystem services (CES), can be difficult to measure and quantify. This study aims to demonstrate the usefulness of social media analysis.

The widespread use of social media applications has provided a novel methodology for obtaining crowd-sourced data, which can reveal patterns in how social media users interact with urban greenspace and participate in place-making activities. This study explores how urban trees are represented in images tagged with the city of Bolzano, Italy, and uploaded over the course of a year to the image-sharing application Instagram.

A third of all the images contained some elements of green nature, with 3.1% of the images portraying urban trees as the main subject and 11% with urban trees as background features. Seasonal preferences for winter and summer scenes emerged. Accompanying text, in the form of hashtags and image descriptions, was mostly positive and showed how enthusiastically people describe urban nature. An assessment of the images in terms of CES revealed that beyond aesthetic factors and the inspiration to take photographs of nature, a wide range of CES are represented, reflecting the recognition of the benefits of urban trees by Instagrammers. The collection of images provided a unique snapshot of the city of Bolzano.

This reinforces the importance of urban trees within planning policy for providing sense of place, recreation and stress relief for residents and tourists.

The study builds on recent advances in social media research, focussing on the important field of urban CES.

The aim of this study is to outline a practice approach towards safety in public places whereby safety and place is understood as simultaneously produced in everyday work practice. Hence, the focus is shifted from place safety as a manageable asset to safe places as ongoing accomplishments.

This study focuses on practices of enacting safe places on the municipal level in Sweden. Thus, the focus of analysis is on the meanings of safety. The empirical material was collected during the period 2017–2019 in the Swedish cities of Stockholm, Helsingborg and Malmö. In different ways, these cities struggle with navigating safety issues in public places.

The study demonstrates how urban places are enacted as safe in and through practice. The findings include some of the ways in which safe places are accomplished, such as maintaining and caring for places, countering negative rumours and news reports and forming collaboration across sectors and actors. To gain a better understanding of safety in city centres, the study illuminates competing meaning-making processes in management work practice whereby places are negotiated as safe.

The existing research on safety in public places is scattered across disciplinary fields and dominated by a fortress approach to safe places. By contrast to the top-down view of safety as a measure of control, this study generates knowledge of how safe places are continuously construed in the junction of management practices and practices of everyday life.