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The aging population and their expectations have become a growing concern in Turkey as in other countries. This study aims to investigate interactions/relationships between the needs, demands and expectations of Turkish elderly and inclusive urban design principles. It tries to answer the research question: how the inclusive urban life could improve elderly life and contribute to achieve an active aging process. An exploratory study was conducted with a total of 100 randomly selected elderly between the ages 65-95 (45 female and 55 male) from the City Centre of Ankara. A survey instrument based on the ‘streets for life’ concept (Burton & Mitchell 2006) was developed to gather data. The participants were asked to identify how important inclusive urban design features were in understanding, using and navigating within an urban environment. The findings of the study suggest that an inclusive open environment allows elderly people to feel safer, and thus encourage more regular use of urban space. Overall the results highlight two important insights, first that accessibility is inevitable for increasing the chance of the aging population to participate in the mainstream of community life and second, plain and simple signage is necessary to achieve more liveable urban environments. The study concludes the most important physical requirements and social requirements for elderly people.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a series of narratives by assessing a selection of the key literature generated by Open House International (OHI) over a period of 15 years. The paper also presents a brief review of the latest developments of the journal while introducing concise observations on the articles published in this edition – Volume 45, Issues 1 and 2.

Through a classification procedure of selected special issues published by OHI since 2006, 10 issues were identified based on the currency of the issues they generated. Following the review of the editorials, the key content of more than 100 articles within these special issues, the content of this edition and relevant seminal literature, the analysis engages, through critical reflection, with various themes that echo the polyphonic nature of built environment research.

The analysis conveys the plurality and diversity in built environment research where generic types of narratives are established to include three categories, namely, leitmotif, contextual/conceptual and open-ended narratives. Each of which includes sub-narrative classifications. The leitmotif narrative includes design studio pedagogy, sustainable environments for tourism, responsive learning environments, affordable housing environments, diversity in urban environments and urbanism in globalised environments. The contextual/conceptual narrative encompasses architecture and urbanism in the global south and the tripartite urban performance and transformation. The open-ended narrative embraces thematic reflections on the contributions of this edition of OHI.

Constructing polyphonic narratives in built environment research based on contemporary knowledge is original in the sense of capturing the crux of the themes within these narratives and articulating this in a pithy form. The elocution of the narratives stimulates a sustained quest for re-thinking concepts, notions and issues of concerns while invigorating research prospects and setting the future direction of OHI.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to present qualitative evidence on strategies undertaken by 34 innovative small firms.

The sample of innovative firms is solely recruited from the agri-business sector that are located in contrasting environments varying from rural areas with low urban influence to areas with high urban influence and “main” urban or city areas. The authors discuss strategies in the light of a theoretical approach that incorporates a resource-based view, dynamic capabilities (DCs) and social network theory.

Although there is diversity in strategies across the 34 innovative small firms, irrespective of their “rural” or “urban” environment, qualitative evidence sheds light on differences in the way that strategies are pursued.

The study indicates that small firms in rural environments can be just as innovative as their counterparts in urban environments; however, the authors demonstrate that they adopt different strategies, which have been shaped by their environment, to achieve innovation. The authors use the qualitative evidence to develop the theory of DCs and classify the sample into four clusters which marries the environmental context and innovative DCs.

The paper makes a contribution to a research gap on the way that the environment can shape management strategies in innovative small firms. It contributes to a limited literature in this area.

This study aims to investigate the neurocognitive status of people with different moods (depressed and non-depressed) both in a typical urban environment (TUE) and in an urban green environment (UGE).

The study was conducted with the participation of 210 individuals in a real environment. Heart rates of the participants were measured together with EEG and eye-tracking measurements while they were walking in a real urban environment (TUE and UGE). The participants were divided into depressed and non-depressed groups according to different moods. Movements within the city based on these two distinctions and different cognitive moods were investigated, together with the effects of the city plan on these people.

As a result, the green urban fabric was found to have a positive effect even on people with depression. Yet, it was found that the non-depressed group also spent more time in a green urban environment.

The study shows that urban planners and designers should assume an important role in the design of green spaces, which have a more intense visual and cognitive impact than structures.

As global populations become increasingly urbanized and urban areas grow in density and complexity, many firms seeking to operate in these areas face significant new challenges. The purpose of this paper is to identify the approaches utilized by urban logistics service providers to overcome the issues resulting from urban density and complexity. The paper also identifies potential directions for future research based on the research findings.

The study followed a grounded theory approach (Corbin and Strauss, 2008) to uncover the approaches utilized by logistics service providers to adapt to urban environments.

The urban environment exerts certain coercive and mimetic pressures on logistics service providers. To overcome these pressures, urban logistics service providers seek to manage space, resources, and legitimacy in the urban environment.

This research followed an inductive approach, and therefore, further empirical research is required to ensure statistical generalizability. Additionally, all research participants are currently employed in the USA, and so further research at the international level should be conducted.

The framework presented will enable firms seeking to enter the urban market to more quickly adapt to the specific pressures of the urban ecology.

While literature from several academic disciplines outline problems and solutions specific to urban areas, little qualitative, inductive research has been conducted in the field of urban logistics. The current research serves as a starting point for further urban logistics research.

This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the urban outcomes of smart city projects, focusing on their primary objectives. The first objective is to facilitate the management and flow of information, data, and resources to enhance resource efficiency, sustainability, and the quality of life for citizens and stakeholders. This chapter offers insights into the urban objectives of smart city projects within the local ecosystem, with a specific emphasis on digital and key urban outcomes. It provides an overview of the digital outcomes, including the advancement of digital systems for safety and urban monitoring, the provision of customized digital services, and the promotion of citizen engagement through digital platforms. This chapter also evaluates the environmental outcomes of smart city projects, such as improved quality of life, increased urban efficiency, and contributions to a sustainable environment. To provide a well-rounded understanding, interviews with policymakers and city managers, as well as case studies from cities like London, Medellin, Helsinki, Singapore, Girona, and San Diego, are incorporated. Furthermore, this chapter incorporates data and findings from top-tier international journals to provide a clear understanding of the impact of smart cities on the local ecosystem.

This paper aims to respond to the strong calls for interdisciplinary solutions to address the many and varied challenges that major disasters create in urban (tourism) spaces, and provide a holistic conceptualisation of organisational responses to disruptions in the external business environment. It argues that organisations need to actively (re)formulate a sustainable business proposition to passively adapt to environmental conditions and modify the selective environment.

This study uses a qualitative approach to introducing and examining the concepts and theoretical constructs underpinning the proposed conceptual schemata. The content-driven inductive approach used here is based on an extensive review of the disaster recovery, crisis management, entrepreneurial strategy and urban tourism literature with a focus on organisational perspectives. It systematically brings together the theories and research findings from these separate strands of literature.

While the extant literature focuses on the importance of effective adaptability to survive and thrive in environmental uncertainties, some aspects of the relevant evolutionary processes are not addressed in the context of urban tourism. Indeed, a systematic approach that questions how urban tourism and hospitality businesses react to crises has been long overdue. This paper, therefore, introduces niche construction theory (NCT) as an alternative and proposes an integrated framework to understand the environmental conditions of urban tourism and organisational evolution during post-disaster turbulence.

The proposed model emerging from a multidisciplinary literature review acknowledges boundary conditions in the tourism industry-specific interpretation of a crisis situation. The tenets of NCT need to be adopted flexibly rather than as part of a strictly prescriptive process to allow for all aspects of the related business responses to play out and become exposed to the emerging selection pressures.

The argument underpinned by the theoretical constructs of niche construction encourages and offers a framework for practitioners to actively (re)formulate business proposition and (re)construct organisational niche to survive post-disaster turbulence in the business environment and exert influence over their own evolution.

This paper offers different angles, filters and lenses for constructing and interpreting knowledge of organisational evolution in the context of crisis management. The conceptual schema (Figure 2) emerged as a novel contribution itself providing a necessary lens to interpret the empirical data and understand the complexities of the organisational responses to the disruptive post-disaster turbulence in an urban tourism business environment.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to emergent understandings in research into urban climate change-related disasters (such as extreme heat), which recognise that present-day actions or failures of cities to address climate risk are rooted in a historical context.

The paper analyses content of scientific journals produced by the not-for-profit Kyushu Environmental Evaluation Association in Fukuoka since the 1970s. The aim is to evaluate the shifting understanding and conception of a liveable urban environment within Fukuoka over time and assess how this narrative has informed capability to understand and manage extreme heat as an emergent disaster risk.

The strong technical competences enabling Fukuoka to undertake evidence-based management of risks from climate-related disasters today exist at least partially because of earlier environmental concerns within the city and an early emergence of techno-scientific competence within the city's research institutions working at the science–policy interface.

The findings suggest a need to avoid uncritically exporting “lessons” from apparent urban climate “success stories”, without full recognition of the historical context enabling production and utilisation of weather and climate knowledge in specific locations.

This paper presents a critical review of studies which map the urban environment using continuous physiological data collection. A conceptual model is consequently presented for mitigating urban stress at the city and the user level.

The study reviews relevant publications, examining the tools used for data collection and the methods used for data analysis and data fusion. The relationship between urban features and physiological responses is also examined.

The review showed that the continuous monitoring of physiological data in the urban environment can be used for location-aware stress detection and urban emotion mapping. The combination of physiological and contextual data helps researchers understand how the urban environment affects the human body. The review indicated a relationship between some urban features (green, land use, traffic, isovist parameters) and physiological responses, though more research is needed to solidify the existence of the identified links. The review also identified many theoretical, methodological and practical issues which hinder further research in this area.

While there is large potential in this field, there has been no review of studies which map continuously physiological data in the urban environment. This study covers this gap and introduces a novel conceptual model for mitigating urban stress.