Sense of place in the changing process of house form: Case studies from Ankara, Turkey

This paper aims to investigate the impact of typomorphological changes of residential environments on residents’ sense of place’. Seven housing developments representing different types introduced in Ankara, Turkey since the late 19th-century are selected as case studies. Their morphological characters at the building, street and neighbourhood scales are examined, and typological transformations among the cases in terms of the degrees of continuity are identified. The paper proposes a conceptual model consisting of ten indicators to assess sense of place at the building, street and neighbourhood scales of the residents of the seven cases. The scores of sense of place are generated through structured interviews with the residents and analysed in SPSS. The results show that sense of place is negatively affected by typomorphological changes over time, particularly when mutational changes occur. Continuity in typomorphological transformation helps to maintain sense of place at a desirable level. Furthermore, physical changes at the street and neighbourhood scales have larger impact on sense of place than that at the building scale. The research thus suggests that planning and design should be responsive to traditional types in residential development, particularly at the street and neighbourhood scales to maintain residents’ sense of place

The impact of urban renewal and gentrification on urban fabric: three cases in Turkey

Since the 1980s, the urban restructuration process has had important effects on cities. One of these is the transformation of urban residential space, which includes processes such as urban renewal and gentrification. The aim of this paper is to briefly examine three urban residential transformation processes in Turkey. Two of these are examples of gentrification of two different neighbourhoods in Istanbul, and the third is an example of urban renewal in a neighbourhood in Ankara. The transformation processes in each of these examples have different structures. Related to the characteristics of the processes, their impacts on the cities are different. These differences are evaluated with respect to their impact on the social and spatial structure in these neighbourhoods. Copyright 2003 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.