Occupancy safety in architectural design

Nowadays, shopping malls has became a part of social life. The popularity of shopping centers has increased rapidly since the time they were first opened and this boom brought up security and safe problems. In this study, second chapter of thesis, a survey was made in order to provide better understanding of the issue that shopping concept and its historical development process was described. Nowadays, shopping malls appear as quickening structures that can simultaneously meet various needs of people. In addition, they are not affected from bad weather conditions; therefore, they are preferred and have a high costumer potential. The issue of user security that comes with this high potential has been categorically analyzed in the third chapter of the thesis by examining international approaches. The applied international regulations have been researched under the categorized headings. In addition to the regulations, other data derived from experiences as advices have been indicated. In the light of this information, a safety measure evaluation table that questions costumer safety in shopping malls has been prepared. In the fourth chapter of the thesis, the table has been subjected to evaluation over an example case (MarkAntalya Shopping Mall). MarkAntalya Shopping Mall has been chosen as the example case because of the involvement of the researcher in the project and her access to all the concerning documents. The table can be used to test the costumer safety of other shopping malls. In conclusion, it has been observed that it is beneficial to perform integrated regulation studies. In addition, periodic updating of these studies due to altering terms is thought to be helpful. The thesis presents information that has been obtained from the regulations along with the experiences. Therefore, this research aims to be guiding for future studies on topics regarding safety measures in shopping mall design.