Perceptions of today's users regarding courtyard space organizations

The courtyard space organizations in many parts of the world is designed to control sunlight and create cool areas, especially in areas dominated by the hot-dry climate. Traditional buildings with courtyards, which dominate the architectural texture of historical cities in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, which has a warm climate, are also examples of climate-appropriate building production strategies that retain thousands of years of knowledge. In today's residential architecture, this building form has almost been abandoned. However, in recent years, some public buildings in which the courtyard building form has been used in their designs have attracted attention. For this purpose, five public buildings with courtyards produced in the provinces of Diyarbakır, Mardin, Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep, located in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, most of which received awards as a result of the competition project, were examined in terms of organizing the courtyard space that it houses. The main purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of today's users about the organization of spaces with courtyards. The five public buildings selected within the scope of the study were examined in a user-oriented manner.The data were collected by a questionnaire technique applied to 215 participants, transferred to the SPSS program and evaluated. The findings obtained are that the users quite like the courtyard space, find it very valuable, meaningful, efficient and necessary. The users perceive the courtyard as a very positive space in terms of thermal comfort, indoor air quality, natural lighting, ventilation, social, communication and security; they generally liked the materials and colors used in the courtyard, but they did not like it in terms of workmanship; It was determined that they found the areas consisting of green and water elements and seating equipment in the courtyard insufficient. In addition, the courtyards of other buildings other than Kayapınar and Yenişehir Municipality Buildings; It has been determined that since it is more exposed to sun rays in the summer and is more affected by adverse conditions such as snow and rain in the winter, it creates a negative perception for the users and the duration of use is reduced. The findings obtained are very important in terms of being a guide in the design of the courtyard space organizations to be produced in the future. It is expected that the findings will inspire other studies on this subject and contribute to the literature.