Determination of public space creation potential of urban riverfronts

The concept of water is the most important statement that has led to the existence and maintenance of life since the beginning of the known history. Throughout history, the phenomenon of water played a critical and decisive role in the cultures of humans, communities created by humans, the societies constructed by communities, and in simultaneously evolving civilizations of every corner of the earth. The river beds and delicacies were the first settlement sites where ancient civilizations were born. From the first settlements to the modern cities of today, rivers were interpreted as the main elements of urban backbone; the river was an important opportunity for the development of the city, a tool for shaping it. Cities that functioned as the main food suppliers have built urban edifices on the banks of the river to develop agricultural land. Most cities have built their defense lines over stream morphology. In the industrial revolution, which changed public life of the societies drastically, and in the new cities of this period, the stream of water has been exhausted in a fast and unlimited understanding based on production, and water and city life are separated from each other. The industrial areas were settled on the banks of the river during this period and the rivers were lost in the city and faced with pollution. Today, especially the cities of developing countries like our country are still trying to save this effect of the industrial revolution and rapid urbanization from the banks of rivers and to revive these areas as public places. The sustainable development agenda, especially since the early 1990s, is supported and embraced by policies that will ensure sustainability so that many governments have a better quality of life in urban areas and society. Riverfront is an important area in the city where sustainable development approach is very necessary because of the importance of water as a natural resource of the city and the changing role of the coast to meet the present needs. Over the past thirty years, efforts to restore the city to shore all over the world have continued to create successful public spaces, improving the image of the city and providing opportunities for development closer to the city center. Within the scope of the thesis, the design and planning principles and the public space potential of the riverfronts are determined. Literature survey on those criterias that should be included while the public space is designed, river coast planning principles, design and planning parameters should be taken into consideration in the evaluation of the rivefronts as public space. Following the identified principles, successful examples in the world were studied, Yingzhou River in China, Manzanares River Project in Spain, and San Antonio River in the United States. These examples were evaluated from a social and planning parameters perspective. Kagithane Creek located in the Europian side of Istanbul and Kurbağalıdere located in the Anatolian side of Istanbul were determined as the study area and the historical development of the two regions and the meaning of the region for the citizens in the past and already residing, within the direction of the frame determined by the design principles and the mentioned examples of the world. The current situations in the region were assessed and evaluated in accordance with the criterias related to the potential for creating a public space. In the last part of the thesis, suggestions are presented in order to improve the regions in terms of public space design criterias. Within the scope of the research, the parameters determined in the light of the public space approaches revealed in previous studies will be used in Kagithane Creek and Kurbağalıdere coastal usage and strategies for urban development will be determined. This research consists of 5 parts. The contents of these sections are listed below: The first chapter is the introduction part of the thesis. In this section, public spaces and river relations will be summarized to explain the importance of planning and the reasons for their consideration. The purpose of the research, the research questions and the hypothesis, the scope and method of the research are explained. In the second chapter, the concept of public space and its emergence process are discussed, and the related approaches are examined in this section in terms of directing the design and planning parameters. This section provides input to the method of research. The review of the literature on the public sphere has been made in order to define various theories that emphasize the relationship between the use of this field and the physical qualities of the urban public space. Many of the theories described attempt to summarize how the urban public space will be developed to ensure that the public space is effectively assessed and used. In the third chapter, the urban role of riverfront use in the historical process and the transformation it has experienced are mentioned, and the importance of rehabilitation of rivers and coasts to the city as a public space has been emphasized. Legislations related to the streaming of the rivers in our country have been put forward and the spread of the stream has been mentioned. Effective principles and parameters in river coast planning and design in the literature are supported by world examples. The fourth chapter is the section where detailed information about the study area is given and the analyzes are made. The potentials and problems of the site are revealed by evaluating the parameters determined for Kagithane Deresi and Kurbağalıdere research areas. In this context, spatial analyzes, observations and photographs are used to evaluate the findings in the light of the data and to obtain information on the development of the proposals. The fifth chapter forms the conclusion section. Proposals and spatial design strategies for the problems identified according to the findings are presented. At the end of the literature survey, a number of parameters have been defined to create a public space on a river bank. According to this, necessary conditions for vegetation and aquatic life should be provided on the coast of a river and river morphology should be arranged in the closest way to nature, water quality and cleanliness should be ensured, a design should be strengthened to improve river - city relationship, regulation riverfront - the river should be accessible and feasible in every sense, the river shall be a living place with a variety of functions, providing a connection to the public sphere, creating a spatial continuity, land use should be varied and appropriate to the field, changing situations it must be easy to adapt, be xxiii designed with an aesthetic concern, provide the necessary standards of trust and comfort. These parameters were evaluated in the research areas. The findings indicate that the urbanization around the Kağıthane Creek does not coincide with the vision put forth in the name of public space creation, that the public spaces offered to the service of the citizens are not accepted by the local people and that the active use is not passed, the connection of the stream and the people is cut off visually and socially in the regions where the related public spaces are located. the public spaces used actively by the locals in the areas of Cedvel-i Sim and Sadabad Mesiresi, which can be regarded as historical heritage which is contrary to the determined rules, are not supported by the Kagithane Creek itself but by the landscapes and artificial lakes formed around it, along the line is not a healthy structure. It was observed as the only positive detail in the name of the public space creation that the area is municipal building and the part where it is laid in the Golden Horn is a structure where the natural natural route of the river is in direct contact with itself and the spatial continuity is provided by pedestrian bridges. With the assumption that, parallel to the current findings, the city will join with the Kemerburgaz district in the northern direction of the county, it risks risks to many subjects of an urbanization that the plan principles do not apply. It has been observed that Kurbağalıdere can not go beyond engineering intervention considering the existence of new development areas of river coast regulation. Kağıthane Creek and Kurbağalıdere both have recreational areas for the public in terms of public use, as recreational areas of coastal areas in the historical period. Over time, the misuse of land and the wastewater that is formed by the urbanization and industrialization have caused these areas to become polluted over time. Nowadays, renovations are continuing in order to eliminate both this pollution and the flood risk. But this is revealed as a result of researches that the breeding efforts have not gone beyond the intervention to the natural one with an engineering working conception. The necessity of designing river shores as public spaces has been determined as a result of comparative evaluations made at Kagithane and Kurbağalıdere. The fact that the Kağıthane Creek has a more favorable atmosphere than Kurbağalıdere is limited to the riverbed of the Sadabad and Hasbahçe Promenade areas, and the interaction and the public use of these areas are made possible. The existence of these areas makes Kağıthane Creek more of a potential area than Kurbağalıdere in terms of creating a public space. Given the present situation of the urbanization wave and the risks of the future created by Kagithane Creek and Kurbağalıdere, it has been seen that the riverfront planning dynamics and the whole urban planning approach have to be reconsidered holistically. This process should be dealt with by the business association, contribution and volunteering of the entire fields of finance, sociology, community psychology, economics, law, engineering, construction, architecture, urban design and politics. All the restoration, reconstruction, urban transformation, a precise understanding of creation actions must be adopted and these sets of rules must not be flexed situationally and conjunctively while staying true to the decisions made in the city plan. In this respect, it will be possible to leave a sustainable and livable city heritage to future generations; the happiness of the living people, making it possible for the region to be a part of a healthy ecosystem, and the values which the city can promise in the name of tourism, provided that its historical heritage is revitalized, can be said to reveal the true potential of the rivers flowing through the city.