Design guidelines for rural settlements–process and evaluation: Bursa sample

The rural settlements have their own distinctive patterns with their natural landscapes, examples of civil architecture and social life. These areas are becoming as traditional as everyday from the early days of civilization history and are also the essence of today's cities. Man's choice of place and production with the agricultural revolution has reached today with the production of knowledge experimented through the historical process. These areas, which develop into horizontal and vertical relations and become settlements, are places that are compatible with topography, have examples of vernacular architecture, and have a history of daily life. Rapid and uncontrolled urbanization in cities today, inadequate infrastructure and the destruction of social space have led to a decline in the quality of life in cities. Unlike monotonous life and building examples in the cities, rural areas show distinctive texture and architectural characteristics, as well as regional differences with socio-cultural riches. However, the cities where the economic activities intensified and accelerated, began to put pressure on the rural areas with the effect of the increasing population, and began to threaten the rural areas under the name of development with decisions on industrial and commercial activities. Social order and living standards negatively affected by irregular urbanization problems in the cities have pushed rural areas that are rich in their natural and cultural characteristics and triggered rural longing. Rural settlements have become attractive places for day-to-day tourism activities and secondary residences of urban residents, and they have become the targets of structures and investments that will ignore them. Accordingly, they have faced the danger of losing their natural, cultural and historical values. Problems faced in the rural area outside the city's effects also threaten the rural area. Agricultural decisions in world and Turkey's agricultural policy, agricultural activities also weakened which is the only source of livelihood in the village and villagers have started to emigrate due to poverty-related migration. Developments between urban and rural areas and the situation of rural areas necessitate the steps necessary to protect and revitalize the texture of the rural area, its socio-cultural structure and its natural landscape. Village inventories, village design reports and analysis and determination studies that can give input to them and applicable solutions to be produced have a critical prescription in this sense. Extensive planning studies are needed for the protection and enhancement of the quality of rural areas, and it is understood that there is a need in the framework of design guidelines not only for physical layout but also for socio-economic situation and planning. In today's world, design guides prepared in different scales and themes are widely prepared for this purpose and put into practice with protection and guidance functions. The village design guidelines are essentially an assessment of all the features that contribute to the local character to guide and manage the change in the country, and to identify, summarize, and present suggestions of problems about them. However, considering design guidelines as a whole rather than just thinking about structures will give more effective results. In this context, after researching the literature about rural areas and investigating the current situation, it is questioned how rural rural resettlement can be prevented by examining both the socio-economic area and the physical space on the rural area of Bursa. There are many features and many questions to ask during the preparation of the guide. These may vary by work area. However, according to the method to be applied, the profile and structure of the village and the spatial characteristics of the villages affected by it, are determined as the main topics of the examination steps. The field study was conducted with researches, observations and questionnaires applied by focus groups, onsite detection work was recorded with video and photographs. Perception and opinions of the villagers were presented by face-to-face interviews with the local community and by applying the 'Place Standards' survey method with focus groups. In the first step of the examination, village location features, socioeconomic and sociocultural features, texture and landscape values were revealed and then physical measurements and measurements were given. The character of the villages has been determined from the obtained objective and perceptual data. Design principles and decisions have been determined in order to increase the quality of the village area and to protect the original qualities of the social and physical space, and solutions applicable to the determined problems and potentials have been introduced. The spatial and economic decisions made on the rural areas in our country make the rural and rural communities even more powerless. Design guides, conservation plans, and survey methods which gives them input are the recommended tools for the protection and development of these areas. From this point of view, it is thought that this study will present the protection and development methods that will provide input to the design guidelines, the experience for the future study on the rural areas and the inventory for the Bursa villages.