The analysis of spatial features of health buildings by the Space Syntax method

Health buildings are social buildings that serve almost every people of society. For this reason, health buildings have high. numbers of users In addition, healthcare buildings are a building group that requires a large number of space requirements. The spatial organization of healthcare buildings which have become larger and more functional structures depending on the needs and developing technical applications from past to present has also become more complex. Accordingly, it can be seen that the use of space in these large healthcare buildings is even more cumbersome. Especially in healthcare buildings, one of the basic principles in the design of healthcare buildings should be that users can easily read the spaces and find their way. Spatial organizations in healthcare buildings may create some problems during the usage process if they are not analyzed and evaluated beforehand. In order to minimize problems in use and obtain rational solutions, it is very important to make future decisions and realize the design in line with the decisions in the programming phase, which is an analysis phase in the architectural planning process. Space Syntax is an important method used to analyze these design decisions and determine the most appropriate spatial organization. With this method, designers can determine design principles by producing alternatives and testing them to obtain the desired spatial formations. The aim of this study is to analyze the spatial configuration of health buildings from different periods and to examine the spatial legibility and accessibility of the buildings as a result of the analysis. The first part of this study includes the research question, purpose of the study and scope of the study. In the second part of the study, the historical process of spatial organizations of healthcare buildings and the importance of the concepts of accessibility and legibility in hospital spatial organizations are explained in the light of the information obtained from the literature research. Also this section includes the space syntax method which is one of the main methods of study and use for spatial organization analysis and the concepts used in this method are included. In the third section, general information about the health buildings in which analyzed their spatial organizations and the reasons for choosing these buildings are explained. The method of the study is also explained in this section. In addition, information was given about the application stages of the Depthmap analysis program which will use for the space syntax method to the plans and which analyzes to work with. The fourth part of the study includes the analyzes of the selected health buildings using the space syntax method and the interpretation of the findings obtained as a result of these analyses. In the conclusion section, in the light of the findings obtained as a result of the analyzes, it is concluded that the legibility and accessibility of large and complex health structures decreases while the number of volumes that is the spaces where users interact and the circulation axes increase. According to these data, several recommendations have been made for large and complex healthcare buildings to be built in the future.