Examination of user perception of phenomenal transparency in municipal service buildings

The concept of transparency, which has been used by human beings with an instinctive tendency since prehistoric times, has been diversified after it has been discussed in critical texts in the recent past, and has taken on completely different meanings through different classes and perception levels. Today, transparency in architecture has become a multidimensional concept that has many connotations, far beyond its inherent feature of pure material, its ability to transmit light and show its back. In this new and expanded form, transparency is called phenomenal transparency. The outputs and results of the projects in which the concept of phenomenal transparency is a tool used to give a message and direct the perception of the user in municipal service building designs can be read through the products. However, when the building type is the municipal service buildings, which are responsible for providing support to the entire city in almost every aspect, there is a very different user group in many fields such as their education level, social status, personal tastes, age ranges, professional competencies and so on. In other words, how the user understands the message that the designer wants to convey becomes open to question. The aim of the study is to determine how the phenomenal transparency decisions taken by the designers to refer to participatory democracy and transparent management while designing municipal service buildings and how the message they intend to convey is perceived on the urban/user side. For this purpose, the selected projects were examined, and it was researched how the idea of transparency took place in design decisions and how it responded in planning. With the survey conducted on the example of Çukurova Municipality Service Building and Cultural Center, the users' perception of phenomenal transparency has been revealed.