An Insight to People’s Aesthetic Responses to Their Returned Environment

ABSTRACT: This thesis is primarily concerned with aesthetic issues of symbolic expressions and preferences that are reflected in housing designs. The study consists of two major parts: First, features the process of reviewing existing literature on the various influential topics related to the field of housing and aesthetics such as formal and symbolic responses of the users. These responses occur as a part of the architectural language inflicted upon designs of housing in this study’s four selected regions in the Yeni Boğaziçi area, Gazimağusa, North Cyprus. The existing literature includes works from both architectural developments and environmental design issues, focusing mainly on the social and symbolical developments of housing and ideas of how a house becomes a ‘home’. The second part to the study relates to the analysis of housing developments constructed during the recent years by the specific user profile of this study. Focusing on this unique user group, being British Cypriots that have returned to Northern Cyprus after living in England, UK for several years, provided the opportunity to gain an insight related to their aesthetic responses to their returned environments through housing. The main objective of the study was to determine general characteristics of this user group’s aesthetic preferences and what role their past environment played in their returned environment. Three different field surveys were carried out for the objectives of the study: Site inspections, semi-structured questionnaires and structured interviews. The surveys were carried out in four different sample areas situated in close proximity along the out skirts of the currently-developing region of Yeni Boğaziçi region. The findings of the study, in general suggest that not only the physical elements, but symbolic elements which are coming from one’s past environment or life style, plays significant role through the process of turning a house into a “home”. Keywords: Housing, symbolism, aesthetic response, past and returned environments. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………