Visual landscape quality assessment of historical environments in Kastamonu city center

Historical environments add significant value to the cities they are located in, providing details and clues about past periods with their historical, cultural and architectural features. Historical environments that protect the unique cultural values that form the urban identity have an important role in ensuring the continuity of cities. In this context, visual landscape quality assessment studies to be carried out in historical environments will be an important basis for future design and planning studies. Within the scope of the thesis study, it was aimed to determine the visual landscape quality of the north and south routes of Kastamonu Castle, which is located in the protected area of Kastamonu city center and constitutes the first historical surroundings of the city. In accordance with this purpose; photographs were taken from designated areas on the created routes. A total of 10 photographs, 5 from each route, were selected for evaluation by professional experts. For the evaluation of the photographs, 6 main parameters (historicity, coherence, legibility, spatial perception, comfort, identity and sense of place) and 25 sub-parameters that constitute their sub-criteria were selected. A photo-survey evaluation was conducted by a group of 25 experts in order to objectively reflect the visual landscape quality characters of the areas. The criteria marked by the participants as (+) and (-) were evaluated out of a total of 100 points by multiplying the indicator score by 4. Each (+) marking equals 4 points and each (-) marking equals 0 points. As a result of the photo-survey evaluation, all scores were has been processed into the Excel program, their arithmetic averages were found, and the visual landscape quality score values of each route were calculated and compared with each other. As a result of the study, the visual landscape quality evaluation score of Kastamonu Castle north route was found to be 66,88 and the visual landscape quality evaluation score of Kastamonu Castle south route was found to be 51,68. The score values of the northern route were high in all parameters, and the parameters of historicity, spatial perception, identity and sense of place stand out the most in the route. On the southern route, the prominent parameters are as follows; identity and sense of place, historicity and legibility. In the light of the data obtained, together with the visual landscape quality study carried out in the historical environments of Kastamonu city, it will be able to provide guidance for the design and application studies planned to be carried out in the future.