Typo-morphological approach to post-Covid-19 shopping centre design; the case of Samsun

Although directing the design with reference to the typo-morphological transformation has recently gained attention in the literature, it is nevertheless advised to perform pertinent trials since it is frequently challenging to integrate the theoretical background and the practice. Epidemics have had an impact on typological and morphological alterations throughout the history of urbanisation. The built environment has been impacted by epidemics in many ways, but homes and public places have been particularly hard hit. Similar debates have recently been brought to our attention by the Covid-19 outbreak, which has a lasting impact on the 21st century. Given this, this thesis has aimed to evaluate the future design principles of shopping centres, the use of which has been restricted for a long time during the Covid-19 era. The research has benefitted from the user experiences and proposed to take the typo-morphological transformation approach as a design tool during this evaluation. Within the scope of this study, Samsun, the most developed city of the Black Sea Region, was chosen as a case study. Samsun's sociocultural diversity, the variety of shopping mall typologies there, and the fact that these malls can represent historically distinct types in the typological process make it the appropriate location for this study. Five distinct retail centres from among these categories—which represent the transformation—were selected along with their surroundings. The analyses were carried out in three stages. The first stage is the examination of the typo-morphological periods of the regions 2007, 2011 and 2023, the key periods that stand out in the transformation. The selected shopping malls were also selected to represent these periods and their typo-morphological transformations were examined through the relationships of surrounding parcels and vehicle road networks. The second stage is the survey study related to the pre- and post-Covid-19 user experiences and the overlap analysis of the Covid-19 spread maps. It has been concluded that while shopping malls with open proportions and semi-open areas are more preferred, design proposals parallel to these expectations can be developed by reference to the typo-morphological transformation. It is clear that the Covid-19 epidemic can be associated with the retail areas and their near surroundings and has affected the user experience and preferences, and thus, it is necessary to take into account of these impacts in developing future design scnerios. Overal, the thesis emphasizesthe necessity of changes to be made in space organizations and environmental planning in such situations like epidemics by adopting typomorphological approach.