Village design guidelines and rural landscape planning strategy sample Denizli

Rural areas reflect the natural and cultural features of the region with their own identities and characters. With the laws and decisions changed in the newly metropolitan municipalities, the increase in urban sprawl in the cities threatens the rural areas. In our country, there is no adequate planning and design criteria related to rural areas. The annex declaration on 8th section of Physical Development Planning Law in 2013 states that the village design guidelines should be prepared in order to preserve the rural character of the villages which have high potential of development according to their features of settlement, architectural texture and character. This study was conducted in 65 rural settlements showing the rural character between the years 1980-2012 in Merkezefendi and Pamukkale districts of Denizli city which became a Metropolitan Municipality in 2012. The area is divided into 5 groups by zoning in order to determine the remaining rural settlements in the vicinity of the city. The natural and cultural features of rural areas were determined with the help of Geographic Information Systems and a selection of sector based pilot villages were made. Village design reports were prepared for these pilot villages and regions and Village design guidelines were produced according to these reports.