The evaluation of the relation between the city and its walls as a matter of environmental organization criteria

The questions of how historical city quarters, which have lost their characteristics and their meanings, should become readable and perceptible again, how they should be added into life, how the approaches in these spaces within this context should be lead to high quality solutions, are constituting the starting point of this thesis. City walls have been carrying out the characteristics of being a document for the history of architecture while setting up the borders of the city, representing the fortification systems of the civilizations they have been built by and the technologies of architecture of the period they have been constructed. At the present day where they have lost their principal functions it?s obvious that there?s a need of describing their relations with the city, using these relations and adding these documentary monuments and their environs to the city life. The Istanbul city walls, considering the restoration works going on, the way they?re handled on the preservation development plan and the degradation on the urban fabric within their close environment, are reflecting all the problems mentioned above. Within the context of the thesis, the case study has tried to be leaned on the three basic theoretical elements. First of all, the notion of revalorization, its meaning and analysis through history, its reasons and the new designs within historical environs, especially around city walls, which is the main subject of the city, have been discussed. Then the relation between the city and its walls, the history and compositional analysis have been made, the problems of city walls have been tried to be defined. Especially the Thessalonica city walls, which ground on the period of Theodosius, same as the Istanbul city walls, and are the products of a common culture, have been analyzed. Verona, as it?s bearing the characteristics of a medieval city and has expanded its boundaries in accordance with the needs of the city through history as Istanbul has once, became another subject of this research. The third element which has been discussed in order to set the basis of the case study, is the SWOT analysis, which is an analytical approach displaying the environmental problems. The environmental analysis methods have been introduced, while the basic SWOT analysis system has been fed with these methods and the usage of the system within historical environs has been explained. In the light of the contexts mentioned, the examples analyzed and the environmental analysis method used, SWOT analysis has been applied on the Istanbul city walls and their environs, in accordance with the data received, the architectural solutions and how approaches of high quality may lead to these solutions have been discussed. Keywords: Historic environment, Walls, Environmental design, Reevaluation, Swot analysis