Abstract:

The methodological approach of the study proposes an innovative yet adaptive way to define and preserve heritage sites and their elements. In the case study, the proposed methodology guides the design/planning research of heritage sites by linking the perceptual behaviour with the information of the built environment. Visibility is the tool to measure the level of exposure of specific urban elements from a particular perspective. While isovist analyses define visibility in the built environment, fields of view from the periphery of heritage sites are applied to calculate visible or invisible areas by the observer. The purpose of the current study is the evaluation of the identification of the elements to be protected, by modelling both the heritage environment and the heritage elements according to the visibility criteria. For this purpose, I illustrate my approach by using visibility analyses and Space syntax analysis in the case of the Sulukule neighbourhood, the leading renewal project, in Istanbul. This area used to have notably cultural–historical assets–historic land walls, the lifestyle of Roma people—but now the renovation works carried out in the Sulukule case study site have affected the identity of the “visible” and “known” space of the historic quarter.

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