Emerging Towers in Bayraklı: Sustainability as a Branding Strategy or a Tool for Local Development?

Aslı Öner,Burkay Pasin

doi:10.3390/buildings5030834

Abstract

Sustainability and eco-friendly towers have been among the most discussed topics of contemporary high-rise building design. High-rise buildings have been an important part of the modern economy with their concentration of human capital and branding value for the urban context. In addition, during the recent years, to address the problems of sprawl, environmental, and ecological concerns, sustainable high-rise building design has gained further significance and visibility in architecture and planning literature. In existing literature, sustainability of high-rises is defined mainly through ecological design and green architecture principles in individual building scale. However, sustainability in the case of high-rises remains an ill-defined term, as there is neglect of further long term effects of these buildings on the social, cultural, economic, and resiliency contexts of cities. When not integrated with the broader urban context, sustainability falls into the gap to be perceived as “greenwash”, which stands for a superficially-employed concept used as a fashionable branding strategy. Within this general framework, this study will examine the emerging towers in Bayrakli, Izmir, which is designated by the local government as a high-rise development zone. The study will focus on high-rise buildings (completed and under construction) in relation to the perception of sustainability and question whether or not sustainability is used as a greenwash branding strategy or a contextual element that is well-embedded in architectural design process and urban planning decisions. The method of research will be a descriptive case study through semi-structured interviews with the design team and real estate professionals of the buildings, as well as media analysis and consideration of the local municipality reports about Bayrakli. The results indicate that sustainability has become a principle embraced and advertised in the building scale as an environmental concern more than it is embraced in the urban and social context.

Highlights

This paper is, generally, about the sustainability trends in high-rise buildings and their clusters located in emerging subcenters of metropolitan areas
The paper focuses on the research context, through a discussion of trends related to emerging subcenters in metropolitan areas, with a focus on high-rises as status symbols of prestige and emphasizes that discussions on sustainability and prestige need to have a common point
Our aim was to assess the use of sustainability principles in high-rise building design and their surrounding physical and social context

Summary

Introduction

This paper is, generally, about the sustainability trends in high-rise buildings and their clusters located in emerging subcenters of metropolitan areas. The environmental aspects of design based on wind and solar exposure, integration of recycled materials, use of greenery in the buildings and around the sites, use of grey water, indoor air quality, and waste management are commonly used to achieve comfort zone of the residents with reduced impact of developments on the environment. These environmental elements are included in ratings to obtain international-based certificates such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or BREEAM

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Conclusion