Quality Assessment of Public Spaces: The Case of Beyazit Square and Its Surroundings

Abstract

Public spaces are one of the main areas of urban life. They can be accessed and used by all individuals and groups in a city, and therefore lay the foundation for a common social life to thrive. The social, economic, cultural, and spatial diversity of a city develops in parallel to the diversity of its public spaces. The existence of an individual within the context of a city and the meaning of the city in an individual's mind are in direct relationship with the activities that take place in its urban spaces. This relationship becomes as strong as the capacity of urban spaces in supporting social life and collective events in both social and physical aspects. Today, the conception of physical urban space is unfortunately rather detached from the societal composition and the social construct of the city as it became a critical commodity in our market economy which leads to the creation of chunks of urban elements without any qualities and in-depth meaning for its users and can often easily become unsafe and unhealthy. The study aims to create a method for the increasingly commodified public spaces to become an element that improves the quality of life of the communities. For this purpose, PCA and CATPCA statistical methods were applied, and subsequently, a parameter set was formed. As a result, a data set that can be used in public space design has been obtained, and new parameters have been created through the method used in the formation of this data set.