A STRUCTURAL EVALUATION OF URBAN DESIGN GUIDELINES IN TURKEY AND THE PERFORMANCE-BASED APPROACH FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

Purpose Urban design guidelines (UDGs) provide comprehensive documents that lead to sustainable implementations in the local context. The aim and content of a UDG can differ according to the vision, aim, and associated urban plans. The most common UDG approaches in the world are prescriptive, advisory, and performance-based in order of their appearance in time. The UDGs have been applied in the United States and the United Kingdom since the beginning of the 20th century with the ultimate goal of architectural coherence a nd environmental sustainability. However, their use is relatively very recent in developing countries, including Turkey. Therefore, this study aims to investigate three common types of UDGs in the context of Turkey and provide a deeper understanding their role in achieving urban sustainability from a country-specific perspective. Design/Methodology/Approach Seven UDGs have been found that provides a complete process and an extensive content. Three examples, Izmir Kemeraltı Prescriptive UDG, Rize Advisory UDG, and Gaziantep Bizimşehir Performance-based UDG met the selection criteria of comprehensive content, data accessibility, complete process, and comparability and examined in detail. The examples were evaluated and compared according to their integration into the urban planning system and evaluated based on aggregated sustainability criteria. Sustainability criteria set aggregated based on three sustainability frameworks - European Green City Tool, Urban Sustainability Indicators, and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) – applicable to Turkey. Two out of seven UDG examples from Turkey and 11 out of 23 sustainability frameworks from the World could not be investigated further as a result of inaccessible data. Findings As a result, Gaziantep Bizimsehir Performance-based UDG achieved the highest score in the overall criteria aggregated from existing and common frameworks in the world. Research Limitations/Implications It is important to validate the findings by an evaluation of locally defined sustainability criteria for Turkey. However, there is a lack of well-defined publicly available data. Originality/Value The results provided the first comprehensive evaluation of three common types of UDGs in the Turkish context. This study presents a detailed framework for future applications not only in Turkey but also in other regions with the similar context.