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Children's Perceptions of Their Urban Outdoor Experiences: the Case of Izmir
(Izmir Institute of Technology, 2019) Dikmen Güleryüz, Oylum; Kasalı, Altuğ; Doğan, Fehmi; Doğan, Fehmi; Kasalı, Altuğ; 02.02. Department of Architecture; 02. Faculty of Architecture; 01. Izmir Institute of Technology
Research in children’s outdoor experiences is a rapidly growing field of investigation together with the increasing interest in the problems associated with rapid urbanization. Although there are studies that document positive and negative consequences of the built environment on children, children’s use of urban environments need to be investigated further in cities with fast urbanization rate where children are at a disadvantage especially given the fact that technology. The aim of this thesis is to understand through the eyes of children the intercorrelated relationship between physical characters of urban environments and the way outdoor environments are used. Therefore, a multi-site field study is conducted in five different urban zones with different physical and demographical characteristics (central, gated community, squatter settlement, mass housing and point-block settlement) in İzmir, Turkey which has high rates of urbanization and population growth. The study follows a mixed-method approach. The participants included 370 fourth grade primary school children and 258 parents. Even though the living environments selected for this dissertation vary in terms of physical qualities and demographic characteristics, 77% of children reported to prefer spend their free time outdoors. However, the study provides evidence to link children’s preferences regarding place and duration of use, and the way they use outdoor environments vary among the urban zones studied. The findings of the dissertation is linked to the growing literature on the subject with the aim to contribute to the improvement of children’s environments in cities, and the related policy-making efforts worldwide.
Citation - WoS: 3
Citation - Scopus: 8
Way-Finding Strategies of Blind Persons in Urban Scale
(John Wiley and Sons Inc., 2017) Kan Kılıç, Didem; Doğan, Fehmi; 02.02. Department of Architecture; 02. Faculty of Architecture; 01. Izmir Institute of Technology
The aim of this study was to determine whether urban environments with different prominent sensory inputs have an impact on the way-finding strategies of blind people and to identify these impacts, where applicable. We specifically investigated how blind people use their senses to compensate for the lack of visual information and how the priority of senses changes according to the urban context. The participants of the study consisted of nine congenitally blind individuals and the study took place in two urban settings: a dense urban district, Kemeralti district in İzmir; and an urban park, the İzmir Fair Park. During the learning phase, a first trial along the selected routes was conducted for each participant individually along with one of the researchers. In the test phase, the participants were requested to re-walk the route and verbally report the environmental cues they attended to. The participants’ verbal reports were recorded and transcripts of the recordings were coded according to the environmental sensory inputs. In addition, the short-term memory of each participant was also evaluated. The results show that the characteristics of the urban environment seem to have an impact on way-finding strategies of blind individuals. It was found that the sound of the city and the echo from the environment are the most important factors for blind participants in the dense urban environment. Environmental boundaries provided echoes and gave a sense of enclosure that helped them orient themselves, whereas, in the park environment, the sense of enclosure was not enhanced due to a lack of boundaries in the environment.

Sürdürülebilir Yeşil Kampüs Koleksiyonu / Sustainable Green Campus Collection

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