Social affordances of residential open spaces: case study of Dikmen Valley, Ankara

Abstract

This study describes a methodology to assess the social affordances of residential open spaces. To this end, referring to Gibson's concept of affordances, the study investigates the relationship between the social affordances of residential open spaces and the main environmental attributes of 1) topological depth, 2) spatial demarcations, 3) constitutedness, 4) visibility, 5) inter-visibility, 6) the number of block stories, 7) existence, location, and orientation of landscape elements. The methodology is used to analyze the case of Dikmen Valley in Ankara, which was reorganized with a comprehensive regeneration project. The first step of the study is the analysis of the open space typologies of the residential compounds. Afterwards, each type is scrutinized through an in-depth analysis with methods of spatial analysis, visibility graph analysis, and on-field observations. It is revealed that similar environmental attributes have similar social affordances and in conclusion, this study indicates which residential open space typology of the case study has the optimum social affordances.