Visibility-based assessment of urban form: an alternative perspective for the residential development in urban peripheries

Abstract

It is highly important for urban designers to understand how the configuration of urban fabric influences the living experience of the city dwellers. While cities change through time, their evolution may produce spaces that may not have a positive contribution or don’t reach their full potential. We call these spaces as ‘lost spaces’. The fragmentation that has occurred as a result of master planning implementations in western development corridor of Ankara, has produced lost spaces. This thesis aims to assess spatial configurations of such spaces near residential buildings in Çayyolu. The chosen case study, Cayyolou, is a ‘developed’ area in Ankara which has been an outcome of the city’s urban expansion. Urban and architectural spaces are defined by the spatial relations and social synergy stimulated by visual interaction. We have considered visibility as an indicator of ‘positive space’ and used isovists as a tool that measures visibility levels. A space that can be seen from any vantage point is defined as isovist by, and a set of such spaces defines a visual field. By utilizing computational tools and geometrical properties of isovist and isovist fields, we can identify and improve visibility of selected areas. In addition to visibility assessment of existing conditions of selected sites, this framework provides some design interventions which help improve visibility and propounds a relationship between urban spaces and visibility.