Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Sustainable Development and Planning IX , cilt.226, ss.29-38, 2017 (Hakemli Dergi)
Cities are open spaces where people exist together, socialize and perform the actions of encountering
and meeting others. Urbanites carry out their socio-cultural life through their activities in exterior
space within the construct of the urban physical environment. Social structuring emerges in open
public spaces, in which the relationship between the individual and society is reinforced by the
physical environment. Nevertheless, today, the rapid growth of the uncontrolled urban development
in a complex pattern increasingly renders it difficult for the urbanite to detect and easily scrutinize
exterior spaces in the city. The environmental image acquired by the individual gives them the feeling
of being emotionally secure when bearing this image in mind. The elevated qualities of legibility and
wayfinding in the cities are of the most important “urban design principles”. Urban legibility means
that an environment is discernable and is perceivable within continuity. The more rapid a city can
create an image in mind, the more legible it becomes. In this study, the city of Eskişehir, which
is located in the northwestern part of Turkey and has a history that dates back to Phrygian civilization,
is scrutinized. Apart from being an industrial and commercial city, Eskişehir has been a university
city since the 1950s. Currently, university students comprise 10% of the urban population. In this
study, reading the city was carried out via the cognitive map of the university students who
experience the city for a while.