Reclaiming Public Spaces : A Hypothesis for Empowering Public Use of the Streets in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul.

This thesis investigates the public space system in the Historic Peninsula of Istanbul and how and for what purpose this system transforms itself. The aim is a design model that proposes an increase in the use of public spaces without causing gentrification through the shaping of ordinary car-occupied streets in the residential area of the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first chapter examines the relationship between public space and public life and how this relationship has changed in cities with modernist and functionalist planning. It is also questioned how the public spaces of the Historical Peninsula have been under the pressure of a motorised city and how it has been able or unable to respond to this pressure. In the second chapter, the public space system of the Historical Peninsula is analysed. A categorisation of present public space infrastructure was made and the regions where this infrastructure has not been developed were identified. It is discussed how to increase the use of public space in vehicle-occupied residential areas. In the third section, the process of transforming the streets of the Historical Peninsula, which lost their public use, into multi-use public spaces and the actors involved in this process are introduced. A design hypothesis is built by detailing the process and intervention strategies to be carried out in the school square and neighbourhood square projects in the dense residential areas in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul.