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.