Legibility of Neighborhood Park: A Case Study of Trabzon City Centre

Abstract

The growing need for housing in parallel with population growth has made the importance of open spaces more prominent in rapidly growing cities. Among them, urban parks and management for open spaces are one of the important parts of urban planning. Neighborhood parks are the most basic element of municipal outdoor management systems in particular. The main function of the neighborhood parks is to provide socio-cultural interaction facilities that meet user needs, are such as accessibility, legibility, have many functions together and enable the active and passive activities of users. High legibility level, well-designed parks at the neighborhood level serve as a social and activity center for the users, transforming into high-level, living spaces. In this context, interest in the perception and experience of the community, neighborhood parks has reached a very important point today. Today, however, research continues to seek answers to the question of how people react to and use parks in their living environment. One of the concepts that has recently become the focal point in this regard is the concept of legibility. In this context, this study aimed to reveal the legibility level of three parks randomly selected from the neighborhood parks located in Ortahisar district of Trabzon province and completed in 2017. In this direction, the legibility level and the physical and characteristic features and activities of the neighborhood parks were examined in this study, and their suitability and deficiencies for landscape design and usage were determined. As a result of the research, it was determined that the legibility level of the examined neighborhood parks is low and the usage level of the parks is low, resulting in inanimate spaces and suggestions for improvement of these parks are presented.