Abstract
Data collection is vital for every design process in order to define the design parameters that will guide the rest of the process. In this chapter data collection procedure and evaluation methods used for the project Re-Coding Homes is discussed by focusing on field research and survey studies. Survey studies are mainly based on semi-structured interviews and spatial mapping methods. The interview was structured to collect data about the family structures, daily routines, social relations, and comparisons between the current and previous living environments. After completing the survey, answers given to the questions were transferred into digital data. During the systematization of the results, the most important problem was to process the complex data in order to support the design model. In this sense, a reporting software was designed to evaluate the data group. The parameters extracted by means of the reporting software became the main input for the expert system.
TopBackground
First urban transformation projects in the world have been constructed in order to renovate the urban areas that have lost their function and to rebuild the destroyed cities after the Second World War, as well. Areas of urban transformation include the transformation of inactive work and industrial areas that have lost their quality and function, informal housing districts, uninhabited historical places that have lost their identity, the sub-zones that create natural and artificial risks in terms of construction, in accordance with the common objective of creating sustainable urban areas (pursuant to the socioeconomic and environmental urban layers).
Beginning with Le Corbusier’s Contemporary City idea, many mass housing projects had been constructed in the US and Europe following the modernist movement. Pruitt-Igoe was created under the United States Housing Act of 1949, which made funds directly available to cities for slum clearance, urban redevelopment, public housing and it was completed in 1954 (Bristol, 1991). Bristol (1991) notes that by 1958, many problems had begun, and consequently, it was demolished between the years 1972 and 1976. It was explicated as the “death of modernism”, as a symbolic happening in architectural literature. Numerous demolitions were made within different cities, one of the most significant examples was Red Road Flats in Glasgow. Buildings which were planned by Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) as a regeneration project became a symbol of isolation and crime. The demolitions started in 2012 because of structural problems and more importantly social conflicts.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Participatory Design (User Participation in Design): Involving the users in design and management process instead of being treated as passive consumers.
Flexible Interior Design: Interior design that can be used for different activities and purposes at different times.
Expert System: A computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to simulate the judgment and behavior of a human or an organization.
TOKI: Housing Development Administration in Turkey.
User-Centered Design: Design that evaluates user needs and preferences at all stages of the design process.
Modular Design: Design based on interchangeable components in order to increase flexibility.
Mass-Customization (MC): Producing products that are customized due to the clients’ requests, characteristics, etc.
Genetic Algorithms: A computational and generative design approach which is used to solve non-lineer design problems.