Speaker
Description
The transformative potential of public spaces, especially street transformations aimed at making cities child-friendly, lies in their ability to reimagine urban environments to better serve all inhabitants, particularly children. Streets, as children’s first public spaces, are crucial to their experience of the city. In vehicle-dominated cities, these spaces often become unsafe and inaccessible for children, limiting their opportunities for play, mobility, and social interaction. This has led to the increasing importance of child-friendly cities, where public spaces are reimagined to prioritize children's needs and well-being. Child-centred street transformations aim to restore these spaces for children’s independent mobility and play, while also benefiting people of all ages by promoting safer, more inclusive environments. For successful transformations, design with attention to detail and support by comprehensive strategies and realistic action plans are essential in guiding these transformation processes. These transformations can be temporary, like "Play Streets" events that close streets to traffic for children to play, or permanent, using tactical urbanism methods to test changes with low-cost materials before making lasting alterations. Both approaches enhance pedestrian accessibility, ensure children’s safety, and promote environmental sustainability through alternative transport options like walking and cycling.
This research questions whether the environment that emerged after the permanent implementation of the child-friendly street transformations carried out in two stages can still be sustained as child-focused. In this context, it is aimed to understand which criteria should be taken into consideration in the decision-making process and implementation process of child-friendly street transformations and to understand the possible obstacles in front of them in fulfilling the requirements of these parameters. Following it, the research evaluates the sustainability of the transformation’s child-friendly character after permanent implementation and aims to answer two main research questions: (1) How can child-friendly street transformations be evaluated from decision-making to implementation? (2) Do these transformations retain their child-friendly identity in their permanent form?
The objectives of the research include defining parameters for evaluating the design and implementation of child-friendly streets, determining how these parameters can be measured, and understanding the relationship between user behaviour and design outcomes. The research specifically focuses on the child-friendly street transformation in Zümrütevler, a densely populated neighbourhood in Istanbul. This transformation which converts a huge intersection area into a square, the first of its kind in Istanbul, was implemented in two stages: a rehearsal phase followed by permanent changes. The research aims to evaluate whether the permanent transformation maintains its child-friendly identity and how child-friendly street transformations can be evaluated across all stages—from decision-making to implementation—by using an original evaluation scale. This scale integrates design parameters from existing guides and assesses how well these criteria are met in practice. User behaviours, pedestrian movements, and public space usage were closely observed to understand how the design choices impacted the area’s functionality and accessibility, as a questioner analysis method to the results of evaluation scales.
The research highlights the idea that designing for children often benefits everyone, reinforcing the importance of inclusive public space design. In child-focused public space transformations, especially street transformations, since the urban habit is in vehicle-focused design solutions and this transformation also expresses a change in perspective on the city, it is observed that some design details are abandoned from thinking child-focused. Despite this, it is an important step for child-friendly transformations to become widespread in cities and for these areas to become a part of the life flow of the city dwellers with such transformations. Ultimately, the study demonstrates the transformative power of public space design, showing how thoughtful, child-centred transformations can create safer, more accessible, and more vibrant urban environments for all.
| Keywords | child-friendly; street transformation; public space; streets for kids; design guidelines |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
