Creating Gender-Neutral Spaces by Architectural Elements

Abstract Today, the importance of public spaces in the city has increased with the populationdensity. It is seen that many people in public spaces create their own living spacesindividually in streets, gardens, under bridges, abandoned constructions, and houses.The homeless, beggars, peddlers, and couriers on some streets are in the public sphere,especially as temporary and permanent invaders.In the study, Esat Street, which is located in the Çankaya district of Ankara and is amongthe oldest settlements of the city, was determined. Esat Street, which resists keeping theneighbourhood culture alive and has a large number of local tradesmen, is connected tocritical areas of the city and is embraced by the society. In addition, traffi c and human popu-lation are also quite dense. In the research, the interaction of the couriers’ waiting areas,open areas of shops, mobile sales areas, and the formation processes of the waiting areaswith the business spaces will be examined. The transformation of the public space and thefunction-oriented occupation of the public space in the context of the historical develop-ment and sociocultural structure of the street with the equipment and furniture developedin line with the need constitutes the subject of the study. Using the qualitative researchmodel in the research, the data; was collected through literature review, observation, pho-tographing, interviews with courier and shop owners working on Esat Street. On the otherhand, the reasons that lay the groundwork for the formation of design fewer borders thatarchitectural practice is frequently exposed to today, the user not adopting the designedspaces, and the reasons for intervention will be questioned. This research, is aimed to exam-ine the dynamic and unpredictable structure of the formation processes of the space thatcreated itself within a specifi c program and process. It is thought that making it possibleto re-evaluate the user-time-function triangle in new space creations will shed light on theplanned studies in this area. Keywords: Public spaces, urban design, Ankara- Esat Street, occupation of space, designspace.