Establishment of Space syntax to read and analyze urban network; the case of study

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A B S T R A C T Architects and designers should be familiar with the city developmental process to know about all the city aspects if they are hidden the whole time. This matter shows the importance of studying the urban sections to find out the city critical points. The method is the space syntax in one view which is the consideration of urban network analysis and it would be presented by graphs and maps by a computational description of the selected places. The main target of the space syntax establishment is to study the urban network issue by clarifying the most logical routes in the urban road network. This study has the aim to implement the space syntax as a method to determine urban network problems in order to achieve the new suggestions to increase the urban network integration. In this regards, Famagusta city in Cyprus is chosen to study to present the new suggestion.

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Establishment of Space syntax to read and analyze urban network; the case of study, Famagusta city of Cyprus * Ph.D. Candidate EHSAN VALIPOUR 1, Ph.D. Candidate ABDOLLAH MOBARAKI 2, Ph.D. Candidate MOJDEH NIKOOFAM 3, B.A SAMIRA TAYYEBISOUDKOLAEI 4 1 & 2 Faculty of Architecture, Cyprus International University, Nicosia, Mersin 10 Turkey 3 Faculty of Architecture, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, Mersin 10 Turkey 4 Islamic Azad University, Iran Email: eh.valipour@gmail.com Email: a_mobarakie@yahoo.com Email: mojdeh.nikoofam@gmail.com A B S T R A C T Architects and designers should be familiar with the city developmental process to know about all the city aspects if they are hidden the whole time. This matter shows the importance of studying the urban sections to find out the city critical points. The method is the space syntax in one view which is the consideration of urban network analysis and it would be presented by graphs and maps by a computational description of the selected places. The main target of the space syntax establishment is to study the urban network issue by clarifying the most logical routes in the urban road network. This study has the aim to implement the space syntax as a method to determine urban network problems in order to achieve the new suggestions to increase the urban network integration. In this regards, Famagusta city in Cyprus is chosen to study to present the new suggestion. CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS (2019), 3(1), 154-160. https://doi.org/10.25034/ijcua.2018.4692 www.ijcua.com Copyright © 2018 Contemporary Urban Affairs. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction As live organisms, the Cities are in permanent transformations. So, this development asks for suitable design solutions to respond the structural and social demands to make human contacts safe and healthy (Önder, D.E., Gigi, Y. , 2010). Scholars division about cities sustainable development consists of two main issues. As the huge building's collections are linked by a space, the human activity system is also connected by the urban network interaction (Vaughan, 2007). Recently, most studies have changed their directions towards using more physics, mathematics, computer science and mechanics etc. Considering this matter, the urban space may access the network by a node structure. Then the edge has a bold position as a complex network with a close similarity to the other networks, for instance, a cooperative relation network with a specific structure by its own (Levinson, 2006)(Cardillo, A., Scellato, S., Latora, V., Porta, S., 2006) (Yuan, P.C., Juan, Z.C., 2013). *Corresponding Authors Faculty of Architecture, Cyprus International University, Nicosia, Mersin 10, Turkey E-mail address: eh.valipour@gmail.com The history of urban network analysis is included various issues such as social, informational and communicational networks but nowadays, there is a new issue in this context as the analyze of the urban road network (Wagner, 2008). Scholars' studies show that the groups of connected nodes have more structural data in compare with the single ones. For instance, to find knot or stroke in a city access network is a group of consecutive road parts which has an effect on the street length (Jiang, B., Zhao, S., Yin, J., 2008). Mainly, this issue has started from space syntax to show the urban road network could be like body neural network in which stroke has employed to make linear elements relatively simple and understandable in networks which would be able to show lines movement in network frame and to build natural functional units (Thomson, 2006)(Duan, Y., Lu, F., 2013).Space syntax is born inside the architecture as a spatial analysis theory. It has followed both the architecture field and knowledge. In addition, it has contained philosophy and mathematics, on one side as well as the other sciences on the other side. However, it also contains the philosophical base and mathematical principles in the evaluation cases (Hillier, B., Hanson, J., 1997)(Reveron, 2009). The aims of this study would be divided into two main parts, the first one is to study and identify the existed urban network and the second part is to propose some new connections to reach the qualified urban network as a suggestion. This study is planned to compare the present position and the suggested condition by pretending two selected methods. The first method is Space syntax logic employed by Depthmap software and the second one is SPSS establishment reached the numbers from the first part of the analysis. As a case study, the newly developed area of Famagusta in Cyprus is selected due to various reasons, such as dense settlements, urban traffic and being close to some places like commercial centers and EMU University campus. This paper has planned to review the literature and regional observations. It has also planned to identify the problematic points and deep place understanding. Based on these, suggestions are planned to diminish recognized problems about the selected area with the aim to grow the network quality in the selected region. 2. Methodology Based on the regular viewpoint, Bill Hillier says “cities seem that could be seen but cities syntactic analysis shows that it has made to provide physical movements and being understandable to minds”(Stahle, A., Marcus, L., Karlström, A., 2005). Space syntax follows the principles of the graph theory by dividing the urban space into the single units to analyze their relationship with the other parts. Space syntax covers the various points based on space geometrical logic which can discover the invisible seated structure in the human environment. (Steadman, 1983)(Peponis, J.C., Wineman, J., Bafna, S., 1998)(Penn, 2003)(Turner, 2003) (Hillier, 2007)(Tianxiang, Y., Dong, J., Shoubing, W., 2015). This concept could be useful to study urban contextual features by an axial line employment as one of the main theory columns. The axial space map would have the fewest set of straight lines which cross via convex space. The collection of all axial lines and convex maps would have the fewest space collection to cover the whole space (Hillier, B., Hanson, J., 1984)(Önder, D.E., Gigi, Y. , 2010)(Rezayan, H., Delavar, M.R., Frank, A.U., Mansouri, A., 2010). In “The Social Logic of Space” Bill Hillier has defined (Hillier, B., Hanson, J., 1984) axial line presents the pathway of unblocked movement. In this concept, each path could be as an axial line and the linked by the other lines as intersections. It could be defined there is a spatial correlation between lines roots with each other. The Urban spaces are contained many numbers of axial lines while the axial maps are contained just fewest groups of axial lines which pass the city; they could be visible everywhere on the axial line map like any other disjoint parts or points which can be joined by the third axial line (Wagner, 2008)(Han, Y., Jin-yeu, T., Jiangang, L., 2009)(Hillier, B., Hanson, J., 1984)(Tischendorf, L., Fahrig, L., 2000)(Hargrove, W.W., Hoffman, F.M., Efroymson, R.A., 2004). The dynamic lines idea is shaped based on the breaking conception of boundaries. Multiple lines of different lengths have functioned to represent the detailed and specific Euclidean agent’s geometry of agents reflected in the free space. By connection lines to the nodes and their junction to the links, it would be possible to obtain the topological network parameters by defining the Total Depth, Integration, etc. (Jiang, B., Claramunt, C., Klarqvist, B., 2000)(Hillier, 2007). 3. Famagusta as a case study Famagusta city is located in the East of Cyprus on the Mediterranean coast. It is one of the Cyprus historical cities. The core castle had a bold role during the medieval era. In British colony period, Famagusta was focused on tourism and commercial destinations. This fact made the city walls continue to the outer part in Ottoman period. In 1974, this city experienced the civil war which occurred between the Greek residents and the Turkish people with the support of Turkey government.

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