Hypothetical Approach to the Rural-Urban Fringe: The "Common Space"

The urban and rural areas have encountered a rapid transformation and adaptation process while living quarters exposed reconstruction activities within ambiguous boundaries such as urban-nature, rural-nature and rural-urban. Ecologically-sensitive action plans have the potential to guide these activities by environmental protection and management, revealing the interaction of existing land uses and natural and sociocultural assets, especially in transition and intersection areas. The rural-urban fringe has potential as a diverse, dynamic and multifunctional region in terms of historical development, biodiversity production, recreation, identity and landscape aesthetics. Within the scope of the study, an urban design competition area in Guzelbahce, located at the rural-urban fringe of Izmir is selected as a study area. The case area is a potential buffer zone to prevent the urban sprawl on the rural-ecological commons. For this purpose, following the literature review, in-situ observations and analyses, the common space approach is proposed for the case area located at the intersection of the potential green belt axis of Izmir and determined rural landscape planning policies and design criteria are evaluated.