Defining urban design strategies: an analysis of Iskenderun city center’s imageability

Purpose>Legibility, intelligibility, mental images and cognitive and syntactical mapping are significant issues that help expose the spatial knowledge necessary for effective urban design. They also help us understand how a city’s new image is forming. This paper aims to present a new holistic approach to define urban design strategies that improve a city’s imageability through cognitive and syntactic concepts.Design/methodology/approach>The study establishes a coherent framework by including residents’ mental images and space syntax theory’s descriptors to understand how residents perceive their physical environment. Using a mixed-methods research design, the authors studied the Iskenderun city center’s image and spatial design. First, the authors used descriptive analysis techniques (questionnaires, verbal interviews and cognitive mapping) and consulted 110 Iskenderun residents. Second, the authors used analytical analysis techniques to investigate the structural relations among city elements with the help of space syntax descriptors.Findings>The results demonstrated the importance of applying combined descriptive and analytic techniques to provide an understanding of the city’s image. The authors also offered a proposal including the appropriate urban design strategies to promote Iskenderun city center’s imageability.Originality/value>Applying this new coherent framework can support design decision-making for redesigning cities at the micro level and for planning new cityscapes at the macro level.