Kentteki oyun alanları üzerine eleştirel bir okuma: Beyoğlu örneği
Critical reading on playgrounds in the city: Beyoğlu example
Yazar: DERYA İYİKUL KOTAN
Danışman: DOÇ. DR. MELTEM AKSOY
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Mimarlık Ana Bilim Dalı / Mimari Tasarım Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2019
Konu: Mimarlık = Architecture

Özet:
Oyun alanları, kentte çocukların oyununa ayrılan ve çocukların gelişimine destek sağlaması hedeflenen halka açık kamusal alanlardır. Araştırma ilk ve öncelikli olarak, oyunun çocukların bütünsel gelişimi için önemini vurgulamakta ve oyun oynamanın çocukların temel hakkı olduğunu kabul etmektedir. Bu sebeple de, oyun alanlarının
eleştirel okumasını yapmayı ve günümüzde kentlerde bulunan pratikleri değerlendirebilecek, oyun alanlarının kalitesini yükseltmeye yardımcı olacak ve oyunun sürekliliğine katkıda bulunabilecek bir değerlendirme formu tasarlamayı hedeflemektedir.
Araştırmanın ilk bölümünde, oyunun çocuk gelişimi açısından önemi hakkındaki literatür gözden geçirilmekte ve çocukların oyun oynama hakları üzerinden kamusal alanda mekan kalitesi kavramı incelenmektedir. Literatürde geniş yer bulan bu kavramlara yönelik yapılan araştırma ve çalışmalardan seçilen örnekler, araştırmanın perspektifini oluşturmak için paylaşılmaktadır. Oyun alanları başlığı altında, oyun alanlarının tasarım perspektifinden tarihsel gelişimi ve oyun alanlarına yönelik geliştirilen planlama standartları eleştirel bir bakış açısı ile incelenmektedir. Bu eleştirel bakış, henüz literatürde yeterince yer bulmayan ancak daha fazla çocuğun aktif olarak kent yaşamına katılmasını niyet eden günümüz oyun alanı girişimlerine yer verilerek desteklenmektedir.
Oyun alanı kullanıcıları bölümünde, çocuğun çevre ile kurduğu ilişki, mekana yüklediği anlam, yer ve aidiyetlik kavramları üzerinden incelenmektedir. Araştırma, oyun alanı ve kullanıcı ilişkisini anlamak için fayda, ihtiyaç, kullanım ve tercih gibi kavramları da gündeme getirmektedir. Ayrıca bu bölümde, oyun alanı tasarımının çocuğun oyun biçimlerine etkisi çeşitli araştırmalar üzerinden incelenmektedir. Araştırmanın beşinci bölümü ise, yakın gelecekte karar vericilerin ve tasarımcıların, çocuk oyun alanlarının kalitesini maksimum düzeye çıkarmak ve oyunun sürekliliğine katkıda bulunmak için kullanabilecekleri bir değerlendirme formu geliştirmeyi
amaçlamaktadır. Değerlendirme formu, oyun alanları sağlamada kullanımı ve kullanıcı faydalarını etkileyen nitelikleri, mekanın daha etkili ve kaliteli bir kamusal alan olmasında işlev gören fiziksel durumları ve özel nitelikleri ölçmeyi hedeflemektedir. Bunun için de kendi oyun alanı niteliklerini belirlemekte ve tanımlamaktadır. Form, oyun alanının kullanımını ve oynamayı teşvik eden ve engel olanların bir kontrol listesini içermektedir.
Araştırmanın saha çalışması Beyoğlu ilçesindeki 57 parkın, Oyun Alanı Değerlendirme Formu'nun sahada gözlem yapılarak uygulanması ile elde edilen verilerine dayanmaktadır. Veriler haritalama ve info grafikler ile ifade edilmektedir.
Araştırmanın sonucunda ise, saha çalışmasından elde edilen veriler ile literatür taraması, neden-sonuç ilişkileri üzerinden yorumlanmakta ve öneriler sunulmaktadır.

Abstract:
Playgrounds are public spaces reserved for children's play in the city and intended to
support children's development. First and foremost, the research emphasizes the
importance of play for the overall development of children and acknowledges that play
is the fundamental right of children. For this reason, it aims to make critical reading of
playgrounds and to design an evaluation form that can evaluate the practices in cities
today, help to improve the quality of playgrounds and contribute to the continuity of
play.
Although the answers to the question of what is and who is a child vary in different
periods, studies in the field of children also include different perspectives. While the
child was a psychological and sociological subject at first, then it was accepted as a
social phenomenon and it was considered that different disciplines; geography,
economy, education, architecture, politics and so on. Today, there are very few
trainings, researches and programs focusing on the identity of the child in the city,
perhaps due to the fact that the child is classified as a non-specialist subject on the
urban scale.
On the one hand, the city is a giant mechanism based on the economy. Cities are
growing with a focus on population and capital and they determine the priorities of
cities. By 2050, it is estimated that around 70% of the world's population will live in
urban areas, and today it is estimated that children living in urban areas account for
almost half of the world's population. It is also estimated that children in the current
urban population account for about 60% of urban growth (UNICEF, 2012). However,
while the majority of the population living in cities around the world is children, the
effects on the design of urban and public spaces are thought-provoking. Although
childhood is defined as a transient process that cannot be remembered or forgotten in the eyes of adults, childhood 'is always a part of urban life. The concepts of "play" and "child cannot be considered separately. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) recognizes children's right to play as one of the fundamental rights. Outdoors where urban childhood can also explore, socialize and play; streets, school gardens, parks, playgrounds etc. public spaces. While these public spaces have an important place in the daily life of children, in recent years, especially in developed countries, concerns about increasing child safety, traffic, poor planning, pollution and restriction of access to the outside environment, and the changes in the behavior of the parents, and play in their eyes has a variety of risks. The places where children once walked from home to school now probably turned into places where their parents drive, and the child's relationship with the environment (outdoor) through play has become an activity that depends on adults. What kind of spatial features do 'present playgrounds', one of the most important parts of the daily lives of children living in the city, and how can they respond to children's creative, free play? According to Hart (2002), even if we are in a place where we
acknowledge the importance of play for children's holistic development and play as children's fundamental rights, new policies cannot be developed on urban planning and design, except for building new playgrounds and creating recreation areas in big cities. For this reason, the basic motivation of the thesis is the necessity of critical
consideration of all public spaces and opportunities created for children to play in the urban environment.
Today, playgrounds that we are used to see in the city consist of standard and uniform applications that are defined only for the child, which allow the child to develop certain and few skills, do not have different age groups together, are very similar in visual and functional terms. For these reasons, it is not surprising that they offer limited activity, are free from diversity and creativity, and are criticized for being predictable and
boring. Consisting of colorful structures placed on secure rubber surfaces, these spaces do not provide children with flexible spaces for creative and free play, nor serve as an inviting public space for other residents of the city. On the one hand, these spaces continue to dominate both the commercial market and the play world and gain a strong position in the city landscape. For this reason, many researchers from past to present question the concept of 'playground'. The task of building better cities for children involves creating quality urban spaces that allow children to play. The goal of creating a quality, accessible and safe space for the play requires overcoming protectionism, accessibility restrictions and maintenance challenges. Therefore, there is a need for designers and decision makers with practices and knowledge that support and promote the play in cities. In order to critically evaluate the current practices for the design of playgrounds with the intention of finding answers to these needs and questions, the thesis examines the relations of children, play and environment with each other through the concepts of public space and space quality, and the relationship that the child establishes with the environment
meaning, place and belonging concepts of playground user definitions. All urban public spaces, including playgrounds specially created for children in the city, depend on a number of spatial planning and quality factors, including children's needs and preferences. In order to understand these factors, first of all, the importance of play for the holistic development of children is emphasized and the concept of spatial quality in the public sphere is examined. The concept of quality is a subjective concept that depends on the satisfaction of the needs of the user. However, there are objective indicators used to measure quality in urban space. There are many different perspectives and methods and various parameters are presented. In particular, field studies of research are on parks and playgrounds, which are the most critical public space in terms of the function of the site. The development tendency of playgrounds in the historical process has been shaped around certain play elements. However, the primary goal of the design of children's playgrounds should be to create spatial opportunities to maximize the child's interaction with the environment through play theories and information obtained from the child's holistic development. Under the title of playgrounds, the historical development of playgrounds from the design perspective and the planning standards developed for playgrounds are examined with a critical point of view. This critical point of view is supported by present-day playground initiatives that have not yet been adequately covered in the literature but intend to actively engage more children in urban life.
The research does not find it realistic to rebuild the playgrounds that existed and criticized in an effective number of cities today from scratch and when they are considered economically and politically. For this reason, it believes that with the interventions to maximize the potential (quality) of the existing spaces, these spaces
can be a real and important part of the play world. For this, in the near future, decisionmakers and designers are developing a Playground Evaluation Form, which can be used to measure the quality of children's playgrounds and use them to contribute to the continuity of play. This form aims to measure whether playgrounds offer opportunities for children's play and to measure the spatial quality of the playground. While designing the form, the research tries to focus on critical features and possible design solutions that may increase the spatial value of the playground and find answers. The form is an invitation to help us think about encouraging play in the city by improving local knowledge. It is an experimental tool that needs to be adapted to the complex and unique reality of each city and should be considered as a preliminary list of experiences and insights gained through literature research and projects. In addition, the form does not include data such as the performance of the users in the playground, their thoughts about the playground, their frequency of use and their satisfaction with
the field. Because rearch believes that more detailed, comprehensive methods, long processes and professional support for communication with children are needed for user feedback. Briefly; user feedback is completely lacking in this research. The fieldwork of the research is based on the data obtained from the observation of the
playground evaluation form of 57 parks in Beyoğlu district by observing the field. The data is represented by mapping and info graphics. As a result of the research, the data obtained from the field study and the literature review are interpreted over the causeeffect relationships and suggestions are presented. In the thesis, concrete 'quality measurement indicators 'are designed and used. Surveys, interviews, etc. methods based on user information and containing subjective inferences are not used. The 'Playground Evaluation Form', which defines the quality measurement indicators for the playgrounds in question, presents its own in line with the examination of different studies. Much of the information presented in the thesis is based on the personal experience and knowledge gained from the Kent95 project, supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation and the contributions of the Superpool architecture office. The research is intended to serve as a tool to promote and improve play for early childhood education and child development professionals, municipal units, architects, city planners and
community workers, who are actors of the project.