Peyzaj şehirciliği bağlamında işlevini yitirmiş havalimanlarının yeniden kullanımına yönelik peyzaj stratejileri: Atatürk Havalimanı örneği
Landscape strategies for the transformation of abandoned airports in the context of landscape urbanism: Case study of the Atatürk Airport
Yazar: DİLER ÇİFTÇİ
Danışman: DOÇ. DR. MELTEM ERDEM KAYA
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Kentsel Tasarım Ana Bilim Dalı / Kentsel Tasarım Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2019
Konu: Peyzaj Mimarlığı = Landscape Architecture

Özet:
Günümüzde bazı kentler, havalimanlarına, bağlantılı oldukları lojistik noktalara ve sanayi bölgelerine göre şekillenmektedirler. İster işleyen, ister işlevini yitirmiş olsun havalimanları, altyapı bağlantıları, yatay yapısı, doğal çevre ile ilişkileri, değişen koşulları ile kesin bir arkitektonik şehir modelini geride bıraktığı için, peyzaj şehirciliğinin temel çalışma alanlarından biri olmuştur. Peyzaj şehirciliği kenti doğal unsurlar ile bütüncül olarak ele alan, teknoloji ve ekoloji arasında arayüz görevini üstlenen bir teoridir. Yirminci yüzyılın peyzaj planlama pratiğinde pek çok altyapı unsurunu ele aldığı gibi havalimanı konusuna da odaklanarak bu altyapıları peyzaj alanı olarak değerlendirmektedir.
Ülkemiz açısından havalimanı ve peyzaj konusuna odaklanıldığında, son zamanlarda İstanbul'daki önemli iki havalimanı ile ilgili ciddi tartışmalar söz konusu olduğu görülmektedir. İstanbul Havalimanı'nın açılmasından sonra Atatürk Havalimanı'nın işlev olarak "Millet Bahçesi" adı altında bir yeşil alana dönüştürülmesi gündeme getirilmiştir. Fakat bu önerilen yeşil alan, dünyanın üçüncü büyük parkı iddası ile öne çıkmasına rağmen alana ait peyzaj tasarım ve planlama önerileri ayrıntılı olarak açıklanmamıştır. Yoğun ve karmaşık bir altyapıya sahip olan bu alan için kent parkına dönüşüm sürecinde ekolojik, sosyokültürel ve ekonomik olarak kente katkı sunabilecek tasarım ve planlama ilkeleri üretilmesi gerekmektedir. Bu bağlamda çözüm yolu olarak doğal ve kültürel süreçleri en iyi şekilde sentezleyip ele alan, Atatürk Havalimanı gibi kentsel alanları bir pitoresk resim olarak değerlendirmek yerine çağdaş tasarım ve planlama ilkeleri ile ekolojik, sosyolojik ve ekonomik işlevleri olan parklara çevirmeyi öneren peyzaj şehirciliği teorisine başvurmak gerekmektedir. 
Bu gerekçe doğrultusunda çalışmanın amacı dünyanın farklı coğrafyalarında üretilmiş ve kent parkı olarak yeniden ele alınmış havalimanı projelerinin incelenmesi yolu ile peyzaj şehirciliği kapsamında öne çıkan farklı ilkeleri sunmak ve Atatürk Havalimanı özelinde oluşturulacak planlama ve tasarım sürecinde yönlendirici olabilecek peyzaj temelli stratejileri ortaya koymaktır.
Bu amaca yönelik olarak, tez kapsamında, birinci bölümde genel çerçeve ve çalışmanın önemi açıklanmış, belirlenen problem tanımlanmıştır. Çalışmanın ikinci bölümünde, peyzaj şehirciliğinin teorik altyapısı ve kentsel tasarım ile olan ilişkisi irdelenmiştir. Sonrasında kentsel formları etkileyen post-Fordist dönemle yakından ilişkili olan lojistik peyzaj konusu ele alınmış, lojistik peyzaj türleri olan, dağıtım ve teslimat peyzajları, tüketim ve kolay erişim peyzajları, konut ve atık peyzajları açıklanmıştır. Bunların sonrasında ise önemli lojistik altyapılardan olan havalimanlarının nasıl peyzaj alanı olarak ele alındığı irdelenmiştir. 
Çalışmanın üçüncü bölümünde işlevini yitirmiş havalimanlarının nasıl gündeme geldiği ve nasıl bir dönüşüm sürecinden geçtiği aktarılmıştır. Peyzaj alanları olarak havalimanı tasarımını anlamak ve bu alanlara ilişkin öne çıkan ilkeleri tespit etmek amacıyla 29 adet uluslararası proje incelenmiştir. İncelenen projeler içerisinden Almanya'da yer alan ve önemli uygulama örnekleri olarak kabul edilen Tempelhof Park ve Johannisthal Park alanlarının detaylı olarak tarihsel gelişimi ve mevcut durumu ortaya konmuş ve saha çalışmalarında gözlem yolu ile uluslararası proje örneklerinden çıkarılan ilkeler doğrultusunda alanlarda yapılmış tespitler aktarılmıştır. 
Çalışmanın dördüncü bölümünde ise Atatürk Havalimanı'nın tarihi ve çevresi ile ilgili literatür taraması yapılmış, haritalama ile ekolojik, sosyokültürel, sosyoekonomik ve lojistik alan tespitleri ortaya konmuş ardından alanın potansiyelleri belirlenmiştir. Beşinci bölümde ortaya konan dönüşüm kapsamında çalışma alanı değerlendirilmiş ve stratejik öneriler geliştirilmiştir. Altıncı bölümde ise yapılan tez çalışmasının bütününe yönelik sonuçlar yorumlanmıştır.

Abstract:
Nowadays, some cities are shaped according to airports, logistic centers and industrial zones. Airports, whether operating or abandoned have become a highly debated topic for landscape urbanism as they subsist behind a definite architectural model with valuable infrastructure connections, horizontal structures, and natural environments upon dynamic urban conditions. 
Landscape urbanism is a theory that takes the city as a holistic approach, acts as an interface between technology and ecology, and concerns airports as landscape elements/approach since the twentieth century landscape planning practices.
When we focus on the airports as landscape issue for Turkey, it is noteworthy that there have been serious discussions about two important airports in Istanbul, recently. While the location, selected for the construction of the Istanbul Airport, its size, and subsequent effects on the ecosystem were discussed, a dialogue araised on the fate of the existing Atatürk Airport. In this context, two main ideas have been put forward regarding the Atatürk Airport. The first of these, suggested an expansion of Atatürk Airport, whereas the second would rather stand for its insufficient capacity for the future demand, thus seek a ground for a new airport with bigger dimensions, and discuss the importance of Ataturk Airport's land and its potential to transform into a green-open space to fullfill the lack of green areas in the urban environment. However, this approach arose in a way regarding more the real estate index of the land, rather its use as a public green-open space.
While all these discussions took place during the projection phase of the Istanbul Airport, Atatürk Airport was called as the "People's Garden" – as an impulse for the future transformative intentions. Although this proposed park stands out with the claim to be the third largest park in the world, landscape design and planning proposals of the area have not been explained in details. In fact, when analyzing projects introduced under the title of landscape design in Turkey in general, it is obvious that there is an effort to create a general image. Designs that produce this image are deprived of rich content, unevenly integrated with the city and local content, with weak ecological, social and economic studies as a base. A similar image can be derived in the proposals for the open-green space transformation of Atatürk Airport.
For the specific urban context, which has a dense and complex infrastructure, it is necessary to produce design and planning approaches that can contribute to the city in ecological, sociocultural and economical aspects during its transformation processes towards a city park.
In this context, instead of evaluating urban areas such as Atatürk Airport in a picturesque framework, it is necessary to resort to the theory of landscape urbanism that proposes to transform parks, integrating ecological, sociological and economic functions with contemporary design and planning principles.
The concept of landscape urbanism often comes up upon international design competitions that host the idea of transforming airports into public parks. In these projects, the landscape is interpreted as a performance tool related to the rehabilitation of the old industrial zones that have remained as a legacy behind the collapse of the Fordist economy and reveals the new urban life potentials of these areas through the synthesis of ecological performance and design culture.
In line with this justification, the aim of this thesis is to examine airport projects reconsidered as city parks in different geographies and develop landscape based strategies that can guide the planning and design process of the Atatürk Airport.
The study was conducted with qualitative research method. In this context, literature review, related to landscape urbanism, post-Fordist period and logistic landscape and airport landscape, has been done. Later, the study was carried through case study method.
Firstly, 29 international projects whose data could be accessed by using printed books, magazines, web sites of design offices and articles and a sample set was formed. This sample set was tabulated with the parameters envisaged by landscape urbanism and the principles outlined in the projects were put forward.
Secondly, the dates, project processes and current conditions of the Tempelhof Park and the Johannisthal Park in Berlin, which are known as important airport landscape examples in Europe, are documented in detail. Then, the above mentioned fields were visited to make observations on the current conditions and photographs were taken, and notes were documented. Finally, with the data obtained, the accuracy of the principles determined in the previous step was questioned.
In the third step, as a case study, the Atatürk Airport was examined. In this context, the history of the field was first investigated. Afterwards, digital data of Istanbul through ArcMap in ArcGis was evaluated. Maps and archive scanning were examined in order to produce maps by the author to determine some definite findings. These are the ecological determinations of the Ataturk Airport and its surroundings, the logistic areas of Ataturk Airport and its surrounding, the socio-cultural and socioeconomic determinations of Ataturk Airport and its surroundings. Finally, the findings were concluded to define the potentials of Atatürk Airport's future transformation. 
Within the scope of the evaluation, the principles obtained in the beginning of the study, observation data obtained from the field studies and the potentials revealed for Atatürk Airport were considered together, and strategies were proposed for the transformation process of Atatürk Airport to a city park.
This thesis discusses the conversion of Ataturk Airport in the context of landscape urbanism: what kind of contribution it has to the urban life as a city park for Bakirkoy, which is one of the busiest districts in Istanbul; what potentials it could contribute to, and what strategies are needed for its future design. For this purpose, the thesis is divided into six main sections. In the first chapter, the general framework of the subject, its importance and the identified problem are discussed. The method section explaining the aim, scope and solution of the problem determined by the thesis, follows. 
In the second chapter, the historical development and conceptual focuses of landscape urbanism are mentioned while the answer to the question, asking what is landscape urbanism is investigated. Afterwards, the place of landscape urbanism in urban design was indicated and its status regarding planning was revealed. How post-Fordist economies change urban spaces has been examined and the logistical landscapes, distribution and delivery landscapes, consumption and convenience landscapes, accomodation and disposal landscapes have been explained. Lastly, the airport landscape which is a logistics infrastructure within the same section is discussed. 
In the third chapter, the functions of airports in green and open areas and their transformations have been examined. In order to elaborate the subject and determine the specific principles, the landscape projects of 29 abandoned airports around the world has been analyzed, and tabulated respectively with certain parameters. Afterwards, historical studies and current situation assessments of Tempelhof Park and Johannisthal Park in Berlin were given and field studies in these areas were transferred.
In the fourth chapter, historical research, ecological, socioeconomic and sociocultural determinations have been taken for Atatürk Airport, which is the main subject of the research.
In the fifth chapter, Atatürk Airport potentials were evaluated and strategies were suggested in line with the findings and previously principles. These strategies are examined under three main headings as ecology, socioculture and economy. Ecological strategies recommend that the site should be considered as a part of a green infrastructure and a self-regulated process-oriented program. Sociocultural strategies, propose the participation of the community in the tranformtion process of the project, to connect with the past in order to keep the notion of memory and strong identity, as well as to integrate various activities. Economic strategies to achieve a sustainable economic process, propose producing and saving, generating income and employment and reorganizing the infrastructure to strengthen connectivity.
In the sixth chapter, the results of the study are interpreted and the purpose, strategies, programs and prominent principles of the project that are expected to be an integral part for the airport landscape project for Atatürk Airport, are introduced.
Airports are one of the indispensable elements in terms of returns such as urban growth, technological development and economic acquisitions. These areas provide economic and social contribution to the city in times of dynamic activities, and are abandoned when fullfilled their lifetime. But even lost their functions, they can contribute to the city ecologically, socioculturally and economically.
In this thesis, after its loss of its function, the Atatürk Airport in Bakırköy, which is one of the busiest districts of Istanbul, a disscussion in the context of landscape urbanism: how the former airport could contribute to the urban life as a city park, and what potential it has and what strategies are needed for its future design, is put into the agenda.
This study contributes to the theory and practice of contemporary landscape design and adresses airport landscape in the context of landscape urbanism and evaluate emerging principles through the example of the Atatürk Airport. The proposed strategies aim to provide different alternatives that contribute to more ecological, sociological and economic approach in the process of its transformation into a new urban park.