A Quest for Sustainability of Cultural Heritage Sites: The Hanlar District of Bursa, Turkey

Abstract

Today, many studies have been carried out to support community engagement in planning and urban design processes in Turkey. This study which tries to bring together community engagement and urban design within the framework of sustainability of cultural heritage sites is a part of a scientific research project which aims to create a participative model to develop an urban design guideline for the Hanlar District, a historical commercial district including many inns in the city centre of Bursa, in Turkey. While a series of community engagement techniques were experimented during the project process, the aim of this article is to examine the potential benefits of using educational charrettes as a kind of design charrette to establish a participatory and competitive platform including public, private, voluntary actors and local people in urban design process of heritage sites. It overviews the charrette use in developing adaptive re-use and urban design schemes for the inns and their surrounding public spaces which are not actively used in the Hanlar District which has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 2014, and then highlights the proposals that were developed in terms of the objectives of the Bursa and Cumalikizik Management Plan. Finally, this study presents the usability, suitability and practicability of educational charrettes as a community engagement way in the urban design process of the heritage sites while enabling different actors to create new visions to sustain heritage sites. However, it also emphasizes the need for a participatory and holistic urban design process for the Hanlar District of Bursa including the adaptive re-use strategies for the inns to sustain the district.