Ecological Strategies for Designing Halys River: a Landscape of Flux

Abstract

Natural and manmade disasters led to the emergence of new approaches in designing our environment in the postindustrial era. Modern technological infrastructures failure to respond to the challenges from environmental hazards led the designers to restructure the landscape. This in turn, led to a shift in landscape architecture, planning and architecture discipline. In the past decade green infrastructure has been a topic for debate among practitioners and theorists across different disciplines, ranging from architecture, urban planning, engineering to geography and biology. The discourse appears to be an operational and promising tool in planning, designing resilient eco-system based infrastructures. This paper discusses an interdisciplinary design proposal for Sivas, Halys River in a landscape urbanistic manner. The aim of the project was to create a cultural and ecological corridor in Sivas, Turkey that is adaptable to changes and dynamics over time, considerate to ecosystem and human conditions. In the light of discourse of green infrastructure the paper derives adaptive design strategies for ecological urbanism.