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Surplus structures lead to wall problems in outdoor spaces. This makes people feel trapped between concrete masses. In this study, the walls in Izmit were examined. Activity areas in Izmit were determined as roadside, children's playground, sports area and resting area in which the wall is used intensively. The focal point was chosen as the visual quality of the walls in these areas. Visual quality is the user's appreciation or preference of the images of the walls before and after the design intervention. For each activity area, a total of 8 different wall examples of boundary and load-bearing walls were decided on, and design recommendations were developed using three different techniques of planting, constructiveness and planting–constructiveness. For each activity area, different intervention rates less (25–50%) or more (75–100%) were employed. Subsequently, the effect of these proposed designs on users and appropriate applications for different walls was revealed with the aid of a survey. In order to reveal the selection differences between the user group and the expert group, the survey was applied to 100 voluntary participants and an expert group of 10 landscape architects. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that activity difference and the intervention rate were effective in the choice of intervention. Planting intervention design proposals were chosen for children's playground and roadside while constructiveness and planting interventions were chosen for resting areas. Also, constructiveness interventions were chosen for sports areas. On the basis of the results, activity type in the areas where the walls are located was found to be effective on choices. It is important to choose the appropriate intervention technique in accordance with the user's preference for the activity. Overall, this study aims to emphasize the necessity and importance of correct interventions to walls in order to illustrate the city more liveable, healthy and comfortable, providing aesthetic value in a visual sense compatible with the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are 37 national parks in Turkey, encompassing the most important mountain ecosystems, with high biological, natural, cultural and historical diversity. These parks also have aesthetic and recreational potential, and are valuable components within the country's nature protection programmes. Globally, a landscape can be regarded as the face of an ecosystem and constitutes a relationship between natural structure and visual features. There have been several studies on whether visual quality can provide indicators for landscape planning. Visual quality can also be assessed as a manifesto for community participation. This paper attempts to extend the understanding of visual quality assessment for national parks, using the Kackar Mountains National Park (KMNP) in northeastern Turkey as an example. A detailed survey of visual quality preferences, landscape factors (10 main and 40 sub-factors) and semantic factors (naturalness, variety, fascination, vividness, unity, interesting and exciting) affecting these preferences was made using 30 represenative slides selected from the park. The highest preference was found to be 6.54, while the lowest was 2.30. Regression analysis enabled us to determine the relationship between visual quality and visual landscape attributes. The R² value for naturalness was 0.482, while naturalnegs together with lake and fog percentage was 0.641. The assessment of preferences for the studied views in various landscape units can be evaluated and used for land-use decisions mad future planning in KMNP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas are important zones due to their natural and cultural assets and their biodiversity preservation functions. Ecotourism activities in these areas have gained great importance for visitors in recent decades. Road networks established in protected areas have ecotourism-related functions, such as providing visitors with continuous access to/within these areas and offering visual richness to visitors while cruising on the roads. Road network planning that prioritizes visual quality is one of the scientific issues discussed today regarding the sustainable management of protected areas. This study focuses on planning new road networks that prioritize visual quality in protected areas and determining the optimum route that maximizes the visual quality experience of visitors. The study area was selected from the protected areas between the Kızılcahamam and Çamlıdere Districts of Ankara, Turkey, and their surroundings. In the model application, a road network was planned using the multicriteria decision support system (MDSS) method by considering visual quality parameters. In this stage, the road network that prioritized visual quality during spring and autumn seasons was investigated. Hence, weighted linear combination (WLC) was used as a geographic information system (GIS)-based MDSS method. Then, the GIS-based network analysis method was used to determine the optimum route that provided access to the scenic viewpoints (existing and proposed viewpoints) in the study area and maximized the visual quality during both seasons. In the new road network planned by considering the visual quality parameters, the total road length was calculated as 121.21 km for the spring and 129.47 km for the autumn. The lengths of the optimum routes that allowed visitors to reach the scenic viewpoints and ensured the maximum visual quality were 30.91 km and 30.70 km on the new road network for the spring and autumn seasons, respectively. This study introduced a new methodology that utilized GIS-based decision support systems to plan a road network that prioritized visual quality and determined the optimum route with the maximum visual quality. It is anticipated that this methodology can be used for sustainable management and effective planning of protected areas to reach and protect resources with high visual quality.