The Importance of Urban Regeneration in Cities’ Identity: Industrial Heritage Potentials of İzmir

Abstract

Historical urban areas have great importance in terms of having memory belonging and place identity. They have a tendency to create an urban identity for the remaining parts of the city. Existing industrial buildings being an important value of historical areas contribute to the identity of the city in terms of their architectural characteristics. Different functions including museums culture and art centers education and working spaces research centers and housing can be proposed in the regeneration of industrial buildings. The location of the buildings their size and architectural features play a great role in defining their new functions. All these functions create a potential for urban regeneration and in this way it contributes to the cities’ identity by providing sustainability of abandoned buildings. Urban regeneration art and architecture’s role in the city identity industrial heritage co-living/public spaces and sustainable approach within the existing industrial buildings are included in the theoretical infrastructure of the study. Within the scope of this study the existing potentials of the city of İzmir Turkey are analyzed through the recent studies on the restoration of the contemporary examples. Additionally co-living scenarios are proposed to the selected industrial buildings which will be re-functioned. The importance and contribution of this function are also discussed in terms of urban identity. While this study focuses on the potentials of industrial buildings in terms of city identity it also emphasizes the contribution of the concept of co-living to the socio-cultural sustainability of society and the importance of creating this awareness in the urban regeneration process. © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.