Cemal Mert ALAÇAM – 20180405209 – Department of Architecture

ARCH 308 – ARCHITECTURE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT – SPRING SEMESTER

FINAL EXAM – SATURDAY 10TH JULY 0900-1100
Please turn your cameras on. This is an open book exam – you can consult available
sources. This is a word document so please add your answers to this paper and
submit to the Blackboard folder. This will close at 11am so please allow time to
upload your paper.

Part A (5 points each - total 20):

Answer the questions below.
A1. According to Gordon Cullen, “although the pedestrian walks through the town at a
uniform speed, the scenery of towns is often revealed in a series of jerks and revelations.”
This he calls:
a) Streetscape
b) Townscape
c) Image of the city
d) Serial vision
A2. ‘Haphazard growth’ of relative low density over a region, with residential units dominated
by single-family homes is called:
a) Permaculture
b) Self-sufficiency
c) Urban Sprawl
d) Enclaves
A3. The technique of representing the city as a composition of contrasting black and white
shapes—illustrating respectively the built forms and the unbuilt, open spaces—was made
famous by:
a) Imageability
b) Compositional form
c) Townscape
d) Nolli Map

A4. Who famously criticized the failures of modernist planning and campaigned for keeping
the existing diversity of street life in American cities:
a) Richard Sennett
b) Kevin Lynch
c) Jane Jacobs
d) Ricky Burdett
Part B (40 points each – total 80) : Everyone should answer B1 then choose 1 out of
the remaining 2 questions below. So you should answer a total of 2 questions from
part B.
B1. Discuss the contribution of Arch 308 course into your knowledge of cities and the role
of urbanism in improving the lives of urban populations.
 I chose ARCH 308 very excitedly and attended this course with pleasure.
Because my interest in urban form, design and cities increased my curiosity
about this course. First of all, I would like to thank you for this course that
contributed to my knowledge of urbanism. It provided a more detailed study of
the region in my project concepts in my studio classes. I especially want to
read and research Kevin Lynch's book The Image of the City and Morhology
of Urban Spaces in more detail in my spare time.

B2. In the book The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980) and its accompanying
documentary, William Whyte sets out to find “why some public spaces work and why others
don’t.” What is the method of research Whyte employed in his studies? Based on Whyte’s
findings, discuss the qualities that make a public plaza attractive and pleasant to its users.

B3. Kevin Lynch writes that “in the process of way-finding [in the city], the strategic link is the
environmental image, the generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world that is
held by an individual. This image is the product both of immediate sensation and of the
memory of past experience, and it is used to interpret information and to guide action” We
can call this image a mental map. Mental maps of a city are mental representations of what
the city contains and its layout as seen from the point of view of the individual. In his studies
on the image of urban environments, Lynch defines five elements that make up people’s
mental map of a city.

Name the five elements that make up the image of a city as discussed by Kevin Lynch.
Briefly discuss these elements by giving examples from the cities of Izmir and/or İstanbul
and/or Ankara.
 Five elements:Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes, and Landmarks
 Paths:İzmir Talatpaşa Boulevard,Istanbul TEM and Ankara Turgut Özal
Boulevard
 Edges:Bostanlı Shoreline, Bosphorus and Railroad from/to Ankara Train St.
 Disctrics:Izmir Mavişehir, Istanbul Beylikdüzü and Ankara Çayyolu
 Nodes:Izmir Konak Square, Istanbul Haydarpaşa Train St. and Ankara Ulus
Square
 Landmarks:Izmir Clock Tower,Galata Tower and Ankara Victory Monument

Bonus Question (1 point each):

Kevin Lynch classified the elements that make up the image of the city as follows: paths,
edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Identify the images below according to Lynch’s
classification.

Konak Square-Nodes Pasaport-Edges

Big Ben, London-Landmarks Rialto Bridge-Landmarks Çeşme Highway-Paths

Kemeraltı-Nodes Süleymaniye Mosque-Landmarks

Istiklal Street-Nodes Taksim Square-Nodes Arnavutköy-Districts