Page 169 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 4

Fred Barış Ernst - İbrahim Yenigün

with an emphasis on marginalized segments of society (Nedjeljko, 2011),
with the aim of inclusion and empowerment. This new participatory planning
paradigm was defined as ”a decision-making and problem-solving process
involving individuals and groups who represent different interests, specialties
and perspectives and act for the benefit of everyone affected by the decisions
they make” (quoted by Fisher, 2001a, b).
Petit et al. (2006) investigated in his study how 3D geographical visualization
can support communication in the urban and regional planning process and
stated that although the traditional planning process allows for input and
ideas from affected groups, the evaluation of ideas and different development
scenarios is far from encouraging. However, the latest developments in
the visualization of geographical data have played a key role for effective
community participation during the planning process and the presentation of
its results. Based on this reality, different methodologies have been developed
to implement participatory planning. Geodesign, emerged as one of these
developments, has integrated design tools and GIS to support participatory
planning. Carl Steinitz, an expert on the subject, created a comprehensive
framework for realizing Geodesign, which was applied to various regional
landscape studies for more than 30 years, together with colleagues and
students at the Harvard Design School (Steinitz, 2012).
Mc Elwaney (2012), another remarkable name with his studies in this field,
defines Geodesign through seven basic features: 1.Working in a geographical
area, 2.Relying on science-based design, 3.Inclusion of value-based design,
4.Maximizing the welfare of society while minimizing short- and long-
term negative effects on the natural environment, 5.Supporting design in
multidimensional space, 6.Providing a social and technical framework for
identifying problems and resolving conflicts, and 7.Improving the quality
and productivity of the design. According to Mc Elwaney, Geodesign studies
include many of these basic features.
Another name working in this field, Ballal (2015), developed a web-based
Geodesign software “GeodesignHub” (GDH), created in collaboration with
Carl Steinitz by converting the Geodesign framework into a digital design
workflow. Thus, when applied in large areas to solve regional planning
problems, the difficulties of 2D and 3D visualization would have been
eliminated. At the same time, the GDH and the problems of uncertainty
caused by the effects of long planning periods, multiple aspects affecting the
region, competing actors and interests would also have been addressed. The
obtained GDH software has been successfully used in many planning studies
worldwide (Rivero et al. 2015; Ballal 2015; Nyerges et al. 2016, Campagna et
al. 2016; Moura et al. 2016; Kim, 2017).

158 The Journal of Environment, Urban and Climate