4. Historical–Geographical and Procedural Typological Approach in Urban Renewal: As a Case Louroujina, Northern Cyprus

The study of urban form is a field that embraces different professions and researchers within different languages and disciplines such as geography, architecture, planning, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. M.R.G Conzen (1981) puts forward a theoretical basis for urban conservation grounded in the functional development of the urban landscape and based on the recognition of townscape. According to Conzen (1969), the town plan is a combination of three distinct but integral plan elements; they are the streets and their street system, the plots and their plot pattern, and the building arrangement within these patterns. In addition to this he explained the present structure of a town plan by examining its historical development. Within this context he puts forward a theoretical basis for townscape in the functional development of the urban landscape, which is plan unit, land utilization, and building utilization. Later, Whitehand (2021) developed his ideas not only in the field of urban conservation grounded based but also the socio-economic development of the industrial and post-industrial towns by the means of understanding the transformation of urban form. While historical–geographical approaches are discussing on planning level, Italian School which have been started with Mouratori and later continuing with Cannigia continues their studies on the typological process on the Latin towns by discussing procedural typological approach. As Cataldi (2003) addressed that, Mouratori typological classification is not a right attempt to understand the urban form, for him historical building process was based on the spontaneous type plan the outgrowth of a particular cultural context. He added that Muratori Venice experiences that push him to single out not only the typological persistence of single building, but also the capacity of the dwelling to be aggregated serially to form within building tissue, the real backbone of the urban organism. Then Caniggia starting point is utilizing the building type applying it to the tissue and developing Muratoris’ concept of elementary cell, pertinent areas, and strips. Then he was setting up the method of “procedural typology” including the concepts of substratum type, leading type, synchronic variant and diachronic transformation and typological yield from medieval up to today. While two scholars assessing the urban form with different point of view and different levels, both theories and findings have not been applied for the new proposed projects especially by considering urban rehabilitation, urban renewal, and urban conservation projects. They were tested their theories on selected sites but the question is would it be possible to applied in practices?

In line with two theories, this study is to discuss the historical–geographical and procedural typological approach to turn to the practices at one of the traditional town’s renewal by conserving the form of the Louroujina in Northern Cyprus. This entails to see the finding within the concepts of town plan, building procedural transformation and typological character into practices. Other aim of this study is to determine the methods by interacting with NGOs’ and stakeholders and locals while carrying out such conservation and rehabilitation practices.

As mentioned above, procedural typological and historical–geographical approaches have been discussed since the beginning of nineteenth century by pioneers in this field, MRG Conzen, JWR Whitehand, M. Barke, P. Larkham MP. Conzen, K. Gu, Mouratori S. GF. Caniggia, G. Strappa, M. Matteo, G. Cataldi, and M. Maretto. The physical form of cities structured of many forms in urban context and these elements combined into distinct patterns in different places of the city. Additionally, different agents and process of change continuously change these forms. Within this framework the activities of urban design and architecture have significant impact on these elements. However that could be acceptable that this action on physical form of cities could be linked to the knowledge that continues to be produced in the universities, but actually it is not.

Oliveira and Monteiro (2021) firstly starts to discuss how those theories have been carried to practices? Morphological research in planning, urban design, and architecture book edited by Oliveira (2021) is the first example of discussing the relation between scientific research and professional practice on the urban landscape. It tried to address linkage between morphological research and practice on planning, urban design, and architecture. He tries to understand if in different fields of knowledge from architecture to urban morphology, how this gap was common for the other fields of knowledge such as health education law and economics on one hand. The other focuses of him are to understand the wide gap between research and practices, even the practices are not a whole thing there are incredible differences between architect, urban designer, and planner.

Jeremy Whitehand (2021) explores the applicability of the historical–geographical approach into planning practice, especially he focuses on how the morphological regions has been take into consideration as a base for the conservation plans, he stated that In subsequent work on Kuling, the Peking University Urban Morphology Research Group drew attention to drawbacks of the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape approach in the conservation of this type of heritage in China and the importance of taking into account academic research on urban landscapes. JWR Whiteand, S. Whitehand and Gu (2014) town plan analysis on Chinese cities especially on Pingayo and Guangzhou area has opened a new discussion on town plan analysis within three integral components—town plan, building form, and land use—based on comparative studies. Such studies show that the processes of the cities on certain period lead the people to take historical background into consideration for conserving or renewing the towns upon the scientific data. Larkham and Morton (2021) and Kropf (2021) explore the urban morphology practices in conservation plans and creating a policies on Stratford Upon Avon by the means of morphological regions for defining the character areas at planning level. While UNESCO put an emphasize to put how the create a basis to analyzing and proposing cultural heritages by using Historic Urban Landscape as a tool (Larkam and Northon 2011) studied signifies how the contribution and collaboration with local authority are important in practices. Also this study is one of the significant examples that showing how the local authority and theoretician had been collaborated in conservation plans to put the planning policy strategies in UK. While morphological issues have been take into consideration by UNESCO and also they create a guide in planning policies and strategies at planning level on one hand. On the other hand, those studies carried out by Samuels (2021) on urban design level that examines two planning tools; appointing planning officials and making preparations that include approaches from the spectrum of urban morphology. This brought the basis for improving the spatial quality of master plans in UK. With coding system the unit and proximity of the spaces carried the their local identity. This study is benefits of the linking of academic work together with local authority in practices that found the barriers incorporation with urban economical consideration on conservation and rehabilitation level.

In fact, the most practice-oriented studies in morphological studies are seen in urban rehabilitation and renovation projects within the scope of typomorphological approach in line with procedural typological studies. Muratorian School has put on the theory within this field. Cannigia had found an opportunity to discuss all of the theoretical bases basically in Como and other Italian cities but it is a questioning how it will be in practice in the future. While Strappa (2021) assesses the relationship between the morphological reading of the built environment and the architectural design by considering the typological characterization of the organism, architectural values of the existing tissues and new proposed forms have been put a systematic way of understanding on typomorphological studies both in theory and practices, also it shows an evidence for further studies. Later Moretti (2021) puts an emphasis on how the transformation of typological process of the cities by considering the Mouratiorian theories into practice both an analysis tool for understanding the urban form over all and also put the relation with relevant authority during the process in order to define the guidelines of urban rehabilitation and renewal. He indicates that the analysis of urban and typological process is possible with cartography, and at the same time it makes it possible to highlight the layers of formation and transformation of the urban fabric, which remains a process for contemporary projects. This also brings another discussion on how relatively new urban forms may link between the cultural and social context that produced them is more evident. Moreover, this perspective opens the view to a “sensitive morphology” in which the contemporary project establishes a relation between the cultural heritage sites, urban conservation areas, or new architectural proposal with the aspirations of its inhabitants. While typomorphological studies spread in Europe by considering Mouratiorian School approaches both in theory and practice, Wowo Ding used similar practices to rehabilitate the small villages in China. She addresses how design can be considered base on research and conclude on the meaning of using morphological research in practice, debating why practice needs research, how it works, and in which ways it can be done. This achievement opens a new discussion among architects who are in academy and who practice in order to understand the systematic way of understanding. Parallel to Ding et al. (2021) point out how the integration of planning and architectural point of view take into consideration on morphological approach that had tested on design of a nineteenth-century house. In here the fundamental question of the relationship between the analysis and design of the urban landscape is what to preserve and what to change?

As a result, within the scope of cultural heritage, conservation, rehabilitation, or renewal projects in morphological studies, studies made by shedding light on strategic planning and spatial planning in cooperation with local authorities at the planning level, and also the transformation of typomorphological elements at street scale were discussed directly or indirectly by many theorists with applicable or applied examples.

The most important feature in the selection of Louroujina is that the morphological region in the planning scale is also considered as criteria in this process and applied by the local authorities, although it is not in any strategic plan or schedule. The town is one of the frontier vernacular towns that has survived to the present, despite all kinds of changes and migration, and is one of the unique examples of vernacular Mediterranean identity. The town during the post-conflict period in Cyprus, town population has been decreased from 5000 to 500. One of the reasons is the proximity to the border and distances from the closest cities. Because of the two reasons there is a rapid place displacement to closing towns. Afterward, town has become smaller and processing physical decay has emptied most of the houses. In line with this in 2006 Louroujina municipality applied to rehabilitation of the town in order to achieve physical, functional, and social revitalisation at the town. United Nations Development Project (UNDP) founded the Lourinina by the means of physical rehabilitation and functional revitalisation.

Putting to design the stages of the process has started the rehabilitation process. As seen in Fig. 4.1, first stage of the project has been started on planning level in order to understand the urban form by the means of historical–geographical perspective. On this stage, morphological characteristics of the town analyzed by defining the morphological regions. In second stage, rehabilitation and restitution of the buildings has been figured out by using procedural typological perspective. In here, rehabilitation and restitution of street characteristics, plot head characteristics, and buildings have been analyzed by means of understanding the characteristics of typological process of existing structures. Last stage covers the implementation and practices of the project into practice by using the historical–geographical and procedural typological processes by consulting the governmental bodies, owners of the buildings, and project authority.

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In the scope of the first stage at planning level, Louroujina municipality applied to UNDP for the identification and rehabilitation of these priority areas, a budget was determined in the process. Within the scope of the budget, a group of urban designers, engineers, and architects determined the morphological regions by doing research for 2 months according to land use, building typology, and plan units throughout the whole town. Afterward, the city planning department was contacted and informed about how the method and the process would work, it was discussed that such methods should be added to the planning criteria and should be handled while making spatial planning, and as a result of the discussions, these were added to the criteria in this field. Subsequently, an application was made to the land registry office for 40% unused buildings and land ownership research. One reason for this was to get permission from the landowners and the other was to reach the land owners and become a stakeholder in this project. After the land ownership inventories taken from the land registry office, all the owners were contacted one by one, and their permission was obtained, provided that they were informed at every stage about the rehabilitation of their buildings in a possible application. Also the functional revitalisation information has been given to them upon their approval. After all the processes were completed, the planning and design team started working to determine the priority areas within the budget by defining the morphological regions. Morphological regions have been figured out by analyzing the plan unit, land utilization (Fig. 4.3), and building type (Fig. 4.4). Upon the morphological regions’ study, first rank of the area has been selected for façade rehabilitation and functional revitalisation (Fig. 4.2) by approving the city planning department, UNDP monitoring committee, and landowners. Within the scope of the budget, it was decided to rehabilitate morphologically the first rank regions, and to give new functions to some buildings by the approval of firstly landowners, then planning department and land survey department as a governmental authority, municipality as a local government who provide a common discussion ground for all relevant bodies, and local NGOs and UNDP monitoring committee who are financing the project.

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When the morphological characteristics of the town have been defined, building types, plan units, and their pertinent characteristics on the street level have been studied in stage 2.

As seen in Fig. 4.5, detailed research on building and their plot characteristics together with pertinent street characteristics has been analyzed in order to putting existing situation of the tissues on one hand. The archive studies for understanding the transformation of the town have been done both at national archive and also the land survey department.

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As a result of the research, morphological transformation was observed as a result of the overlapping of the maps and photographs of the 1900s with the current situation. In this study, the maps showed that the street formation did not change and preserved its original structure. Only in 224 and 336 parcels, the structure does not appear on the 1900 map. Instead, the continuation of the building in plot 224 used as an extension of the khan on plot 223. It was observed that this place was demolished in the 1940s and the coffeehouse of today was built, and the research showed that coffee house has set back from the street where coffee house terraces align on street. Morphologically, withdrawing from the street line after this formation shaped the coffee houses, and this resulted in the differentiation of the plan unit. With the studies, the current situation has been preserved, but the walls and structures that define the street in terms of defining the street as a morphological element and creating a border have been added to the street and morphological continuity has been ensured.

In order to figure out the existing situation, measuring the existing façade, streets, and square with total station and photogrammetry method has been followed during the restitution and rehabilitation process by tracing the previous tissue that has been researched. In the archival study, the area, which is currently the current road, was used as a village square in the 1900s, and kebab was made in the big ovens in this square every weekend and on national days, and it was started to be used as a gathering place for the people in the whole village. Morphologically, the location of the ovens was determined as a determining element in the village. In addition, due to the structure of the village, these ovens can be observed in many different small squares. In the design process, it has been suggested that these elements will be brought back to the village, both to continue the cultural habits and to continue the plan unit. In addition, the texture was maintained by interpreting the proportions of the stones connected with the old street by making use of the form of the square and its relations with the buildings. In line with surface material and texture, all solid and void relations along the street level were also took into consideration as a design guideline. One of the significant elements on public open spaces is the community oven (Fig. 4.10), which has been observed at all the public open spaces. They are a morphological element together with façade element.

As seen in Fig. 4.6, existing facade has been explored both with archive data and facade traces along pertinent street characteristics. During the analysis, windows proportion, material types, windows, door, porticos, shutters, stairs, entrance position—elevated, depressed or same level—on street and their relations has been deeply investigate in order to find out general morphogloical characterisitics of street plan unit. Addition to those roof types, structures and material have been defined. Moreover, interview with the former owner and current owner gave the designer a great opportunity to figure out the existing morphology of the houses, plots on the pertinent characteristics of the street especially defining the overall morphology from their own photograph archives and old title deed. In order to understand the characterisitcs of morphologial regions in the first rank, series of systematic methodology has been applied for restitution and rehabilitation. Morphologically, it helps to preserve the existing morphology and providing a new proposal by considering the current situation. After the design process was completed, the designers gathered in the area again with all the stakeholders and exchanged ideas on how this area was designed in the process, what was taken into account, and how archival work was done? These sessions were held five times before the completion of the project and were completed after being revised as a result of the feedback received.

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Design proposal on street level has been done according to the existing morphology on pertinent strip typological transformation on building level by interpreting all façade elements (window, door, stair, roof, arches, shutters, etc.) with proposing materials, proportional division, solid void relations, and structure characteristics by considering typological process since the construction of the buildings (Figs. 4.7 and 4.8). The design process was resolved in line with the comments, experiences, and suggestions of all relevant stakeholders, governmental bodies, and NGO, after considering the morphological transformation, by adhering to the plan units, if it is possible to complete it, by taking the old traces in this context, taking into account the plot and building relations, and considering the relations with the neighboring plots on street level, and suggestions were created. In this area, attention has been paid to ensure that cultural continuity is not disrupted on the one hand, and that it is handled in an integrated manner without losing its morphological character on the other. This idea has been developed throughout the town, before implementing the project firstly consultation with all partners (UNDP monitoring committee, municipality, antiquities department, owners, habitants) as a last decision at the end. This approach has been applied at all the streets which has been morphologically in first rank of the region.

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During the implementing the project, procedural typology of the building has been the primary concern but also structure, material, and volumes have been searched during the process. The new proposal for façade rehabilitation by the means of physical revitalisation has been implemented on site especially monitoring by UNDP collaboration with the owners of the land, stakeholders, and governmental bodies.

During the implementation phase, the cycle of the typological processes of the buildings and the transformations in the process were among the main objectives of the project. In this process, all analyses and findings were systematically researched before the implementation was started, and then, after sharing with the stakeholders, the production of the implementation projects and the tender process started. The company, which won the tender in the process, started by questioning the appropriateness of some decisions, since this project was not only a rehabilitation project, but also a part of the process and transformation. In particular, the adoption of the project by the owners and the fact that the buildings are more livable by using the cultural clues as the texture allows, starting from the building construction details during the construction phase, was created at this stage. For example, the design agreements and on-site solutions of the bakeries in the streets and their immediate surroundings have been realized by the transformation of the form in the cultural context. At the same time, during the implementation phase, the local people contributed to the problems that could not be resolved on a local scale, especially about adobe, by making their own production, and started to use one of the rehabilitated buildings as a workshop in this area. After the implementation not only physical rehabilitation and renewal is enough, afterward functional revitalisation has been necessity for actively using the town not only for residence but also tourist and other people all around the Cyprus. Within this scope some local shops in (Fig. 4.9) have been structured and convinced the locals to open it and create the continuation of the function. Additional local authorities support the villagers to organizing a local festival to attract the people all from the island.

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The findings give a systematic methodology for assessing the vernacular town by the means of historical–geographical and procedural typological approaches on vernacular towns with the collaboration of the stakeholders, governmental bodies, and owners on one hand. On the other hand, it gives a common ground for discussing and assessing the urban revitalisation and rehabilitation project in practices by applying and legalizing those systematic way of assessment on town plan rehabilitation and renewal approved by governmental bodies and local authorities. Within this scope Rehabilitation and Revitalisation Projects in practice need to be tending to deep analysis of the townscape and the inputs of the existing surrounding not only analyze and understand the façade and surface but also analyze the townscape on planning level by considering plan units, land use, and building types through the process. In line with such studies, if there will be an other morphological elements has been founded during the research, other morphological methodologies may considered on the research by analyzing them. In the scope of this study, public oven is one of the important elements that needs to be taken into consideration as a morphological element.

Additionally, the research findings give a systematic methodology for assessing the traditional urban form rehabilitation in practices for further studies as a holistic way. Within this scope, historical–geographical and procedural typological processes would be followed together in order to achieve a better solution on overall morphology of the cities or towns in implementation on practices by considering all relevant stakeholders. Such a study not only archive research but also narratives help to figure out the existing structure of urban morphology throughout the process and transformation. Only the physical rehabilitation and revitalisation is not enough to implement but also functional revitalisation could be proposed in order to create the livable environment especially by analyzing the land use patterns in the past and observe their transformation. This study shows that especially in functional renewal project all relevant bodies need to be taken into consideration in order to create a liveable environment.