Abstract

One of the most salient features of traditional shopping spaces is the association between urban fabric and social structure. However, today’s shopping spaces are dislocated towards the new shopping complexes outskirts of cities. Thus, shopping spaces in city centres are neglected causing them to lose their spatial value as traditional spaces enhancing public interactions, and to dilapidate. Therefore, it is seen, in city centres, that the unity of ‘urban fabric-shopping place’ is impaired. This impairment is also observed in traditional shopping places in Balıkesir. Thus, urban values that maintain the unity of ‘urban fabric-shopping place’ in traditional core of the city should urgently be clarified. For that reason, this paper aims to analyse the morphological features of traditional shopping spaces in Balıkesir, in terms of urban design principles and tissue characteristics of the urban core. To this aim, an alternative approach was developed for analysing traditional shopping spaces in town centres. This analysis approach is intended to take its reference from spatial characteristics in traditional urban spaces. The essential components of the approach are morphological features of squares (nodes) and streets (paths) and their characteristics regarding spatial configuration.