Challenges of designing for historical city centers

This chapter presents the challenges encountered while developing design strategies for historical city centers and constructing the projects over two case studies. These cases that have been carried out with metropolitan municipalities in Turkey are explained through their processes from the competition project to construction and use. Since the architectural features of the projects are not explained in this study, content is prepared that focuses on the processes rather than on the final product. The content is a combination of written literature about cases and documentation of the author based on his involvement in the project process. After the processes for both projects were described, a comprehensive evaluation was made. According to the findings, factors and actors not limited to historical values of the project sites, buildings and artifacts above and below the ground on the sites, poor visual and functional quality of the sites, behavior and habits of the users of the site, request of authorities from different levels, coordination of other collaborators, evacuation of the sites and cost of the construction were the challenges faced by the project owners. These outputs are expected to guide the professionals from the design field that will carry out projects with the municipalities in Turkey, develop design ideas for historical areas, and conduct constructions in historical areas.