What if some people were given the right to alter the urban planning of one of the biggest, peculiar and interesting cities of our planet and make the change in their activities?
Students of Girne American University, located in Northern Cyprus, have had the courage to ruminate on possible ameliorations, which can be done in regard to some cities of the world.
It is under the patronage and creative stimulus of the senior lecture of architecture department, Ms Hassina Nafa, that such an outstanding initiative was undertaken. Academic projects envision possible amendments that could be made in order to fix the existing issues within the urban planning of certain locations and their activity.
Ideas were assembled and constituted a thought-provoking seminar which covered such cities as London, Nicosia, Izmir, Sanaa (Yemen), Isparta, Shahba (Syria), Alexandria (Egypt), Antakya, Minsk (Belarus). Organized by the lecturer of Girne American University Hassina Nafa, it consisted of the presentations of “Urban Experiment” course students. Hussam Husain Makhalfeh assisted Ms Hassina Nafa and introduces some useful softwares.
Students analysed cities from different perspectives: population, mass and void, density, networks, land use, facilities, landmarks, accessibility and transportation. They also employed Kevin Lynch analysis to then create the strategy for the future development of their projects.
Altan Ramadan Ozsutcuoglu shared his view on “the financial capital of the world” and capital of England, multicultural and multilingual city of London giving the vast variety of information.
Behcet Yeniguc looked on south and north sides of Nicosia city proposing the strategy which takes place in the buffer zone. His concept aims to facilitate the cooperation between two sides.
The third speaker, Diclehan Bekir, presented Izmir – one of the most developed cities of Turkey. He emphasized some historically and urbanly important districts, as well as the city as a whole.

garantiilaclama.com
Ghada Elsayed A. Abdelmeguid Rabie studied the city of Alexandria in Egypt analysing it, comparing it with the samely named cities in England and Greece built by Alexander the Great. She has proposed the development of the canal area and its water filtration as a future project.

Fort Mc Quay in Alexandria, Egypt
Hasan Melih Gulsoy analysed the area called the city of roses – green Isparta, which connects 3 biggest lakes of Turkey. According to H.M. Gulusoy the main disadvantages of the city are its dence planning, as well as close positioning and interconnection of industrial areas with city center.

http://www.biligbitig.com/2014/07/turkiye-turkleri.html
Sanaa city was introduced by Mawaheb Nail Mohammed Saeed. The city is also called Arabia Felix in Yemen and has been experiencing the earthquake since the year 2015. proposed to start her project with primary evacuation of people using still accessible routes inside the city and around it to face huge amounts of damages and difficulties caused by the causality.
Safaa Khaddaj presented Roman built city of Shahba in the southern part of Syria. Her future strategy is to develop the new plan of possible city enlargement thanks to the existence of clear surrounding areas.

Antakya
Antakya city was presented by Tugce Katipoglu and her proposal was to develop the leisure activities of the promising river side as well as its sustainability.
Victoria Beliakova presented the city of Minsk – the capital and the largest city of Belarus originated in 1067 which experience great growth in the 20th century for which the last speaker proposed to create river bank facilities and develop more activities connected to the river usage for local people and tourists.
Research and development of the the project was based on the understanding of modern cities’ needs in field of planning, quality of life, urban core identity which can be turned to the better by revitalization efforts.
Almira Khafizou
Taliya Khafizou
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