PLANLAMA-PLANNING, cilt.31, sa.1, ss.108-119, 2021 (ESCI)
Taking the challenges of provision of thermal comfort as a point of departure, this paper argues that climate responsive urban design has great potential to make cities more resilient to climate change. With a concern of climate responsivity, this research brings a critical perspective on the current urbanization trends in Turkish cities and underlines the inconsistence nature of ongoing urban developments with the foreseen climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. The research is constructed based on a comparative study between the traditional urban pattern that has been developed since the Artuqids era and the contemporary urban pattern that has been developed from the 60s in the province of Mardin. The comparative study focused on responsivity of the produced urban spaces both in terms of both the climatic conditions and the ways which local people uses the urban space. While doing that, the research explored the role of urban space on the provision of urban thermal comfort in everyday life. The research revealed that existing development trends in Mardin leave citizens vulnerable to the negative effects of increasing temperature values and potential heat waves in future.