Criteria for Location-Planning-Design of Bazaar Places and a Preliminary Assessment for the Post-COVID-19 Period

ABSTRACT

With the advent of agricultural revolution, sedentary lifestyle called for people to exchange their surplus goods in return for the others they need. In settlements, emerged by this tradition, bazaars became the first commercial places where the sell-ers and buyers meet. Being one of the most important public places in the culture and daily-life of a particular locality from past to present, it is essential for bazaars to be located, planned, and designed in line with the requirements of the time so that they sustain their existence properly. COVID-19, initial cases of which-ironically-were seen among the staff of a live-animal and seafood wholesale wet market in Wuhan, China in December 2019, shortly transformed into a global pandemic, changed our daily routines by directly affecting the use of especially open pub-lic spaces and commercial places. Thus, these spaces and land -uses need to be reconsidered in terms of the "new normals" and "physical distance rules" during and after the coronavirus pandemic. This study, which also includes evaluations for the post-COVID-19 period, aimed at a set of holistic criteria for the location-planning-design of bazaar places that are important for social life in Turkiye regarding their public-commercial use. Accordingly, after examining the before and ongoing COVID-19 literature, world bazaars, and legislation;locational, planning, and design scale properties of bazaars that would effectively serve a local population are put forward by introducing the Bazaar Places Planning Table (BPPT). Subsequently, a simple version of BPPT is tested for bazaar places of a medium-scale city.