Preferences of University Academic Staff for Their Surrounding Environment: Uludag University as a Case Study

Abstract

As a result of the damage to natural areas, open and green spaces in cities shrink in area and even disappear. This has caused an increase in the number of studies concerned with human-nature relations in urban landscaping. Contrary to the fact that the major part of our lives is spent in our workplaces, there are not many studies that investigate human-nature relations in workspaces. However, workspaces cover big areas of the urban landscape, their arrangement is of major importance in both an ecological and economical sense. The present study aims to shed light on how the academic staffs working at the Uludag University campus perceive the nature that surrounds their workspace and what their expectations concerning their natural surroundings are. Although the employees wish to see arranged landscapes surrounding their workplace, they significantly prefer naturally arranged spaces. It is evident that the staffs are concerned about the surroundings of the buildings they work in and that they make correct assumptions about and descriptions of the surroundings of their buildings.