Integrating Renewable Energy Systems into Urban Furniture for Recreational Spaces: A Design Proposal for Konya Adalet Park

Recreational areas are designed to promote physical activities as well as provide opportunities for relaxation. Recreational open spaces improve the long-term environmental and social sustainability of cities. These areas offer natural beauty in and around cities while sustaining the environmental equilibrium of city life. They also serve as a socialization hub for people to make contact with each other. They can also be promoting areas for sustainability. Introducing the use of technology in public areas will promote its use in daily life also. One area of technological advances that needs to be promoted for establishing sustainable communities is the integration of renewable energy resources for our daily needs. This study focuses on difficulties and strategies for the integration of renewable energy in recreational areas and evaluates a recreational open space; i.e. Adalet Park in Konya in terms of possible applications of renewable energy sources. Since solar energy potential is high in Konya PV integration is the best option for the area. On the other hand, wind power is not sufficient for producing energy with wind turbines, hence, wind belts and small scale wind mills can be integrated into the park furniture. To this end, the design of various urban furniture with integrated renewable energy systems was prepared for the Karatay Adalet Park in Konya; and the amount of energy that can thus be produced was determined. According to calculations using wind and solar data and a software, it is possible to produce 50 MWh/a of electrical energy with these installations.