Designing for the Majority: Rebuilding a City’s Character

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A symphony cannot be made with a single note. Spring does not arrive with a single flower. You cannot claim that “public life” has been saved with one well-designed square. This question of repetition can look like a technical “scaling up” problem; yet in truth, it leans on something sociological: Collective behavior is shaped not by isolated examples, but by patterns that multiply. People see something once and call it “interesting”; by the third time, they begin to “get used to it”; by the tenth encounter, they internalize it as “this is how this city is.” Cities work a bit like that: a single project is a story; multiplying projects become culture.

A city is not a display window where a single project shines; it is more like a fabric woven from the repetitive motions of everyday life.

Architects, landscape architects, urban planners… From time to time, all of us carry the weight of good ideas that remain in the “minority.” A bold project gets built, the visuals are splashed everywhere, it’s talked about intensely for a while—and then everyday life returns to its own rhythm. At that point, you can’t help thinking, “What did I fail to do?” Yet in most cases, what’s missing is not the quality of the design, but the power of repetition. The absence of repetition is the city’s greatest forgetfulness. And that forgetfulness comes back to the designer as “failure,” even though a city does not learn by seeing something only once.

Why Is the Majority a Design Material?

One of the most valuable reminders from the field known as the sociology of architecture is this: Space is not only designed; it is lived, imitated, and sometimes quietly rejected. People learn how to walk on a sidewalk, how to sit in a park, where a parent positions themselves in a playground—less from “written rules” and more from repeated practices. If the designer does not align with these practices, design eventually remains as mere decoration.

That is why thinking about the majority in design is not “trying to please the majority”; it is about building a language that can touch the majority’s repetitive behaviors. The mere existence of a bike lane does not create a cycling culture in a city. But a network that connects neighborhood to neighborhood—repeatedly establishing the school–park–market axis—eventually produces the perception of a “cycling city.” The same is true for children’s playgrounds: a single outstanding playground looks great on Instagram and makes for good political material; but for a child, the feeling of a safe city emerges when all playgrounds work with “similar qualities.” Trust is not a singular object; it is a repeated experience.

Let’s think of it this way: Snow that falls once is a “view.” But snow that keeps falling for days, layering on top of itself, is “winter.” A city’s character works the same way; a single implementation creates a view, while repetition creates a season. If we want design to become a “season,” we have to take the majority into account: multiple repetitions, continuity, a maintenance routine, institutional ownership—and even a bit of stubbornness.

Here, the designer’s field of empathy expands. Because many designers want to convince everyone that they have saved the world with “a single powerful project.” Yet the city is not persuaded; the city slowly gets used to things. And getting used to something is, for the most part, a product of repetition.

The City Likes “Series”

Cities live through collective memory. A city comes to accept as “natural” the things it has done again and again in the past. In our cities, the problem is often this: something is done once, and then it remains the “first and only.” Being first and only can carry a kind of romantic pride, but it does not build a sustainable language. There is a big difference between saying “we have it too” and saying “we have this culture.”

Sometimes, the design world also falls into a kind of “novelty fetish.” Every project wants to act as if it has never been done before. That flatters the designer’s ego, but the city’s learning mechanism asks for the opposite: encountering something familiar again, in a different place. The city likes “series.” And that is not a bad thing. Just as a chorus repeats in a piece of music and we catch the emotion in that repetition, cities also need certain choruses. Pedestrian priority, shading, seating-and-rest bands, child-scale details… These are the chorus. When the chorus repeats, it doesn’t simplify the song; it makes the song something people can claim as their own—something they can memorize.

We can see this most clearly in something very simple: wayfinding behavior. If, in a city, directional signage, the lighting language, and sidewalk materials keep changing, people have to “relearn” each time—and they get tired. But if the language is consistent, people move faster, feel more at ease, and the city becomes “familiar” to them. This is how design relates to the majority: producing trust through familiarity.

My Claim: “Let There Be Ornamental Crabapples Everywhere”

Years ago, after seeing the Ornamental Crabapple and ornamental pear trees planted opposite each other along Cumhuriyet Avenue, an idea came to my mind. With that idea, I repeatedly posted the following sentence—quite boldly—on Twitter to the Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality mayor of the time (Ahmet Küçükler): “Ornamental crabapple trees should be planted everywhere in this city.” When I say this in a conversation, some people smile; some say “you’re exaggerating”; and some ask a fair question: “why a single species?” My concern is not to reduce botanical diversity; it is to weave a city’s visual–scent–seasonal memory through one strong motif. In a place like Erzurum—where the climate is harsh, winter lasts long, and the color palette hovers for months between grey and white—having spring felt through a sudden burst of red blossoms is genuinely valuable. Ornamental crabapples (Malus species) can stage that burst; at a small scale, yet with a large effect, they can function almost like an “urban signature.”

Ornamental crabapple stays on stage not only with its blossoms, but also with its fruit. Even after flowering ends, the small fruits provide visual continuity; they attract birds; and with fruits that can remain on the branches even in winter, they leave a “trace of life.” On Cumhuriyet Avenue, it has already been planted together with ornamental pear trees. Now imagine starting to see this plant again and again—along Erzurum’s wide boulevards, in neighborhood streets, around schools, near playgrounds, and within mass-housing landscapes. Not for one year, but for five years, ten years… That is when the ornamental crabapple becomes not just a tree, but an “urban memory.”

The core of my claim is this: the character of cities is often built not through a single good idea, but through that idea multiplying. In Erzurum, the ornamental crabapple repeats—again and again and again. After a while, people start describing spring as “ornamental crabapple season.” Children memorize those blossoms on their way to school. Photographers choose locations around them. Café names, boutique brand packaging, and municipal posters borrow the motif. This is a kind of “urban imitation economy.” Here, imitation is not negative; it is the engine of cultural production.

Looking with Empathy at the Question: “Why Don’t We Have Something Like Japan’s Cherry Blossom Festival?”

When people talk about Japan’s cherry blossom festivals (hanami), they tend to swing between two extremes: either we romanticize it (“they do it so beautifully”), or we dismiss it altogether (“it wouldn’t work here”). Both are easy sentences. The harder thing is to build empathy and see the mechanism.

In Japan, cherry blossom is not merely an aesthetic event; it is a public ritual repeated for years. That ritual is sustained by a finely woven network of understandings—between government and residents, between local businesses and park management, between the media and everyday life. For a festival to “exist,” it is not enough simply to plant trees; regular maintenance of those trees, tracking the flowering period, a more flexible approach to public-space management, the organization of safety and cleanliness, and even people considering it normal to “be there” during that time are all required. And that normalization, again, is a product of repetition.

In our cities, however, the situation is often this: something gets done, but ownership across institutions is not clearly established. The rhythm of the parks department, the culture department, the transport unit, and the security unit does not really meet. For a festival to be continuous, it needs to be held “every year on the same dates, with the same seriousness”; here, we often have to start from scratch each year. Starting over is exhausting. And where exhaustion sets in, the festival becomes “a one-off event.”

There is also the issue of climate, maintenance, and spatial continuity. Cherry blossom season is brief, but it is a brief period people expect. Here, flowering can sometimes be a surprise; sometimes frost hits; sometimes maintenance is delayed; sometimes pruning is done incorrectly. When people do not develop the confidence that “it will happen this year as well,” the ritual breaks. When the ritual breaks, the festival remains at the level of a poster. And a poster does not build a city; a poster only announces something.

Right here, a more realistic question emerges for our cities: “Instead of imitating the culture of cherry blossoms, can we derive a repeatable flowering ritual from within our own climate and urban memory?” My insistence on ornamental crabapples in Erzurum is nourished, in part, by this question. Because ornamental crabapple can speak with Erzurum’s reality—not with the romance of cherry blossoms, but with Erzurum’s wind, cold, wide avenues, long winter, and strong sun.

Positioning the Flowering Crabapple as an Element of Urban Character

Cities are sometimes remembered by a scent. Sometimes by a color. Sometimes by a taste. Designers usually focus on the visual language; yet urban character is something multi-sensory. What the ornamental crabapple offers here is not merely a “flower”; it can function like a package—given a bit of intent, a bit of organization, and a bit of repetition._

The scent of ornamental crabapple blossoms (yes—that lightly sweet scent that sometimes feels almost like “clean air”) could become an urban signature. Small-scale initiatives inspired by this scent could be imagined: cologne, soap, candles, room fragrances… These need not be designed as tourist trinkets, but rather as more refined “city mementos.” Just as Oltu stone carries an identity in Erzurum, ornamental crabapple could carry identity from a softer angle. Moreover, products like these bring local producers and designers to the same table; this is exactly where the sociology of design comes to life.

The question of a mascot is often underestimated, but I think it is a very “public” tool. When a city has a child-oriented face—one that makes people smile—it softens urban belonging. Creating a character based on the ornamental crabapple fruit (for instance, a small red apple figure—wearing a scarf in winter, a hat in summer…) may sound simple; yet as it is repeated in school activities, municipal children’s festivals, and playground wayfinding, it gradually turns into a symbol. A symbol keeps memory alive.

The festival dimension is the most critical part: a festival should not be a one-off celebration; it should be a fixed knot point in the city’s calendar. Imagine something like an “Ornamental Crabapple Month.” Not only concerts, but also walking routes, photo frames, jewelry, perfumes, drawing workshops for children, guided photobotanical tours led by landscape professionals, gastronomy workshops… A program that repeats every year gradually becomes “the ritual of our spring.” At that point, the role of designers is not only to draw spaces, but to design programs, to design experiences, and even to stage a kind of urban scenography.

I think the gastronomy part could be the most enjoyable section… The fruit of the ornamental crabapple may not be directly suitable for the table, but it is powerful as inspiration: apple-themed flavors, experiments with apple vinegar, local reinterpretations with an ornamental-crabapple theme, even trials like “ornamental crabapple pickles”… The aim here is not to eat the biological material as it is, but to help the motif spread throughout the city. If the motif spreads, the city gains character. That character is more lasting than a tourism brochure, because it seeps into everyday life.

And let me emphasize again: none of this “happens” within a single year. That is the point. The point is to multiply the same idea—to repeat the same language. To have design, governance, civil society, and local businesses play the same melody, each with different instruments.

To Be Effective Is, in Part, a Matter of Patience—and of Working in Series

Sometimes we want to define ourselves through a single “icon project.” We want that project to stand like a sculpture—seen by everyone, applauded by all… But cities are less like sculptures and more like walks. In a walk, rhythm matters. And what builds rhythm is repetition. A city being child-friendly, a city being pedestrian-friendly, a city’s “spring” being remembered… These are not built through singular miracles, but through small truths that multiply.

That is why I like the ornamental crabapple idea in Erzurum. A little romantic, yes. A little like a dream, yes. But also very realistic: choosing one tree and stitching it into the city’s veins again and again simplifies and strengthens the city’s language. Rather than copying a cherry blossom festival one-to-one, it feels more genuine to draw a flowering culture from within our own climate. In our cities—or in our lives—many of the things we say “don’t work” often don’t work simply because they were tried only once. They don’t work because they weren’t repeated. They don’t work because they never reached the majority.

Perhaps the quietest yet strongest question in design is this: How many more times am I willing to say this idea? Across how many more streets am I willing to repeat it? For how many more years can I keep walking after the same small sentence?

The city takes that answer seriously—whether we notice it or not…