Kültürel, coğrafi yada geleneksel olarak ayırt edici özelliklere sahip olan kimlikli kentler, bu özelliklerini farklı endüstriler için; görünür, tanınır ve tercih edilir kılmak amacıyla pazarlamaya çalışmaktadırlar. Bu çaba içinde çoğu zaman farklı ölçekte yapılar ile mimari mekan üretimi de yer almaktadır. Bu sorumluluğa sahip olan tasarımcı; kent belleğinde yer alan motif, renk yada sembolleri tasarım senaryosunda çeşitli şekillerde kullanmaktadır.Ancak geçmiş ile günümüz arasında kurulmaya çalışılan bu ilişkinin kullanıcıya ulaşabilmesi ve aynı amaçla algılanabilmesi de çok önemlidir. Bu amaçla; çalışma alanı olarak tarih, kültür, gelenek, zanaat ve bunun yanında köklü bir gastronomiye sahip olan Gaziantep kenti seçilerek; kentin belleğinde önemli yere sahip olan motif, sembol ve renkleri tasarım senaryosunun ürünü olarak kullanan büyük ölçekli ve kent için yeni bir yapı türü olan bir mimari mekanın tasarım kararlarının kullanıcı tarafından nasıl algılandığı kullanıcı ve tasarımcı katılımlı istatistiksel analiz ile sorgulanmıştır. Analiz sonuçlarına göre; yapı cephe malzemesi, yapı formu ve mimari algıya yönelik sorular alışveriş merkezi kullanıcılarına yöneltildiğinde; kullanıcıların büyük bir bölümünün son yıllarda üretimi artan alışveriş merkezi yapısıyla daha önce karşılaşmadığı, bu nedenle yapıya mimari bir anlam yükleyemediği, yapı ile ilgili mimari beklentisinin belirgin olmadığı ve tasarımcı dış cephe kararlarının kullanıcı tarafından aynı amaçla algılanmadığı görülmüştür.

The cities having cultural, geographical or traditionally distinctive features, are trying to advertise these features in order to make themselves visible, recognizable and preferred for different industries. Generally, this effort also involves the construction of architectural places and structures of different sizes. The designer, who has this responsibility, uses the motifs, colors or symbols existing in the city memory in various ways in the design scenario. However, it is very important that this relationship, which is tried to be established between the past and the present, should reach the user and should be perceived as the same. For this purpose, Gaziantep was chosen as the case of this study with its history, culture, tradition, craft as well as a long-standing gastronomy. The city, which is mostly preferred for its history and gastronomy, has attractive features involving its shopping activity in its traditional places. The shopping activity, which is active with its craft in traditional places of the city, has begun to turn into the new shopping centers with the growth behavior of the city and the changing global trade understanding. However, the designer tried to make the transition of the usual shopping activity of the city user to a new and large scale type of building by using the colors, symbols and motifs obtained from the city culture, by designing an inviting and non-foreign structure to the user. The question “how a shopping center, designed for this purpose and a new type of building for the city, is perceived by a user” was attempted to be answered using a statistical analysis involving users and designers. In this study, the user and the designer were asked questions in three different sections under the titles of building form, building facade material and architectural perception. In addition, it was aimed to determine whether there are significant differences in architectural perceptions according to demographic variables such as gender, age, education level and occupation. The number of samples for Gaziantep province was determined using power analysis. The main hypothesis of the study is that the perceptions of the participants (users) and the architect differ in terms of statistics. According to the results when the questions about building facade material, building form and architectural perception are directed to the users of the shopping mall it was seen that most of the users did not encountered the shopping center structure which increased production in recent years, therefore, they could not give an architectural meaning to the building, the architectural expectations about the building are not clear and the designer's facade decisions are not perceived for the same purpose as the designer. By analyzing the symbols, colors or motifs of the city, the user perceived the facade applied by the designer as a surface instead of seeing it in detail such as color, texture, size and shape.