With whom: Eskisehir Osmangazi University Bademlik Design Festival team and university students
When: 2021
In 2018, together with Kerem Erginoğlu, we held a workshop called “The Endless Minority” within the scope of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition Venice Biennale Turkish Pavilion Shift project. We continued to research the housing issue within the framework of social and mass housing with Nevzat Sayın’s call to think about “the state of the house” in 2021, from a user’s perspective during the pandemic period, and to research the reflections of the social and mass housing, which we mentioned in the current period, on users. The third leg of this series was the workshop called Settlement, which we conducted at the Bademlik Design Festival on 9-11 July 2021. In the workshop, we tried to trace and document the emergence processes of organically undeveloped social and mass housing areas in different locations and the usage processes of these structures with the participants. In the three-day workshop, which is a continuation of the housing research of HiM, using digital tools such as online maps, social media channels, guides to question “place”, “settlement” and “dwell”, accompanied by deciphering and tracing, or we aimed to produce it with expression techniques such as games.
In the workshop, the focus was on structures that are out of context or trying to create contexts, such as prefabricated structures that are placed in a grid plan system in villages after natural disasters and do not communicate with their surroundings, chateaus that are replicas of each other with building blocks of the same size positioned in the middle of the forest for commercial purposes. Starting from the regions where the participants live, it was tried to explore, understand and follow the traces of these structures by visiting the residential areas in various geographies on google maps. We discussed the relationship of social and mass housing with place and context in the historical process, and the reflections of these structures on users, the relationship between architecture and housing, housing policies, economic and political processes of housing production and marketing strategies.
In this study, in which we deciphered the houses produced under the headings of urgency, need and pleasure, we discussed how the users shape their relationship with the house, the sustainability of these buildings that have a simple relationship out of context, and the factors that affect the economic and political policies that affect the production of these houses.
We would like to thank the Eskişehir Osmangazi University Bademlik Festival team for inviting us to the “Settlement” workshop, and all the workshop participants with whom we worked fruitfully.
You can reach the booklet containing the productions in the workshop here.
You can read the articles about each work in the workshop below:
SETTLEMENT
As HiM, the “Settlemnet” workshop, which we conducted with the Bademlik Festival Team on July 9-10-11, discussed the housing issue under three main headings: “urgency, need and pleasure”. In the discussions we had about the titles through examples, we examined the title of “urgency” in terms of location, context and user in the mass housing in the villages of Erzurum, Hınıs, Ketenci and Muş, Varto districts. We discussed the economic and political factors and marketing strategies that are effective in the production of houses built after the earthquake. We discussed the processes of Düzce Hope Houses, İstanbul Hadımköy and Çorum TOKİ structures under the title of “need”. In the Düzce Hope Houses process, we examined how the spatial needs of the users transformed these structures, starting from the local organizations that emerged after the Düzce earthquake. We discussed the effects of locating social and mass housing in remote areas on marketing strategies. Under the title of “pleasure”, the residences in Muğla, Datça Aktur holiday site and the unfinished Burj Al Babas complex, where there are castle-like houses in Mudurnu, were deciphered. While the location of the Aktur holiday site by the beach and its reflections on the use of this location were discussed in a positive way, the traces of Burj Al Abbas’ contextlessness were examined through social media posts. Although most of the structures produced in the topics discussed have negative effects on the user, we observed the positive effects of some structures on the user as a result of the strong relationship they establish with the place and context.
During the workshop, the animation called “FIND TOKİ” was prepared as a result of deciphering and tracing different regions through digital tools such as social media channels. While preparing this animation, the marketing strategies involved in the production of social and mass housing, the areas where it is located, and economic and political concerns are based on the examples discussed. The main purpose of the animation is to produce a guide to help the users think and understand about the city, green space, architecture and housing relations.
The traces of the settlements that were inundated during the discussions were investigated through the examples in Batman, Elazığ, İzmir, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep and Malatya. Hasankeyf, located in Batman and declared as a protected area, was traced on maps and a video was prepared by supporting it with street images. The negative effects of the flooding of “Hasankeyf”, which is considered in a historical process, on users were investigated. These factors were discussed in terms of place and context.
The participants tried to deal with the houses in a broad perspective, not only with local examples, but also with examples from different geographies of the world. The reading of the campuses in Mezar-ı Şerif was examined under the headings of urgency, need and arbitrariness. The dome obsession, which we frequently encounter in the campuses, was read from the user and the ground. In another study that deals with the story of displacement comparatively, the disconnected relations with the place were deciphered by changing the locations of the residences in Bursa and Hong Kong. It was noticed that no deficiencies were observed in the relocation of a house that was taken out of its context to another place. This is an indication of how much the produced structures are detached from the place and context. In addition, decontextualization readings were made over Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. In this context, Mersin Silifke; Antalya Belek; the location and situation of idle holiday sites in Muğla Fethiye and Aydın Didim were determined on the map. Another tracing study was carried out in Nevşehir, on the impact of social housing in the city center where displaced people move, on the socio-economic lives of the users.
In the examinations made on the topic of disaster, the production of containers and houses, which were produced as a result of user needs after the earthquake in order to read and decipher the campuses after the Van earthquake, were discussed. The question of why the emergency social and mass housing produced by researching materials after the disaster is not sustainable was taken as the focus of the study and the houses were read through place and context. Based on the problems in the production of earthquake tents and the structural fabric in the tents to be produced for the users in line with the urgent needs after the earthquake, material suggestions inspired by nature to solve social needs were discussed. Environmental factors such as ventilation, light and water were taken into account. Various samples were scanned in Turkey and abroad.
The researches and suggestions presented here are studies that have emerged with the collective discussion of personal transfers in a short time and do not claim to be complete, on the contrary, they are intended to be a base, guide and inspiration for future research and suggestions. HiM and workshop participants intend to continue these research and recommendations, and are always welcome to those who wish to be involved.
Workshop coordinators: Emre Gündoğdu, Feyza Çınar, Tayfun Parlak
Workshop participants: Abdul Basir Qaderi, Ayla Erdoğan, Dilara Kırcal, Merve Aras, Tuba Ölmez, Ferdanenur Kılıç, Öykü Uyar, Kübra Andaç, Bengü Şahin