For whom: Yahşibey village and children
With whom: Emre Senan Design Foundation, Nevzat Sayın and university students
When: 2019
On 15-30 July 2019, together with Architect Nevzat Sayın, we conducted the 44th Yahşibey Design Workshop with the participation of 10 architecture students from different universities. In the workshop, which is hosted by Emre Senan Design Foundation (ESTV), we found the opportunity to rethink and reproduce ideas about “Abandoned Rural School” issue, which we have been working on since our establishment. In this context, all schools in Dikili were been visited and the situation of the villages and their schools in overall Turkey were discussed. Beside of this discussions, projects about 2 abandoned schools in Yahşibey were developed.
Yahşibey Design Workshops, which has been taking place in İzmir Dikili Yahşibey village, aims to “provide a provocative atmosphere of creativity for the young design students of different disciplines working enjoyably together.” Architecture workshops in Yahşibey is conducting by Nevzat Sayın with different partners each year. You can find more informations about Yahşibey Design Workshops on its website.
At the beginning, ESTV shared with us the idea of bringing back the abandoned school buildings in villages for children living in disadvantaged areas, which will never have the opportunity to have a summer holiday. Bütün Çocuklar Bizim (All Children Are Ours) Association also involved in these meetings and together we thought that the school to renovate for this project must be the Yahşibey school, because of the close relationship of ESTV with village through its activities. Yahşibey’s closeness to the sea was also seen as an advantage for being a holiday destination. Afterwards, ESTV proposed us to involve this years’ workshop by Nevzat Sayın and work abour this subject. We planned the workshop with Nevzat Sayın and made a common open call for participants with a text written by Nevzat Sayın. 10 participants were selected among 270 applicants considering different school and male / female balance. In addition to 10 participants, 1 student assistant and 8 member of our association participated in the workshop at different times.
At the first day of workshop we visited the ancient cities of Aigai and Bergama, which are close to Yahşibey. On the return of this trip, which aims to observe the ancient architecture in the context of its relations with the environment, all participants made presentations about themselves, their works and their expectations on their way to Yahşibey. On the second day of the workshop, we went to 25 villages in Dikili and visited the school buildings in these villages. In only 7 villages schools were open and none of the abandoned school buildings in other villages were used. In some of these schools, there were efforts to re-function for a period but they were closed again. Most of the buildings were structurally damaged and used as dumpsite or storage for hays, baits etc. Although some schools have been closed for a long time, it seems like their doors were almost pulled out yesterday, or no one did stopped by for long time. This created striking images about forgottenness. After visiting the schools, we started discussing their situations and potentials for transformation. In order to think about this discussion in the scale of whole country, we presented what we have done and what we have seen as associations since 2012 to the participants and tried to feed the discussions with various books and articles.
From the third day of the workshop, we started to concentrate on the abandoned schools in Yahşibey. There are two school buildings in Yahşibey, first one is built in 1948 and used as an imam lodging until 15 days before the workshop, and the second one is built in 1979. There are also 2 more lodging buildings belong to these schools. Firstly, we have documented the current condition of these buildings and gardens and measured them. Before starting to develop projects about schools, we had an online discussion about the idea of a holiday destination for children with the participation of Selda Özen from Bütün Çocuklar Bizim Association. Beside this subject, we also told to participants that they can develop different proposals.
The participants developed projects in pairs from the first weekend to the presentation on the evening of July 27th. In these projects, which were developed for both schools and gardens, structural proposals were handled together with program proposals. In addition to the use of children, scenarios were produced that included the villagers in terms of ownership of the project by Yahşibey, who had a very small child population and was expected to host children from outside. Emre Senan and Nevzat Sayın participated in many interim presentations in order to discuss the ideas and prepare them for the final presentation. We made the final presentation on the evening of July 27 with the participation of the guests who wondering about the issue and the villagers. After informing about the subject of the workshop, the groups presented their projects in turn and answered the questions. After the presentations and the distribution of the certificates, we held another meeting where feedbacks and workshop process were evaluated. In the last two days we have completed the workshop by preparing booklets and cleaning the house.
For Yahşibey Design Studies, as well as the studies, a common 15-day life organization by participants and coordinators is as important. In the 44th study, which we joined, the meals made and eaten together, the cleaning of the house and the pool, the contacts with the villagers, the entertainment in the building, the pool, the garden and the sea and the music listened created a pleasant solidarity atmosphere for these 15-days period. We would like to thank to parcitipants for creating this enjoyable time and producing ideas through intensive labor, to ESTV for including us to the process and warm hosting, to Nevzat Sayın for working together fruitfully, to Bütün Çocuklar Bizim Association for their contribution to the process with their ideas and to people of Yahşibey for sharing their food and conversations.
You can find the booklet containing the projects in the workshop, daily reports and the updates of the participants in this website.
Here you can find the photo album of the workshop.
Here you can listen to the common music list of the workshop.
Workshop participants:
Ahmet Berk Hot, Büşra Kayalar, Dilara Uçar, Ece Savaş, Güney Gürsu Tonkal, İpek Üstündağ, Kadir Irmak, Oğuz Batur Taş, Şebnem Balım, Sinan Birsel
Workshop coordinators:
Altıner Yıldırım, Elif Tan, Emre Gündoğdu, Fırat Altundağ, İdil Bayar, Hasan Cenk Dereli, Nevzat Sayın, Oğuzhan Çokgünlü, Setenay Kamazoğlu
Student assistant:
Hazal Güven
