YILDIZ TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY / MTG DESIGN STUDIO 08-09 STUDENT WORKS

project by Secil Sarpkaya / 1.st year student

project by Cansu Aydilek/ 1.st year student

project by Gulcin Borucu / 1.st year student

project by Ebru Cangazi / 1.st year student

project by Selman Ozcelik / 1.st year student

project by Secil Sarpkaya / 1.st year student

Robert Neuwirth's "Shadow Cities"

http://vodpod.com/watch/232922-ted-talk-robert-neuwirth
Robert Neuwirth has a thing for squatters. Fascinated by the illegal, homemade neighborhoods lived in by a billion people worldwide, Neuwirth spent two years (courtesy of a MacArthur Foundation grant) living in four squatter neighborhoods around the world: Rocinha, in Rio, Brazil; Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya; Sanjay Gandhi Nagar, in Mumbai, India; and Sultanbeyli, in Istanbul, Turkey. His time living in these neighborhoods has led to a book - Shadow Citiesand a blog, Squatter Cities.
His time in these communities has cemented his conviction that urban planners, NGOs and city governments need to stop thinking of squatters as outlaws and to start thinking of them as productive fellow citizens:
"The true challenge is not to eradicate these communities but to stop treating them as slums - that is, as horrific, scary and criminal - and start treating them as neighborhoods that can be improved. They don't need to be knocked down and built new, because in most cases this will only produce housing that is not affordable to the people who are living there."
To convince the readers that these communities aren't as horrific as we might think, Neuwirth spend the first half of the book recounting his experiences in these neighborhoods, helping us to understand the details of daily life and how these neighborhoods came to be. Clearly, not all squatter cities are created equally - Sultanbeyli is almost indistinguishable from other new neighborhoods of Istanbul, despite the fact that many builders took advantage of a Turkish law called "gecekondu", which allows illegal building during nightime hours, so long as the structure is occupied the next morning.
And Rocinha, where new businesses are opening everyday, and moped-taxis shuttle passengers between three-story apartment buildings - built illegally - sounds downright idyllic. (At least, until he explains that security in the neighborhood is provided by the local druglords and their semi-automatic weapons.)
But even a squatter afficianado like Neuwirth has to acknowledge that life in Kibera can be rough. In parts of the neighborhood, it's so dangerous at night that residents are afraid to walk to the nearby community latrines. (Instead they urinate in plastic bags, which they call "flying toilets", because they tie the bags shut and fling them as far away from their houses as possible.) One of his friends in Kibera loses all his possessions when local thugs dig through his mud walls to enter his house. Neuwirth discovers that there's an art to staying clean in a neighborhood where water costs up to 30 times what it does in the "legal" city, and that he hasn't mastered it - his friends confess that they find his disheveled appearance comical.(more...)
It's personal touches like this that make the book an enjoyable read. Neuwirth is an excellent reporter, and when he's sharing his experiences, he's an entertaining, if occasionally didactic, companion. The book fares less well when he tries to provide a historical content and philosophical justification for squatting. We get a whirlwind tour of squats through history, starting in ancient Rome, moving through the mining camps that became San Francisco and Sacramento, and an extended discussion of squatting in turn of the 20th century New York City. Neuwirth wants us to understand that squatting is a movement with a long history - it's hard not to get the sense, though, that it's a phase that cities in the developed world moved through and overcame as they matured.
Neuwirth wants to end the book with a critique of land ownership, hoping to demonstrate that while individuals should have rights of posession, they shouldn't have rights of property. In other words, he wants squatters - as well as "legitimate" property owners - to have some certainty that they will continue to possess their homes, but doesn't want non-resident landlords to speculate in property markets, turning land into a commodity.
It sounds like Neuwirth read a lot of philosophy by the light of oil lamps while living in the developing world. It takes him roughly 5 pages to reject Locke's theory of property and Aristotle on government, and to paint Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto as a "hypercapitalist" with a land-title fetish. Even Peter Marcuse, son of radical Marxist Herbert Marcuse, is against him, terming squatting an essentially "conservative" movement based on individual, rather than collective action.
Ultimately, he finds solace in Marx, Arendt, and ultimately, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French socialist, who declared "Property is robbery." As Neuwirth explains:
...there's a difference between property and possession. Property turns land into a commodity: people own land not to use it, or because they need it for survival, but simply as an investment. Possession guarantees personal use and control rather than profit. For Proudhon, property, not money, is the root of all evil..."
While "Shadow Cities"is a useful introduction to these growing communities, and goes a long way towards building the reader's appreciation for the ingenuiety and creativity of developing world squatters, one is left with few concrete steps to take. Neuwirth is deeply mistrustful of NGOs working on this issue, and spends a chapter on the follies of the UN's Habitat project, which is based in Nairobi, near Kibera. He admires the legal flexibilities that have made Rocinha and Sultanbeyli so liveable, but seems concerned that these neighborhoods are "selling out", and becoming unaffordable for the most needy squatters. If there's a single, overarching solution to the problems squatters face, Neuwirth doesn't seem to have it.
Ultimately, Neuwirth's primary goal is increasing our understanding of squatter communities - something he accomplishes admirably in "Shadow Cities,"and continue to focus on in his blog. Both are recommended to anyone interested in the reality of urban life in the developing world and in a set of issues that developing nations will be confronting in the immediate future.

Ethan ZuckermanJanuary 31, 2005 9:28 AM

Herzog & De Meuron , 2001 Pritzker Architecture Prize / Acceptance Speech

....

''In 1978, Pierre and I opened our joint architectural office, but it was neither a historical decision nor a momentous founding event. During our last semestre at the Federal Institute of Technology, we had already realized that we had a great deal in common. The fact that we struck out on our own was more or less an act of rebellion and desperation. What else were we to do?
The economy was not very rosy and architecture both at home and abroad seemed forign to us. We had no idea what we wanted, we only knew what we didn't want. ''

....

FIBONACCI SERIES

E_Wall Golden Section Pattern 01

An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth by Bruce Mau

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations. Collectively, they are how we approach every project.

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

41. Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

43. Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.

full manifesto is here; http://www.brucemaudesign.com/incomplete_manifesto.html

MASSIVE CHANGE by Bruce Mau

http://www.massivechange.com/

The Story of Stuff

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

IDEA, PHENOMENON AND MATERIAL by Steven Holl

There is a story that when Louis Sulllivan lay on his deathbed in a little hotel room, someone rushed in and said, ''Mr. Sullivan, your Troescher Building is being torn down.'' Sullivan raised himself up and responded, '' If you live long enough, you'll see all your bıildings destroyed. After all, its only the idea that counts.''
It is the idea that counts. The concept, whether an explicit statement or a subjective demonstration, establishes an order, a field of inquiry, and a limitedprinciple. An orginizing idea is a hidden threat connecting disparate parts.An architecture based on a limited concept begins with dissimilarity and variation but ends up illuminating the singularity of a spesific situation. In this way, concept can be more than an idea driving a design; it can establish a miniature utopian focus.
The essence of a work of architecture is the organic link between idea and phenomenal
experience that develops when a building is realized.Architecture begins with a metaphisical skeleton of time, light, space and matter in an unordered state; modes of composition are open. Through line, plane and volume, culture and program are given an order, an idea and perhaps a form. Materials the transparency of a membrane, the chalky dulness of a wall, the glossy reflection of opaque glass - intermesh in reciprocal relationships that form the particular experience of place. Materials interlock with the senses to move the perceiver beyond accute site to tactility. From linearity, concavity, and transparency to hardness, elasticity and dampness, the haptic realm opens.Through making, we realize that an idea is a seed to be grown into phenomena. The hope is to unite intellect with feeling, and precision with soul.
Architecture must remain experimental and open to new ideas and aspirations in the face of conservative forces that constantly push it toward the already proven, already built and already thought. Architects must explore the not yet felt. The realization of one insipired idea in term inspires others. Phenomenal experience is worth the struggle. It yields a silent response - the joy radiated in the light, space, and materials of architecture.
My favourite material is light. Without light, space remains in oblivion. Light's myriad sources, its conditions of shadow and shade, and its opacity and transparency, translucency, reflection and refraction intertwine to define or redifine space. Light makes space uncertain. What a pool of yellow light does to a simple volume, or what a paraboloid of shadow does to bone-whitewall-these comprise the transcendental realm of the phenomena of architecture.



I recently had an opportunity to make something out of just light and one other material, frozen water. The work is a nine-meter cube that I created in collaboration with the sculptor Jene Highstein. One enters the cube and comes into a space of reflection. The idea is that this architectural space is made of almost nothing. A month after its completion, it disappears and leaves no trace. Using materials as minimal and ethereal as light an water, one can make something that expresses and idea.
The design for the cube was based on a historical event in the city of Rovaniemi in northern Finland.At the end of World War II, the Germans burned down the entire city as they retreated. They didn't have to do it - the war was nearly over. When the inner circle of the nine meter cube melts through, the first view one has is directed precisely toward Rovaniemi.


Between idea and phenomenon, meaning vibrate, gather, loosen, disperse, shine, and mutate.Even delayed meanings may exert pressure, crack, fissure and be pulverized.











The state of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century Edited by Bernard Tschumi + Irene Cheng p: 27

Richard Serra at Gagosian Gallery London

Over the weekend unit-e had the opportunity to witness the outstanding scupltures/spaces created by American sculptor Richard Serra. Serra's sculptures are not only objects. They entail time, movement, process and define the space they are exhibited like no other. His oscilating waves, double curves, although its sizeable scale and material, are incredibly inviting and intimate.

"Allegedly about the twisting ellipses and soaring forms of the Baroque, these works feel mouthwateringly lyrical. Walking around these undulating sidewinders is like being around a herd of otherworldly elephants, or seeing steel skirts blowing in the breeze. Here you understand that Serra’s foes are right: His work is not about looking. These sculptures are so huge that they blind you. This work takes you on a sensuous trip beyond language and optics to a place where physical sensations replace sight. You don’t see a Serra with your eyes; you see it with your whole body. Sheer excess disarms sight. You walk around and through a Serra, brushing very close to it—closer than to any art I can think of—taking in its weight, texture, temperature, mass, and volume with parts of you you didn’t know you had. Flow, fullness, and rhythm become ways of knowing. It’s like being very close to another person; vision is useless as it’s subsumed into other parts of your body; you experience a loss of control. Surprise, entrancement, and enchantment mingle, and you become a walking nerve ending."
Review by New York Magazine Buona Serra
http://www.gagosian.com/

THE CYCLE OF THEORY AND PRACTICE, LEARNING AND TEACHING by Ben van Berkel

From Gaudi’s suspended constructions to Le Corbusier’s five points of the new architecture, architects have sought to formulate new models that encapsulate and consolidate into one bold statement aspects of construction, occupation and context in the broadest sense - always with a view to immediate implementation. It is much harder for academics to come up with new models, just as it is difficult for an educational institute to be a laboratory for cultural experiment in the way that Andy Warhol’s Factory was. Research and experimentation have to be based on real needs, a real drive, and real questions.
Yet, the academization of architecture has become relentless, with more students prolonging their studies, more universities offering more and higher degree courses, and more practising architects supplementing their income and status by teaching design. The next important question therefore is: how to teach?
DIGITALIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION
Since the architectural practice has transformed rapidly and profoundly due to digitalization and globalization, architectural teaching has necessarily changed too. In the offices the drawing tables have gone out, the staff has become international; in the universities and academies the same shift has occurred. The architectural project has changed; most often it now consists of a multi-functional hybrid of urbanism, infrastructure and various public and private programs, and this is what we teach. Architects have become hyper-conscious of the economic ramifications of their work: rising ground values, commercial potential, investment values, these are phenomena that were meaningless and unfathomable until the client, in collusion with the economic news media, enforced a new awareness of their importance. In response, architects have earnestly begun to try to incorporate economic principles in their design approach. Students, never having known a world without the pervasive echo of the media, have been quick to respond.
THE PITFALLS OF DESIGN
This is the Beaux Arts all over again: architecture has become restrictively academic once more. But how could this have happened? There is nothing intrinsically sterile to this technique. The only reason for the lack of evolution of computational design techniques is that they are taught and exercised in a hermetic way that is impossible to sustain in the actual practice of architecture, which is profoundly complex. It simply is not possible to foresee and to register in your computer all the real parameters that you will be working with as you engage in the long process of architecture as a practice that begins with an early vision, not necessarily that of the architect, and ends with a ruin in progress.The conclusion? There is nothing like teaching to open your eyes to the pitfalls of design. Seeing twenty to thirty projects unfold similarly and ineffectually every few months must be one of the most efficient forms of early warning system. It tells you that no further time must be wasted. Architects had better learn to apply more intelligence, more planning, and more strategic planning to design!

ELEMENT by Cecil Balmond

Patterns within structure the Divine as complex beyond the rules of simple understanding, but underneath is a notion of order and a unifying principle.
Number is an Element its value a universal. Beyond Emotion and language number is the perfect abstract ; it serves a cipher , symbol and a classification. Ideal of the making forms, to order and generate sequences that lead to assamblies impossible to think of otherwise, number is a catalyst.

Element, p 194

E_WALL

INTERSCALAR’08 systemic operations Istanbul workshop

http://www.interscalar.com/

27th eCAADe CONFERENCE / SEPTEMBER 16-19, 2009 / ISTANBUL - TURKEY

http://www.ecaade09.itu.edu.tr/

KAYITDISI 02 ''liminal''

Kayıtdışı bir kez daha kayıtta!
Farklı alanlardan katılımcıların araştırmaları, tartışmaları, ortak üretimleri, bunların etkinlik sonrası sergilenmeleri ve partileri ile Kayıtdışı 02 Tasarım Haftası için geri sayım başladı. Geçtiğimiz sene kayda geçen Kayıtdışı 2-7 Şubat tarihlerinde “tasarım”ı dert edinmiş herkesi yine YTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi’ne bekliyor.
Kayıtdışı ekibi tasarımı, sınıflardan ve eğitimin düzenli yapısından dışarı çıkarmak, eşit ve özgür ortamlarda tasarım yapmanın keyfini bir kez daha deneyimleyebilmek için tam kadro çalışıyor.
Kayıtdışı02 Tasarım haftasında 1 hafta boyunca üzerine konuşulup tartışılacak ve üretim yapılacak; tema uzun, yoğun tartışmalar sonucunda belirlendi: ‘liminal’
Bilindiği üzere tasarım ile ilgilenen herkesin katılımına açık olan Kayıtdışı’nda; amaç değişmedi. Oluşturulacak atölye ve tartışma grupları aracılığıyla disiplinlerarası ve enformel (kayıtdışı) bir tasarım süreci daha deneyimlenmesi hedefleniyor. Hedef ise Kayıtdışı 02 de farklı atölyeler, tartışmalar etkinlikler ve daha fazla katılımcı!