Representation and Context Based Studio Design Process: Articulating

a City (Istanbul)
İpek AKPINAR
İstanbul Technical University
akpinari@gmail.com

Canan GANİÇ
İstanbul Technical University
cananganic@gmail.com

doi: 10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.08127

Abstract: In architectural education, imparting of stationary knowledge, which establishes space only as
physically, is insufficient to achieve the skill that will enable the architect to find solutions to problems
encountered in the future. In this case, to perceive space both tangibly and intangibly, a trans-disciplinary
milieu is required to acquire derivable knowledge and create a setting of debate and criticism over that
acquired knowledge. What might be methods and approaches that can stimulate and re-shape thought,
encourage curiosity to acquire creative and critical knowledge in the architectural design studio? How can
new experiences and perceptions of the city be reflected in architectural milieu? How are the experiences
and outputs produced by different types of representations in the studio? To what extent can a contextual
reading trigger the architectural scenario and program? In the light of the above-mentioned questions, this
study focuses on the relations of the design studio with the city, the people, the place and everyday life,
and, it unveils everyday life by the setting up of contextual readings and representations. It discusses the
role of the design studio in understanding the place, the people as a social phenomenon and the reciprocal
relationship of space with everyday life through the milieu of the Architectural Design Studios 3-4-5-6 at
Istanbul Technical University, Department of Architecture. It is expected that the student's own journey and
experience, rather than the de facto assumptions, are highlighted by grasping the information of place/city
at different scales and disassembling (de-composition and re-composition) of existing knowledge. In this
respect, different scales and approaches set the design strategy of the studio and direct the design. The
study gives a brief theoretical background focusing on the relations of architecture with the city. Secondly,
it discusses architectural studio as a platform of representations and narratives for the city and the people.
Thirdly, and finally, it gives concluding remarks. Although the results are provisional, this study may give a
broader understanding of the relations of the city, the people and the design studio.

Keywords: architectural design studio; context; experience; everyday life; architectural education

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0

International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
İpek AKPINAR, Canan GANİÇ

1 City/Place/Milieu: Istanbul as the Context for an Architectural Design Studio

In Istanbul in the last decades, a population increase has been associated with unprecedented increases in per capita
income; unprecedented investments in urban infrastructures (speed train to Ankara, speedway to Izmir, connection to
southern Marmara via bridge over Izmit bay, Marmarail third bridge, airport two) emergence of a new city region and
of a spatial frame for the stable electoral and social geographies, new consumption patterns, new life styles, new
localities, new activity bundles, non-place realm. In this context, the new infrastructural system is going to form new
spatial interaction patterns for the mega-metropolis – causing the generation of a new geography for the 21st Century
Istanbul – as depicted by Murat Güvenç (Güvenç, 2017). As a result, the city has been re-shaped and is going to be
shaped by the emergence of social and economic segregation, tensions stemming from the contact with contrast
interpenetration of lifestyles consumption patterns, a new city region with a new urban society, a new built
environment social and electoral geography, and new local Identities. In this framework, sustainability and social
cohesion are put at stake. What we are witnessing in Istanbul is a rapid and chaotic capitalist urbanization - very
reminiscent of Manfredo Tafuri’s depiction on the one in American cities in terms of the restless, wild, harmful, pitiless
commodification and consumption process accompanied with the loss of ethical values – as depicted by David Harvey
(1990).

In this ambiguous situation, it is difficult for experts to predetermine the future. Researchers in the humanities deal
with the formation and the process of identity and new approaches in humanities question common notions and
approaches to the city/architecture - design - human being - nature in a holistic system. These studies approached the
city, on the one hand, as the space of power, and on the other hand, as the space of multitudes, negotiation and
appropriation. These works put emphasis on the gap between official representations of spaces, and their multiple,
conflicting conceptions, remembrances, and imageries. Those works focused on issues related to cultural identity and
memory; and discussed how subordinate people negotiated their cultural values and identities through spaces. They
saw architecture as a medium where ‘ordinary’ people represented their self-images or reconciled their cultural
values with interacting cultural systems. And there is an urgent call for new approaches in the systematization of
design/architecture/urban studies. Henri Lefebvre’s theories encouraged researchers and designers from various
disciplines to conceive spatial formations as part of the socio-cultural fabric. After several other social thinkers who
theorized space as either the background or product of social relations, Lefebvre was the first to see space as both; as
at once the ‘medium and outcome’ of social life (Lefebvre, 1991). In other words, for Lefebvre, “space was produced
socially as social reality was heavily influenced by spatial relations” as depicted by Hilde Heynen (2013). In Lefebvre’s
formulation (1991), “the production of space” did not simply point at a physical production; but included a multiplicity
of physical and non-physical layers including everyday practices and lived experiences. The built environment was far
from being an end product. It was continuously re-produced in everyday life; through each particular use, experience
or remembrance. Thus, according to Lefebvre, spatial production included images, dreams, memories, mentalities and
ideologies. Space, therefore, needs a broader understanding, and a new positioning in theory, research and design
approaches. Studies in humanities do not provide a unitary method or have not agreed on terms and issues. However,
we can detect a common interest: the making of space as a social product. Space is understood as a social entity with
particular, localised meanings. Inter-/trans-disciplinary and theoretical intersections continue to use spatial
metaphors; studies still require some form of critical remapping – spatial representation. As referred in The Unknown
City (Borden et al., 2002), Benjamin treated architecture “not as a series of isolated things to be viewed objectively;
but rather as an integral part of the urban fabric experienced subjectively”. Instead of describing buildings in terms of
aesthetics or function or categorizing them in terms of their style or means of production, Benjamin approached
buildings as aspects of culture. Accordingly, he produced a profound social critique of early 20th century Europe by
analysing how the built environment was produced, used and perceived (Benjamin, 1999). Parallel approaches to
architecture and the built environment are echoed in numerous recent studies. “Places in the city are not merely
architectural metaphors” says Svetlana Boym (2002): “they are also screen memories for urban dwellers, projections
of contested remembrances. Of interest here is not only architectural projects but lived environments, everyday ways
of inhabiting the city by following and deviating from the rules, tales of urban identity and stories of urban life.”’ In
The Future of Nostalgia (2002) Boym also emphasized the gap between master images and multiple experiences of
spaces. She claimed that “the ideal city existed only in architectural models and in the new total restorations”,
whereas the city always consisted of infinite fragments (Boym, 2002). Spaces might be produced according to
(physical and symbolic) master images of regulative bodies; but they are made up of infinite fragments and are
infinitely reproduced through use and imagination: through “multitudes” (Hardt & Negri, 2005) that infinitely re-
imagine and transform them.

In the light of this framework, our studio architecture is understood as cultural landscape -a physical and discursive
product, continually reproduced through culture, politics and everyday life. The term architecture does not refer solely

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 Representation and Context Based Studio Design Process: Articulating a City (Istanbul)

to the practice of architects. The built environment does not refer to an accumulation of physical objects. The studio
as a design research milieu leans on the idea that architecture and the built environment are embedded in cultural
and social tissues, and are continuously produced and reproduced by multitudes of actors - discursively, as well as
physically. Our studio in the last five years has been designed as a trans-disciplinary research milieu combining a
variety of thought systems, most of which derive from critical theory. Our approach to architecture and urbanization
as a design research platform is in parallel with Jean-François Lyotard’s towards grand-narratives. It aims to track
power and institutional mentalities that still dominate architectural and urban memorialization. It looks critically at
the cultural relations, and dominant and recessive patterns, attempting to show how they exclude a multiplicity of
embedded meanings. Criticizing institutional and ideological forms of knowledge, Lyotard cherished the multiplicity of
human perspectives.

The basic question of what are the contexts and themes in the global context bringing new questions on the format
and content, as well as the meaning, and providing students the recognition of the infinite multiplicity of points of
view. In the crucial new context, what can be the role of an architect vis-à-vis the built environment? To what extent
can we make a difference as architects and as citizens of this city? How to develop a new language to deal with
ambiguity? How to set up a dialogue with the foreigner and the other? To what extent can an architectural design
studio be a milieu to unveil these chaotic issues and make young candidates of architecture aware of the context? To
what extent can an architect be the architect of the 99 percent instead of 1 percent? Whose side can the architect
take? How to touch the everyday life of the other?

With the above-mentioned questions, our study unveils the main approaches of our studio in the last five years aiming
for the formation of an intellectual. For the setting of a new language in the systematization of architectural studies,
our studio questions the common notions and approaches to history/architecture/theory/design. It problematizes
yesterday via cultural layers for designing today. The basic question is how to design an integrated/trans-disciplinary
design approach based on ecology, cultural economy for the making of a human city/settlement/architecture? How
can research in design studio can be combined with urban studies? How can cities be best conceptualized as sites of
social and political identity, as ambiguous territories of conflict, and as incubators of innovation and creativity? To
what extent does grasping the everyday life and experiencing the place pave the way for critical design thinking?

A critical experiencing of the city, research process and alternatives representations of the contextual narrative from
the process provides a multi-layered picture about the place, the people, the theme of the semester.

2 Representing the City/Place/People in the Design Studio

The core theoretical framework which determined the general approach of this studio as design research is based
upon a wide range of insights from humanities. Besides a core knowledge on the theory and history of architecture
and urbanism, it also leans on cultural and social theories, critical theory, poststructuralist theory and others. This
framework centres upon keywords such as identity, memory, history, culture, power, architecture, globalization,
cosmopolitanism; dwelling on a number of sub-intersecting issues and leading architectural students to face the
presence of multi-issues surrounding the reproduction of space in Istanbul.

The studio aims to develop a critical thinking of the built environment for the experimental re-discovery and creative
analysis of place/city in different scales. Spatial experience emerges within experience/perception and critical
thinking. Perceptions during experiences can be the constituent facts of understanding, grasping the built
environment. This unveils how the reflexivity such as awareness, suspicion, care, intentionality, curiosity,
remembering and forgetting can be transformed into understanding for the design process.

In Architectural Design Studio 3, 4, and 5, conducted between 2014-2018 at Istanbul Technical University, Department
of Architecture, an urban milieu affects the student's relationship with the city/place, the local and his / her own body
and production of a space in the studio with the information gathered from that discovery. The setting up of a critical
trans-disciplinary milieu in the design studio provides gathering social and spatial, tangible and intangible information
about the place, experience it individually, and transfer this experience into representation(s), and then, to transfer it
for the re-production of space.

In the trans-disciplinary design milieu, a critical discovery process is triggered by shared experiences and workshops -
initiated instead of training students who just understand what teacher teaches (Ranciѐre, 2014). In the design studio,
all works are approached as cultural products (parks-buildings- networks-infrastructures) - the patchwork of the
human existence, and thus, all cultural products are also a topic of design research and design. The

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duty/task/responsibility of a young researcher/designer is to work as a detective to question the urban layers and to
unveil the mega-narratives. The design research process begins with theoretical readings, mappings and musings,
leading to questions interrelating identity, memory, culture, socio-economic structure, power and architecture. The
architectural design studio in 2014, titled Pier's Navigation, the aim was to explore the possibilities of structure, space,
scale, conflict and relations between city and physical experience. For this reason, the importance of both the
analytical and intuitive was emphasized in the process and both were used to comprehend the project area. Urban
layers were collected through maps, photographs, written sources and observations for grasping and experiencing of
place. Grasp is based on solving and reassembling/ recompose. For this purpose, experts from different disciplines
supported our studio milieu.

A cartoon workshop on the use of public spaces was realized with the artist Nalan Yırtmaç. Through this workshop, the
students shared their observations and experiences in Karaköy via fictional characters. The representation is
composed of these cartoons and collages also trigger the production of knowledge and awareness through experience
and observations. In Figure 1, it is observed that Özlem Yazgan's observation, encounter and experience in Karaköy
are transformed into visual information with cartoons.

Figure 1. Cartoon Workshop by Nalan Yırtmaç, ADS 2017 Spring, Özlem Yazgan.

The actress Ayşe Draz organized a drama workshop which stimulate re-thinking of everyday life in Karaköy and on the
waterfront with creative theatre techniques. Through this drama work, it was aimed to discover the potential of the
body in the formation of space. Body with the dance and drama studies were asked to consider the potentials of the
body that is standing and moving. Thus, the positioning of the body in the space and the possibilities of the designed
space became questionable. In the studio conducted between 2014-2018, it was observed that space-body and space-
user relations were established more strongly during production of space where body workshops were organized
(Figure 2).

Figure 2. Body, Movement and Space Workshop, TAL Dance, Taşkışla.

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 Representation and Context Based Studio Design Process: Articulating a City (Istanbul)

One of the targets in the studio is developing awareness to interpret what you see and the ability to re-discover, grasp
and re-experience the built environment, unveiling both ordinary and hidden dimensions. Representations and
mappings of the knowledge of place/space is gathered from experiential and creative processes, in different forms
have been triggered to continue the re-production of spatial information. Focusing on the everyday life (banal,
temporary, simple, standard, conventional, even boring) removes the sacred veil over urban and architectural issues -
as proposed by Michel de Certeau (2009) in the 1960s as a tactic to deal with mega-narratives and mega-rules. In this
regard, it has been possible to face contradictions, conflicts, dilemmas as well as dynamics and potentials - which have
been put under investigations by young architectural students as detectives. In this investigation, setting up a Barthian
symbiotic relation with the built environment is a must: a dialogue with place, citizen, and to listen to the voice of the
city/citizen, smell it and be a flaneur/flaneuse grasping the built environment. With these holistic approaches, it is
possible for students to think of the city with its surroundings, as well as with the local and the human scale (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Analyze of Karaköy, Studio Pier’s Navigation (Cansel Özkan, Büşra Balaban, Mert Zafer Kara).

In the architectural design studio 2017 titled “Re-Experiencing the Golden Horn”, the aim was to reinterpret the place
through grasping, experiencing and re-representing the built environment with Roland Barthes’ work (Barthes, 1994).
For the all-round consideration, comprehension and interpretation of the place/city, various seminars, workshops and
excursions were organized with architects and experts from different disciplines. Re-reading and mapping the urban
traces as an archaeologist was the process of the studio. Architects have to integrate local values with global issues,
using technology and knowledge on behalf of innovation. They have to bring social awareness, environmental
sensibility and ethic responsibility to their work. Referring to the urban experience, we seek ways for re-reading the
city through its incomplete experience, cultural codes and historic values – with a flexible approach and critical
thinking to grasp its multiple layers of meaning. We experience the paradox of the old city and global place which
requires both continuity and change.

Semra Aydınlı emphasized the concepts of tangible and intangible and triggered rethinking the possibilities of these
concepts. Intangible and invisible channels of space hold within itself perceptual energies. They all refer to place-
memory – as depicted by Semra Aydınlı (2017). As she argues, enmeshed experience motivates us to grasp the multi-
sensory qualities of the existing environment. It makes possible to be in constant dialogue and interaction with its
narrative space. The tangible and intangible experience represented via mappings and transformed into knowledge
about the built environment is not only considered as documentary evidence; rather, it speaks to the emerging
cultural awareness of the traditional settlements studied and experienced in Istanbul. Grasping the intangibles of
space via experiences as well as tangible data, and then transfer this body of experience into mappings /
representations of place-space is the essential part of the design process.

Ali Vatansever talked about storytelling methods and made a story-writing workshop on the characters’ photographs
taken by students during their trips to Eminönü. By way of the characters which have taken photographs by students
in Eminönü, they conducted an analysis of the local with the method, is to be relatively part of the place through
creating a fictional story with the local characters, based on their own observations and the knowledge of the place
(Figure 4).

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İpek AKPINAR, Canan GANİÇ

Figure 4. Scenario Workshop by Ali Vatansever, Studio Collector’s Span, Cansu Kaçar.

Students internalized their scenarios and transformed them into spatial information. Thus, it is possible to investigate
the relationship between the user and the space. In Figure 5, the wishes of the children that Selin Sevim encountered
in the project area are expressed and these wishes are tried to provide with designing transforming space (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Dreams of Children, Transformations of Space, Studio Collector’s Span, Selin Sevim.

Landscape architect Defne Akyol gave an overview of the approaches to the design of public space on the waterfront
and gave examples. With that method, we supported the emergence of the unexpected and heterotopic with
Benjamin’s word.

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Table 1. Works of Students | ADS 2016 Spring (Cansu Olgay, Nida Bilgen, Yeşim Armağan, İlayda Memiş, Altan
Yılmaz)

A holistic way of seeing, re-thinking and re-understanding the city/place with the local as a spatial and social structure
can be associated with its narrative space during the design process. While investigating the social and demographic
structure of the daily life of the local, not the majority, the plurality has been highlighted and an attempt to
understand the voice of plurality. Focusing on plural voices of the everyday life in multi-faced and multi-linguistic
imperial city is an essential part of the design process. Not only human beings, but natural elements, animals are also
accepted as social actors of the built environment, and therefore part of the design research.

It has been observed that students often have difficulty in transforming the knowledge of the place/city into spatial
knowledge, which is derived from the exploration of place/city supported by various architecture and trans-
disciplinary seminars and workshops. Focusing on urban scale, place, people, body provide to face shifting balances;
the multi-dimensional experience and reading create a dynamic effect in perception as well creativity of the student.
Representations and mappings of the urban context, everyday life, peoples, body in the design process pave way
critical and creative development of a story – scenario - program based on conceptual idea (an argument, an
architectural word) for the design proposal – providing a broader meaning, critical contextual inter-relations of the
design proposal.

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İpek AKPINAR, Canan GANİÇ

Table 2. Works of Students | ADS 2017 Spring (Mert Ceylan, Cansu Yağcıoğlu, Eren Hısım, Ayşenur Gül, Salih Özsan)

In brief, the main argument and message of the studio to the young candidate of architecture is to provide insights
into plurality instead of majority. In this context, it is necessary to prioritize humans and pluralism. Representations
focused on experience, space, place and humans / living beings trigger the emergence of the unexpected and
heterotrophic. With a broader investigation of the local, participatory design is allowed: in the last two semesters,
students designed for chosen locals. Designing for an open and democratic city, the awareness of the city right, citizen
right, nature right, water right, etc. were raised. The participatory design milieu has even become more trans-
disciplinary and inter-active.

Change, dynamics, conflicts, oppositions, contradictions as well as dynamics and potentials, ambiguity, plurality,
transparency, right to the city, water right, nature right can be guiding words for a new design language and an
alternative architectural beginning starting from the studio. A tentative milieu exemplifies this.

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 Representation and Context Based Studio Design Process: Articulating a City (Istanbul)

Table 3. Works of Students | ADS 2014 Fall (Tayfun Saman, Ayşe Tuğçe Pınar, Cansel Özkan, F. Şeyma Erdal, Büşra
Balaban, Sedanur Albayrak)

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About the Authors

İpek Akpınar is an associate professor at ITU, and conducting architectural design

studio, lecturing graduate courses on the relations of architecture with urban,
political and cultural context, and collective memory. Following her bachelor (1990)
and Master of Science (1993) studies at ITU, she has received her doctoral degree
from UCL Bartlett School (2003). Her collaborated international research project
based on the personal archives of Henri Prost at Paris was exhibited and published.
She is the author of Moonlight Monastery (2012) and 10th Year of the Sabancı
Museum (2013).

Canan Ganiç graduated from İstanbul Kültür University, Faculty of Architecture with
a first. In 2014, she completed her master's thesis titled with “Art Spaces’ Relation
with Urban Boundary: The Case of Karakoy” at ITU. Between 2014-2017, she
participated in architectural design studios with Asst. Prof. Dr. İpek Akpınar at ITU.
She took part in the architectural competitions individualistically and with different
groups as students and professionals; she won various awards. For four years she
worked at TEMPO and is working in Reyhan Ganiç Architecture since 2015. Currently
she continues her PhD studies at ITU.

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