Spring 2010
Multimedia Design Studio Course
Istanbul Technical University (ITU)
Course Leader:Gökhan Karakuş
Team Members: Ece CANLI, Erdem TUTAL
However, having taken into consideration the project brief, discussions, readings and knowledge flow, instead of coming up with a new design solution, in this project all the situations, debates and main dynamics of the theme were discussed. The main core of the process was researches and discussion sessions on urbanization, squattering, displacement, west-east contradictions in Istanbul as a cosmopolit; after that the concepts were presented to Emre Arolat Architectural Design Team. Below is the project brief by Gökhan Karakuş.
General statement
Heading west, the vast continuous space of the Asian fluid space gives way to the controlled landscape of plan and architecture. Rather it would be say of planned architecture. Planned design. The territorial divisions are clear. We have a simultaneous but disassociative occupation. Many have talked about it. But we today possess little knowledge of its shape, of its form, its morphology. We can see it quite clearly. This intermingling of the industrial and the earthly. From the horizontal to the vertical, we can see a move towards smoothness and particularity. Dust is a proper index of the change in geologic and horticultural transformation. As the dust settles so does the dynamic free flowing spaces of the steppe and plain of Asia give way to the formal systems of urban planning and architecture of the West. But this transition not only happens as the organization of space but more so in the union of material and habitation as building and placemaking. We can speak of an ethnobotany. Of the change in the relation of earth and plant towards use and form. We can see aspects of grarian archaism is in the contemporary.
Of man’s activities in this space, we can point to the temporality of physical environment. Or better, we can say that that there is a looseness, a dedifferentiation of the environment. The firmament gives way to the construction, to construction. Solidity and place are established. Marking is formalized. The landscape is stripped of its cosmology. Direction and vector are guided. The spirits of symbolic and pattern forms fade into increasing levels of camouflage. Native force is transformed and dwells in more everyday systems. Semiotics takes over from localized place marking. There is an ecological transformation. The shape of the land, its morphology is subject to numerous tactical interventions. Informal and temporal these shapes and shaping practices are resilient. Residues are woven together. The body is ever present. We walk the landscape. Cross the bridge. We are carried.
Wayfinding and the informal/intuitive
The aim of this studio will be to understand how the Eurasian synthesis can be applied to the demarcation and habitation of land in the construction of place from space and the physical. Our focus will be to apply this methodology to a wayfinding design system as an electronic and static medium to a particular public space. In this way, we will introduce the multimedia and informational networks into the physical environment. Furthermore, we will explore the use of public information and safety symbols, colour coding, human behaviour in public buildings, emergency egress, use of maps, and many others topics of visual information. We realize that "signage" is too narrow-minded a viewpoint, and as such will focus on 'wayfinding' in general. Wayfinding covers the whole process of orientation, information, and navigation surrounding and supporting use of signage.
The architectural context
Our project will focus on a specific architectural project, the Kagithane OfisPark by Emre Arolat Architects. This project which derives its morphology from the surrounding informally built “gecekondu” squatter settlements allows us to provide a tactical street based wayfinding solution as part of the overall architectural approach. The architectural features are key aspects of achieving a more intuitive and comprehensive wayfinding system in our built environments. Our task will be to work in-between the informal systems found in the surrounding context with the formalized architecture of Emre Arolat. Overall, our goal is to find a way to merge these practices while providing the practical goals of direction, navigation and place creation.
The analysis of neighborhood, the main project and all the other dynamics included:
REFERENCES:
Readings
Robert Smithson, Hotel Palenque, 1969-1972
Michel de Certeau, “Spatial Practices” in The Practice of Everyday Life , 1984, pp. 91-130
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, “1227: Treatise on Nomadology; The War Machine”, in A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 1988
Marc Auge, Non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, 1995
William J. Mitchell, Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City, 2005
David Gibson, The Wayfinding Handbook: Information Design for Public Places, 2009
Paul Mijksenaar, Visual Function, An Introduction to Information Design, 1997
Videos
Paul Mijksenaar, lecture, Architecture and Wayfinding: A Matter of Spaces and Cues, 2009
Robert Smithson, Hotel Palenque, 1969-1972 on UbuWeb