Architectural Design 3, Studio “The Whole”, 019-020 Fall TES 3, Section 5
Nizam Onur Sönmez, Istanbul Tech. University, Dept. of Arch. onursonmezn@yahoo.com
“The building” has been ‘the object’ and the core ‘concept’ of architecture. As a consequence, architecture has come to be understood as limited, finite, individual, enveloped, isolated, identical, and durable. Throughout this studio, we posed a series of questions to dissolve such understandings:
What happens when we dissolve the object of architecture and follow partial, vague, interactional, relational, borderless, porous, changing, systemic concepts for architecture?
What if we did not start with or move towards a well-established program (like housing or school etc.) but instead developed series for simply “being there”, a set of “presents”, felt moments, percepted peculiarities, that is for what is unique and momentous?
What would be the research tools, methods, approaches of this search?
With what kind of indefinite, simultaneous, unlimited, un-ended, heterogeneous, layered, multiple media would we be studying such spatialities and atmospheres?
During the first three weeks of the term we have carried out an initiatory project on architectural anomalies, that is, the discovery and documentation of unique architectural inventions and interventions by non-architects, exploring ways to study these in terms of their tectonics, life, spatiality, and contextual interactions.
After this initiation, the studio took the form of a term-long collective research on ways and meanings of being at a specific location (occupying, being, staying, taking refuge, etc.) in the region from Cankurtaran to Kumkapı. We have carried out architectural design with a fragmentary method, from the detail to the whole, sometimes by marking out space to virtually shape it, with respect to contextual and internal interactions, yet not through a single unified envelope or mediating form, but by investigations into the minutiae of spatial events, through intense contextual readings, constructing tectonics from the inside out while establishing links and interactions between contextual and interior events, through various media, and at specific locations.
| studio | readings | common module | ||
| 1 | 16. 09 | – introduction to the preliminary project (“anomaly”) groups of 2 formed, – seminar 1: “constructivism and bottom up tectonics” | In addition to the below given texts, students will choose and present readings on their work | common module starts: tes iii, section v, common module, 019 fall, şenel (arch.), sönmez (arch.), boğa (ind.) dialogue with an artwork groups of 3-4 formed, they will visit istanbul biennial, choose and examine artworks until the second group meeting |
| 19. 09 | anomaly first models and diagrams, 1/50 | second meeting, selections and initial examinations discussed. | ||
| 2 | 23. 09 | reading proposals | third meeting, teams present strategies for response with a poster | |
| 27. 09 | reading proposals | exhibition + presentations + discussion + celebration | ||
| 3 | 30. 09 | site visit | ||
| 03. 10 | – anomaly presentations + exhibition – neighbourhood investigations through common model | |||
| 4 | 07. 10 | 1/50 site models and the seed (start of the whole) | Readings (1) Stan Allen, Field conditions + Infrastructural Urbanism + text due | |
| 10. 10 | – seminar 2: how “the building” dissolved into interactions – “field exercises” 1: tactics formarking space | |||
| 5 | 14. 10 | common model submitted | Readings (2) Aureli, 2011, Toward the Archipelago, Defining the Political and the Formal in Architecture + text due | |
| 17. 10 | “field exercises” 2: methods fordividingspace | |||
| 6 | 21. 10 | “states of being” (a set of ten states of being, together with their potential contextual interactions) | ||
| 24. 10 | “field exercises” submission | |||
| 7 | 28. 10 | site plans start | ||
| 31. 10 | “states of being” graphic submission | |||
| term break work: start locating and spatially developing states of being (physical model 1/50) | ||||
| 8 | 11. 11 | – precedent day: space – model development | ||
| 14. 11 | model development | |||
| 9 | 18. 11 | – precedent day: tectonics – model development | ||
| 21. 11 | – model development – first drawings (1/50) | |||
| 10 | 25. 11 | – precedent day: tectonics – model development | ||
| 28. 11 | – precedent day: the ground – model development | |||
| 11 | 02. 12 | model development | ||
| 05. 12 | model development | |||
| 12 | 09. 12 | – precedent day: books with drawings – “the drawing” starts (development of a single designed drawing) | ||
| 12. 12 | precedent day: drawing strategies | |||
| 13 | 16. 12 | – blog submission – “the panel of senses” starts (a panel that gathers all the themes, senses, content, atmospheres, characters etc.) – precedent day: graphic strategies | ||
| 19. 12 | – precedent day: graphic strategies | |||
| 14 | 23. 12 | jury: Bahadır Numan, İpek Avanoğlu, Tevfik Saygın Özcan, Deniz Özbek, Onursal Engel | ||
| 26. 12 | Final considerations |
the whole 