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Taksim Urban Design Competition 2020

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HOW CAN DESIGN CATALYZE A PUBLIC AND INCITE PLATFORMS FOR ACTION? WHAT IS THE AGENCY OF SPATIAL PRACTICE TO INSTIGATE SOCIO-POLITICAL INTERACTION FOR ACTIVE PARTICIPATORY DECISION-MAKING PROCESS? HOW TO EMPOWER THE DYNAMICS OF TAKSIM TO CONVERT ITS SPHERE FROM A TENSION ZONE OFCONFRONTATION INTO A COLLECTIVE TABLE OF DIALOGUE? keywords: democratic, interactive, crowd-sourced, scripted, indeterminate, subversive, reactive, networked, defiant, adhocratic, transparent, resistant, temporary, performative

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Space of reconciliation and negotiation

Participatory Action for Taksim Reading/interpretation and position Oscillating between the local and global, socio-political and socio-ecological as well as the permanent and ephemeral, Taksim is the most symbolic square of the city and the country with its multilayered and diverse identity. Originating from a water collection/distribution point, Taksim has perpetually been reconfigured and reinvented from a peripheral green into the principal urban center; from a state ceremony arena into a gathering/strolling esplanade; from the core of arts &culture into a commercial transportation hub; and from a stage of power demonstration into a square of democratic speech.

With this continual and mutual evolution, Taksim is a space of constant transformation yet of outstanding permanence, connecting those simultaneously to their ancestors and successors, thus creating the basis for Arendt’s memorable “common world” of public life: “The common world transcends our lifespan into past and future alike; it was there before we came and will outlast our brief sojourn in it. It is what we have in common not only with those who live with us, but also with those who were here before and with those who will come after us.” 1 It is this strong dynamism of Taksim – with its human artifacts and institutions – to endure through time and become the common heritage of successive generations. Such sphere of “public-ness” transpires and transcends the ephemerality of those who inhabit it; it constitutes a lasting/stable ground that allows for human remembrance and anticipation both as cumulative memory and as a measure of trust in the future.

This unique gravity of Taksim, hence renders the area as the utmost tense and critical space of conflict–a tension zone in the midst of opposing poles and their monuments: shrines of state socialism vs. pillars of neoliberalism; modernist western nation state ideologies vs. orientalist reminiscent of the past; consumerist tourism activities vs. cultural and educational institutes; democratic expression vs. autocratic surveillance; nature vs. urban; car vs. pedestrian; soft vs. hard; … To this end, their dual confrontational stance resembles a chess game where the sole aim is to achieve a checkmate by removing the opponent’s captured pieces. Conflict is an inevitable component of democracy, however, is it possible to channel its energy for negotiation and reconciliation?

Subsequently, is it possible to empower the dynamics of Taksim to convert its public sphere from a tension zone of confrontation into a collective table of dialogue?

21st century has sparked a paradigm shift of public to publics, prompting the repositioning of the role and performance of public space to operate within the contemporary urban complexities and their increasingly dynamic transformations.

This particular iconic public space proved its potential to serve as an example of a new experience that can distance itself from the top-down manipulations and conflicts of the past, and rather create a vision of change towards a participatory future. Parallel to global tendencies and conjunctures of our young century, during Gezi Park events, the determined functions and rhetoric of public space were tested beyond their allocated formal perception; a new city was established with its tents, library, food dispensing units, infirmary, performance stage, discussion podiums and speaker’s corner. By its very nature, it was a spontaneous ephemeral city created from the bottom-up.

This period also showed how technology can be used to improve and change our democracy; how physical and digital space are more effective when used as mediators that do not contradict but reciprocally foster one another. This transforming production and social communication provided a glimpse at the currently reinvented fabric of our socio-spatial environment.

The aim of this quest is to search the ways spatial design can facilitate socio-political engagement in public space and elicit conversations between the individual, the collective and the institution; as well as to augment socio-ecological encounters at the intersection of the human and natural spheres.

Democratic right to city is not merely about protest in Taksim, nor its participatory process can be limited to objections to already approved decisions during the official public display periods. It is about creating the socio-spatial conditions to enable socio-political and socio-ecological interactions, and therefore, promoting systems of negotiation and reconciliation that are responsive, adaptable, non-linear and multivalent.

1

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 55.

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Taksim as a node of ecologic systems

Taksim as a node of prominent urban public routes/spaces / institutions Yet, what is the agency of spatial practice to instigate socio-political interaction for active participatory decision-making process? And, how can design catalyze a public to incite responsive platforms of social, ecological and political action?

At the intersection of increasingly pluralistic, unpredictable, contingent and broad networks, Taksim emerges as a multilayered node expanding the context and climate of the project while testing the role and relevancy of the spatial professions in the quest of fostering socio-politically inclusive and socio-ecologically motivated design. This positioning of the networked participatory design replaces the logics of the industrial age, where the creative one designed for the non-creative masses; instead, it promotes the designer as “the facilitator” who enables a design mechanism – a framework of interactive tools for the divergent conditions of the urban field.

This strategy deploys tactics to collaborate with the indeterminacy of the contemporary city or society alongside the ecology by introducing a flexible and unified framework that is to be intervened by human activities or natural flows to absorb the ever-changing configurations. 2 In the light of such understanding of the designer as the facilitator; the project aims the creation of enabling fields instead of stable configurations; it focuses on accommodating processes that refuse to be crystallized into definitive form; discovering the manipulations of an open collective framework for endless intensifications, diversifications, and redistributions.

Fabricating resilience – to allow and adapt user/ecologic manipulation– is perhaps the only way for spatial practice to gain agency in the design of Taksim’s public sphere that is increasingly divergent, crisis-ridden, contradictory, and formed by the

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Taksim as global/local collector, a socio-political node

“The process of reclamation” based on an adhocratic spatial approach” complex negotiation of politics, economics, culture and the environment amongst others. By seeking symbiosis and feedback between natural and human as well as physical and digital spheres, we can reframe Taksim as a democratic eco-political project that inclusively evolves with the city.

Thus, for this very reason an open and participatory framework at the intersection of the individual and the collective is needed; a dynamic, adaptive and reactive framework that operates through organization, legibility and directionality while allowing utmost flexibility for spontaneous, self-generated occupation.

If the individual’s feedback is the democratic alternative for continuous change and evolution of the space, why a legible framework of plurality as a design mechanism is still required in Taksim?

Response: A design mechanism - Coupling of Physical and Digital Framework

Pluralism is typically understood as meaning diverse, different or divergent, it is in fact much more complex and political in nature. As Arendt suggests, plurality is an expression of both the common public and distinct individuals; thus, posits the dialectic of our “distinct-equality” 3 at the core of the discourse for public sphere.

Arendt’s characterization of this complex and seemingly contradictory public sphere is perhaps best summarized through her analogy of a group of people sitting around a table. For Arendt, the table is the common world - it simultaneously connects and bonds those around it while preventing them from falling over each other and assimilating belief systems. The disappearance of the table would leave strangers in an illegible space that lacked common bond - this would be the fall of the public realm and its associated reality and stability. 4 This reading of public sphere as a communal table defines the framework as a trigger mechanism that encourages the public and harness collectivity without suppressing individual expression or identity. Its legibility allows the individual to continually understand the ways of engaging with the space and thereby participate in the collective.

The disappearance of a collective framework is what threatens and deteriorates the dynamism of Taksim. As a merged composition of functionally and characteristically distinct zones, this amalgamated space offers a series of diverse fields that are adjacent to each other yet not working together. The spatial/ legal/political/social illegibility renders Taksim as comprised of unrelated grounds, each piece locked into its own self-referential logic, each component unwilling to compromise for the sake of the common ground. This illegible perception confuses the ways of public use and discourages many forms of engagement with the space.

As a ‘process-driven’ design approach, the project probes instigating a new form of civic publicness through a hybrid framework that enables dynamic coexistence of socio-political/ecological/cultural/economic mutations. This framework constitutes a broad composition of collective, open and resilient tools promoting active contribution of the user and welcoming the impact of environmental conditions. Employing the coupling of physical and digital infrastructures to create this hybrid framework, the project aims to facilitate an active afterlife beyond the designers’ involvement in order to formulate the long-term viability of Taksim’s public sphere.

Infrastructure as a base condition for the formation of a city, engages the entire public without taking a particular stance.

However, the definition of urban infrastructure in public space moves beyond the physically bound forms as digital expands its territory and its associated criticality for the public discourse.

While their mutual interference creates a chain reaction of interactivity and information, the interdependent and intertwined harmony of the two emerges as the catalyst of the common ground generating the tools for public to continually reinvent, reformulate and reshape the public sphere.

2

Rem Koolhaas, “Congestion without Matter” in S, M, L, XL. Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, Ed. Moncelli Press, New York and Rotterdam, 1995, p. 921.

3 “Human Plurality, the basic condition of both action and speech, has the twofold character of equality and distinction. If men were not equal, they could neither understand each other and those who came before them nor plan for the future and foresee the needs of those who will come after them. If men were not distinct, each human being distinguished from any other who is, was, or will ever be, they would neither speech nor action to make themselves understood.”

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 175-176.

4 Ibid., 52

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Urban infrastructure analyses Problem / Transportation-Circulation: Taksim Municipal Garden functions as a transitory subway exit area as it lacks inviting programmatic or circulatory components. The arrangement of the hard surface areas and the paths do not allow for efficient access, and this situation caused “goat paths” on the green surface as people tend to take shortcuts.

Problem / Barriers of Public Space: The open spaces of Ataturk Library are enclosed with fences restraining the public use and creating conge sted waiting lines in the entrance.

Potential / Barriers of Public Space + Circulation: While controlled access can be maintained only at the entrance of the library building to balance the capacity, the fences around the open space can be lifted to devise public space continuity extending the interior street of newly planned AKM and stretching in between two faculties creating an open campus zone where academic and recreational programs are intertwined.

Potential / Transportation-Circulation: Historically, Taksim Municipal Garden consisted of organic paths venturing towards Park No.2 with a contrasting spatial organization in comparison to Gezi Park. Rearrangement of the circulation based on its original spatial structure, improving the efficiency of the subway exit access and extending the programmatic connection to Congress Valley could render Taksim Garden a more vibrant and actively used connecting park.

Problem / Transportation-Circulation + Preservation: Location of the subway entrance on the southwest corner of Gezi Park had altered the original spatial organization of the park’s entrance that consisted of grand ramps from both sides. These symmetric circulatory components provided a legible and strong connection with the square, however, the current reconfiguration of the ramp blocks the visual connection and renders the access as a back entrance behind the elevator unit while positing a problem for holistic preservation of Gezi Park.

Potential / Circulation + Program: The public axis from Gezi Park to Park No.2 constitutes a fundamental pedestrian and green system connection, however, the frequency of use significantly decreases after Gezi Park. Injection of engaging public programs on this route can enhance and strengthen the itinerary.

Problem / Circulation + Program: The vast hard surface that constitute the form of the pedestrianized plaza today is a merged composition of functionally and characteristically distinct zones. While the remnants of these distinct spaces (Cumhuriyet Street, Republic Monument roundabout and Republic Square) are still legible on the site, the transitory area where they are monotonously amalgamated creates an undefined, disproportionate and illegible surface. This illegible perception confuses the ways of public use and engagement with the space.

Problem / Transportation-Circulation: Bus stops, minibus stop and service parking lot on Mete Street generate a constant obstructive wall of vehicles and disrupts the pedestrian flow and connection in between Taksim Republic Square and Ataturk Cultural Center.

Relocation of the stops could enhance the center’s connection with the square. Newly planted trees in this part of the square also deepen the programmatic fracture between the square and the cultural center.

Barriers of public space Transportation/circulation Preservation Problem / Transportation-Circulation: Pausing and loitering taxis on Siraselviler Street around the Republic Monument and on Cumhuriyet Street around the Airport bus stop create congested entrance areas to the square area while also causing bothersome air and noise pollution. Regulative measures for taxi circulation in and around the site - such as rotation according to waiting passengers instead of pausing/waiting vehicles, as well as the use of electric vehicles can contribute to pedestrian and eco-friendly solutions.

Problem / Barriers of Public Space + Preservation: The kiosks and police barriers in front of Maksem interfere with the dense and frequent pedestrian flow towards Istiklal Street while also obscuring Maksem’s façade and its fountains’ relationship with the square.

Problem / Barriers of Public Space + Circulation: The stepped surface intervention and the curved steel structure building on the north of Maksem and the Republic Monument hinder the connection of Tarlabasi Boulevard and the square, treating the boulevard as a back alley to be avoided. The continuity between Cumhuriyet Street axis and Tarlabasi Boulevard is crucial in integrating the socio-programmatic bond with the close vicinity.

Problem / Barriers of Public Space: Crowd control barriers and police vehicles located in Gezi Park entrance areas and Istiklal Street create not only physical but also political barriers for free movement and perception. This intimidating, controlling and strict surveillance constitutes a notion of tension discouraging the dynamic and democratic use of public space.

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Ecological infrastructure analyses Problem / Water Management: Although Taksim’s initial existence is extensively reasoned with water, today, it is significantly hard to feel the presence of water as part of the public space.

Potential / Water Management: As a historically vital water collection/distribution point, the area offers a great potential where historic and contemporary storm water management infrastructures are combined to increase the bioclimatic conditions of the square, providing performative and programmatic public engagement of water within the public space.

Problem / Water Management: The vast amount of impermeable surface in the area prevent rainwater from seeping into the ground to replenish groundwater in underground aquifers. Moreover, miscalculated surface and corner joint areas interrupt the water flow, causing accumulation and water run-off. Capturing storm water through natural processes and permeable surfaces is crucial not only to be able to efficiently manage the water resources but also to restore the biodiversity of the site’s ecosystem.

Potential / Water Management: The existing water feature on Cumhuriyet Street is an unsustainable, energy consuming, decorative element; however, the street is located on one of the historic water routes originating from Maksem, and carries potential to offer integrative ecologic water solutions.

Similarly, all historic water routes and current water flow pattern of Taksim serve as an opportunity to create bioswales filtering surface and storm water to increase the bioclimatic conditions of the site while also creating programmatic interaction with user.

Potential /Bioclimatic Conditions: The vast impermeable surface in the area increases the urban heat island effect, implementation of performative water and green systems will transform the bioclimatic conditions of the site.

Potential / Fauna: As other everyday users of the site, the bird species -especially around the Republic Monument- have become part of Taksim’s urban memory. Deployment of integrative and ecologic interventions can convert Taksim also into an ecological co-habitat zone.

Green system Bioclimatic conditions Water management Unpermeable surface Shadow areas

Potential / Water Management: Topographically Gezi Park is located at a higher elevation almost at the ridge of the hill, acting as a collecting basin. This feature can be enhanced by revitalizing convenient areas as water collecting and storing bioswale zones to create an ecologically self-sufficient green infrastructure boosting the biodiversity also by providing resting point for the fauna.

Problem / Water Management: The soft surface components in the site mainly consist of grass which unsustainably requires substantial maintenance while also causing biodiversity loss. Use of native groundcovers will facilitate the recuperation of the site’s ecosystem as well as protection of the top soil from erosion and water-loss.

Potential / Water Management: The terraced and sloped topography of Ataturk Library area leading down towards Bosphorus offers opportunity to create a chain of rain gardens and bioswales filtering the water and to conceive engaging recreational programs.

Problem / Green System: Considering the historical evolution of the space, it can be seen that with each intervention, permeable surfaces of the site have gradually decreased. Currently permeable surfaces are smaller in size and fragmented.

Potential / Green System: Use of non-native plants and heavily urbanized atmosphere causes biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation as well as soil quality damage; the effects of these circumstances can be observed through all sites of Park No.2, consisting of Gezi Park, Elmadag Park, Congress Valley and Macka Park which establish a vital continuity for the patch-corridor matrix of Istanbul. Ecosystem recuperation and restoration are essential operations in the overall site.

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Physical framework Conceived as the combination of open activity grounds and mediating infrastructural layers, the physical framework generates the groundwork for the connected commons of Taksim as a whole.

The project opportunistically values and reinterprets the divergence of characteristically and functionally distinct zones of Taksim by transforming them into open activity grounds to encourage user manipulation and improvisation; and to articulate the movement and interchange in and around these zones, the framework overlaps the circulation, transportation, ecologic and ergonomic layers to reconcile and feed all episodes of the site.

While the open activity grounds aim to accommodate a variety of programmatic events for a never-ending public life all year round, the mediating infrastructural layers not only support and serve these zones but also, help define the boundaries without necessarily mitigating but instead harnessing their connection.

Together they define a tactical, agile, action-oriented envelope- an adhocratic spatial approach- to diversify and increase urban life both from the incorporation of existing uses and the introduction of new/unforeseen ones to facilitate future mutations.

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syntax of open spaces/open activity grounds: characteristic zones and transitory spaces

Sport programs

mediating infrastructure

Bike & pedestrian path continuation

Playgrounds Inclined lawn + event corridor programs

Organic paths: eǙcient circulation Water Ǔltration

Taksim Municipal Garden

Transitory trace of Cumhuriyet Street

Wandering paths

Social processor: revitalizing underground space

Permeable surfaces

Open campus & Recreational programs

Water Ǔltration

Light-patio entrances

Ataturk Library

Republic Monument

Temporary pedestrian road for events Gezi park + square events

Bike & pedestrian path continuation

AKM + square events

Recreational programs Water Ǔltration

Water Ǔltration

Permeable surfaces

Republic Square

Gezi Park

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Layers of Physical framework Urban Ecology Engaging ecology by recognizing that human agency and the evolution of the environment are inseparable, the project intends to intervene in Taksim’s ecosystem to enable its dynamic unfolding. Aiming to restore and recuperate the biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation of the ecological infrastructure in this densely urbanized area, the proposal focuses on resilient functional solutions and utilizes multilayered ecologic strategies to revive and construct both existing and new city infrastructure. Through a systematic approach for comprehensive improvement of eco-services with multiple benefits, the project contains an extensive catalog of solutions fostering an ecologically self-sufficient urban ecosystem, boosting biodiversity and providing performative and programmatic public engagement of water and green within the public space.

a. Taksim Waterscape Re-introduction of water to Taksim’s commons

As a historically vital water collection/distribution point, Taksim’s initial existence is extensively reasoned with water. Although today, it is significantly hard to feel the presence of water as part of the public space, the area offers a great potential where historic and contemporary storm water management infrastructures are combined to increase the bioclimatic conditions of the area, providing performative and programmatic public engagement of water within the public space.

Coinciding with the historic water routes, the storm water conduits of Taksim originates and sprawls from the square which is topographically the central node on the ridge of the hill, towards Bosphorus on the east and towards Dolapdere on the west. Aiming to efficiently manage water resources and capture storm water through natural processes to restore the biodiversity of the site’s ecosystem, the project introduces eco-corridors on these water conduits and increases the amount of permeable surfaces in the area to retain, filter and replenish groundwater in underground aquifers. Performatively combining the historic and contemporary water infrastructure, the project aims to reintroduce water to Taksim’s commons as an integrative, functional and visible component supporting its daily life.

To create a consistent and sustainable water-management framework combined with ecological continuity, this infrastructural layer employs strategies to manage the circulation of water in a more sustainable and efficient way, by slowing its runoff, increasing permeable areas all over the course of water, creating a network of infiltration areas and bioswales, planting species with low water consumption, converting all water structures with ecologic solutions and rendering water management visible to offer recreational engagement in the public space.

Following the course of water, while bioswales are implemented to filter surface and storm water to protect the resources of the site, as well as rain gardens on the Ataturk Library slopes towards Bosphorus, the surface area of permeable areas has been increased by carefully calculating the relation with the underground structures. In-

corporating the historic and existing water structures as informative and functional components of the site, the project aims to create programmatic interaction with the user and the digital interface. It re-activates the historic fountains and adds new ones to improve the daily living conditions of the area, and also creates an informative layer enhancing the historic water routes as well as the current water flow patterns.

While ecologically self-sufficient green infrastructure and plantation strategies are employed in the green areas of Taksim to provide integrative water solutions, water tank and bio-retention swale are also introduced in Gezi Park and Taksim Municipal Garden to retain rain water to be used for maintenance in drier seasons. Topographically located at a higher elevation almost at the ridge of the hill with its bowl-like terrain, Gezi Park acts as a collecting basin. This feature is enhanced by revitalizing convenient areas as water collecting and storing bioswale zones to create an ecologically self-sufficient green infrastructure boosting biodiversity also by providing a resting point for the fauna.

Implementing an adaptive pattern with the hard surface material, pervious areas on the square and Cumhuriyet Street are increased. Tracing the route of the water conduits in these pervious areas, hard surface zones are equipped with evaporative cooling mists increasing the bioclimatic conditions of the urban activity areas. Commonly used in the greenhouse industry, this system is capable of lowering the temperature by around 10 degrees C, depending on humidity conditions and temperature by going into action when a temperature sensor detects temperatures above 27 degrees in its surroundings.

Taksim’s sole existence emerges from water and life. As the water flows towards Taksim, time, city, people and thoughts blends together and meets there. Embracing this historic phenomenon, the project “transpires” on the performative and informative inclusion of historic water distribution network as the most significant cultural aspect of the place.

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Layers of Physical framework

b. Taksim Greenscape Healing Green, Holistic Ecology

Embracing a bioethical stance, the design approach includes the adaptive regeneration/recuperation of the green and living layer. The idea is to create an urban microcosmos that will sustain urban life at the intersection of natural and human spheres by integrating the flora, fauna, water, and human activity. The tailored greenscaping strategy simulates the spatiotemporal dynamics of ecosystems to address the current problems of ornamental planting, unhealthy urbanization and landscape fragmentation which are causing a major loss of local habitat and biodiversity.

Requiring macroscale masterplan decisions, the landscape interventions derived from the urban configuration and green system of Taksim within Istanbul. Through eco-corridors that augments Istanbul’s patch corridor matrix, the project renders Taksim a more prominent part of this green urban system. These corridors define an alternative green and aquatic layer that sprawls from the newly formed green node to the highly urbanized areas in the Taksim periphery. With an evidence-based view, the eco-corridors are purposefully configured on the historic water distribution routes and storm water conduits. Utilizing a collection of phytoremediation plants and located bioswales on these corridors, the proposed system retains and filters water to replenish Taksim’s ecosystem.

Employing nature’s own regenerative power, the expected natural recovery process is introduced by careful replanting of native and adaptive trees, shrubs and plants to restore the local habitat for urban biodiversity. The specific interventions include and multi-layered landscaping approach. The existing trees are meticulously preserved for the ecological and spatial identity of the place. The new trees are sampled from Istanbul forests which are native to the local climate and ecosystem. This ensures the continuation of the local habitat and ecological character.

The specific species are selected for their physical appearance, landscaping functions, biological properties.

Bio-functionally, this new living layer is capable of improving green corridors for urban ventilation and air quality and provides cooling through shading and enhanced evapotranspiration, thus reducing the problematic urban heat island effect. Due to the urban density of the district, the trees are selected from high carbon filtering types for controlling such CO2 emissions.

Maple (Acer negundo, Acer pseudoplatanus), Stone pine (Pinus pinea), Plane (Platanus acerifolia, Platanus orientalis), Linden (Tilia tomentosa), Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) are the noticeable tree species of Gezi Park and its surrounding green areas. The use of adaptive perennials and native groundcovers will facilitate the recuperation of the site’s ecosystem as well as protection of the topsoil layer from erosion and water-loss. The selected perennial types like Common ivy (Hedera helix), Evergreen clematis, Traveler’s-joy (Clematis vitalba), Mediterranean smilax (Smilax excelsa) and groundcovers Winter heath (Erica carnea), Speedwell (Veronica officinalis), Sheep’s fescue (Festuca ovina), Trefoil (Trifolium sp.), Kitchen sage (Salvia officinalis) are also eco-efficient, unlike the existing lawn which needs excessive water use and maintenance.

This new green layer also conveys the idea that the flora and natives of Istanbul will serve the urbanites as a living gene laboratory and a living collection for educational and cultural purposes. Along with the newly added trees, the trees in Gezi Park and its surroundings are a vibrant collage of species that reveal different “picturesque” views during seasonal transitions. Within this holistic ecological perspective, the “green” layer of the Taksim square becomes prominent as an urban landmark that characterizes the public space.

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Layers of Physical framework

Transportation Reclaiming the city streets for people

Due to its role as a prominent public space and a central node for Istanbul, Taksim has also been the transportation hub for the growing metro lines and public busses throughout its active life. While busy transportation and circulation feed all sections of the site, and one of the reasons of its crowds, the current motorized vehicle dominance in the area infests and fragments the vibrant living spaces of Taksim, as well as causes air pollution, energy consumption, noise and vibration, and visual intrusion amongst many other problems. Aiming to reduce the presence of the cars, the project focuses on sustainable pedestrian and efficient pedestrian-friendly solutions with a set of strategies to reclaim the streets for the people.

By proposing an urban central restricted traffic zone area, the proposal firstly aims to decrease the number of cars circulating in and around Taksim. Limited to the use of residents, public transport vehicles, taxis and private cars with arranged car park destinations, “traffic evaporation” is a commonly applied technic in dense urban areas substantially reducing the number of motorized vehicles. Also, with a limited-access schedule for loading & unloading activities and delivery vehicles, the project promotes the active use of the digital information layer to assist users for information on available parking spaces, automated parking systems, mobility schedules, etc. This strategy requires giving greater priority to more sustainable forms of transport — public transport, pedestrians and cyclists which are also easily navigable as part of the digital mobility system.

This promotion of restricted access for motorized vehicles in the central zone will result in a considerable car reduction in the close vicinity of Taksim Square in the micro-scale. This decision will render Mete Street and Siraselviler Street free of private cars, only allowing the use of public transport, taxis and residents. In this regard, the bus stops and taxi stops are organized in locations without disrupting the pedestrian flow of the square. With the incorporation of the digital tools and the smart urban furniture, the project proposes a rotation system for the taxis based on the availability of passengers to prevent taxi loitering in and around the square. In addition to the limitation of car traffic with the restricted zone, Cumhuriyet Street’s entrance towards Republic Monument is proposed to be completely pedestrianized by relocating the airport bus stop, and Mete Street is arranged with two roundabouts in the extensions to allow temporary closing options for event periods.

In order to increase interaction and accessibility with the projected bike route, the project increases the diversity of transport options as well as encourage a recreational connection. While all paths and alleys are arranged to flow and connect to each other without any dead ends, current problematic disabled access for the underground transportation hub is reconfigured with the newly planned elevators. With improved pedestrian connections to the cultural and educational amenities around the site, the project incorporates trees and urban lighting to guide and create secure and bio-climatically convenient walking routes.

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Layers of Physical framework

Ergonomics Connected, integrated, responsive everyday activity infrastructure In addition to providing basic support infrastructure, ergonomic urban devices are deployed across the site with a certain frequency for activating the functional public zones. Equipped in certain locations with light infrastructure and urban furniture elements that transform the grove into a space for creativity, leisure, learning, reading, exchanging information, or resting, these components include new generation smart urban furniture, wayfinding devices, activity pods, playgrounds, urban lighting with digital interaction, innovative energy solutions and functional adaptability.

Aligned with the main design ideas of the project, the proposed urban furniture framework stretches the envelope by adding smart features and extended functions for facilitating urban activity and recreation. Along with a simplistic, open-source and cost-effective product design framework, these urban devices feature novel production and utilization techniques like mass customization, component modularity, embedded sensors, network connectivity and climate-responsiveness. These systems, together with the passive bioclimatic strategies widely implemented in the design, will foster a continuous use of

the space throughout the year.

All of these devices are self-powered by integrated solar panels for targeting optimal physical conditions and reduced energy consumption as well as generating environmental comfort for the users. These systems, together with the passive bioclimatic strategies widely implemented in the design, will foster a continuous use of the public space throughout the year. Functional street furniture and wayfinding devices also take advantage of active sensor technology for disabled users, and also offer emergency buttons connected to the digital tools. Such a feedback routine with the interaction of the digital and the physical helps to navigate the area with safety and legibility.

Designed as a flexible patchwork of circular clusters equipped for various recreational activities, the program pods provide a system of injecting and supporting daily activities within the green areas. While their generic nature facilitates the creation of a matrix of activities, these dynamic pods can also be altered/multiplied/reduced throughout their lifetime according to the demands and needs of the public.

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Layers of Physical framework Social Processor A space for participatory democracy for the collaborative futures of Taksim

Taking advantage of the vacant underground space, the project creates a physical social processor that offers itself as a lab of multidimensional public interactions between the citizens and the institutions. Aiming to facilitate a space for participatory democracy, the social processor promotes socialization of politics, encouraging active citizenship through instruments like public debates, public education and citizen participation for the public to share ideas and information, define the uses, the conditions and the design qualities of their common spaces.

Conceived as a community hub, its unique location at the intersection of Taksim’s underground transportation hub creates divergent opportunities for wider public interactions. Nurtured through the dynamic circulation of the transport channels, the social processor defines a legible spatial organization as the “connecting voids” reconnect the pedestrian center of Taksim with the active underground level. Arraying around the Republic Monument, the connecting voids are purposed to integrate the crowded above and below ground as interactive openings pro-

viding not only a clear point of orientation, wayfinding and easy disabled access but also, generating an active connective medium with the social processor, a space for collaboration, creativity and learning for the future definitions of Taksim’s urban scene.

Connecting the already aligned underground levels and solving the current practicality problems of the disabled access, the interventions of the connecting voids and the social processor not only relates the fluctuating vertical movements but also functionally decreases the time to transfer in the hub. Consisting of a conference room/forum, exhibition/multipurpose hall, maker space, co-working area and a small library, the spatial implementations of the social processor eliminates a safety issue by proposing an active use and providing natural light to a large volume of vacant space. With the digitally interactive material qualities, all components of the social processor aim to enable information, tools and programs for the participative future of the square.

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Digital framework Embodying an augmented environment of user interaction and data, functional layers of the proposed digital framework are designed to encourage citizen engagement and improvisation while adding a dimension of transparency and amplifying the experience of participatory public life.

As a responsive and communicative virtual ecosystem, the digital framework relates administrative initiatives to citizens more directly and horizontally, as well as interconnects individuals around a common social goal. With its layers offering a distributed information sharing system to provide active feedback on draft legislation; self-organization tools to collect data and process information; and functionality to access external social networks, the adoption of the digital communication framework for Taksim’s public sphere is not an attempt to use technology for technology’s sake, rather it is to consolidate more empirically-based human-centered design aiming to achieve democratic, transparent and participatory decision-making processes.

Aiming to augment the democratization of Taksim’s public sphere, the digital framework goes beyond the concept of “smart cities”. As the heart of the city of Istanbul, Taksim generates data and synthesizes information while the digital layer processes data and provides simultaneous feedback for facilitating urban life with open data for all.

The implementation of this people-oriented “digital layer” aims not only the improvement and amplification of the public space experience and multiplication of its possibilities but also renders Taksim as the experiment place/ lab of this hybrid interaction. Researching the possibilities of digital communication layer with the physical space through the creation of a dynamic and inclusive downtown where ideas, activities and spaces are closely interwoven, the project asserts Taksim as an incubator for the smart city/networked urban space initiatives in Istanbul and Turkey since Taksim has the power to influence the entire city as well as the entire country.

Supporting citizen involvement, diversifying and increasing urban life, sensors, actuators, and markers are connected to an open platform that proposes new ways of interacting with public space, obtaining information from it, or even adapting it to one’s own needs or getting involved in its development. It includes data sets on everything from street furniture to urban crime, from air quality to historic urban artifacts. The digital framework incorporates digital data for energy optimization, resource optimization and more importantly “free speech” for a responsive and resilient 21st century metropolis through citizen participation.

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Layers of Digital framework Follow and feed

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Layers of Digital framework Collective Information

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Connected Commons of Taksim Consisting of characteristically distinct and divergent zones, the differentiated grounds of Taksim ranges from a densely green park to a highly urbanized square, or a public library to a busy transfer center. Opportunistically valuing and interpreting the divergence of Taksim, the project transforms these zones with articulated, cohesive and adaptable infrastructural framework. Empowered through its hybridity at the intersection of the physical and the digital, the implementation of this framework convert these distinct zones into connected commons of Taksim, providing a wide spectrum of spaces for the pluralistic users and actions of the city.

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Connected Commons of Taksim

Republic Square A space of appearance for socio-political, socio-cultural and socio-ecological interactions

Stretching in between The Republic Monument, Ataturk Cultural Center and the monumental stair-ramp entrance of Gezi Park, the Republic Square emerges as the main ground for various social events, protesting crowds and demonstrations as well as official ceremonies and parades; it is a space that has been continually reinvented, reformulated and reshaped by its public and acted as a robust “space of appearance” and a socio-political sphere. Aiming to create socio-spatial conditions to encourage and instigate socio-political and socio-ecological interactions, the project promotes a dynamic, adaptive and ecological spatial fabric that operates through legibility and directionality while allowing utmost flexibility for spontaneous, self-generated occupation for a multitude of organizations, events and daily life in the square.

Through reawakening the protected Gezi stairs as a virtually interacted contemporary “pnyx”; debate, decisions, participation and witnessing everyday life of Taksim are enabled through the interaction of physical and digital space. Acting either as a stage or as a tribune for the square, the stairs become the mediating tool between the square and the park.

Devised on the traces of the initial plane of the square, the introduced green –eco-stoa– in the Republic Square augments the urban experience and provides a legible softscape for daily recreation and activities.

It acts as a slower transition space sheltered under the trees; where one could pace it down to retreat, rest or socialize yet keep in touch with the square. With this feature, the eco-stoa underlines the peripheral threshold of the republic square, marks the entrance to Gezi Park and also functions as a permeable and transitionary interface between the square and the park. Providing cooling through shading and enhanced evapotranspiration, thus reducing the urban heat island effect, the arranged tree locations do not coincide with the underground structures improving the bioclimatic conditions to support and promote continuous and various ways of use of this civic space.

As part of this ecologic and adaptive framework, the paving, with its adjustable components of gradient permeability and interactive ground marking lights, sets punctual accents and enables a variety of interpretations of uses and paces that transpire on the public ground of Taksim.

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Connected Commons of Taksim

Gezi Park Restore & recuperate urban memory, urban ecosystem, urban activities

Designed as terrace opening up to Republic Square, Gezi Park is undoubtedly the most prominent recreational green area of Taksim with its symbolic and functional aspects. Formed on the 20th century ideals of the young republic, the park also became a symbol of socio-political activism and diversity in parallel to global tendencies and conjunctures of the 21st century. Aiming to reactivate Gezi Park as an urban artifact through the conversation of historic and contemporary layers, the project aims a holistic preservation strategy for Gezi Park and restores the main spatial scheme while proposing Gezi Park to be a registered historic urban artifact. The geometrically designed central esplanade and the monumental entrance stairs and ramps of Gezi Park have maintained their original formation and are preserved as the most characteristic parts of the Park while the side aisles have experienced multiple transformations due to changing socio-economic and cultural demands. These restored symmetric circulatory components provide a legible and strong connection with the square while preserving the memory of the place.

Functioning as an inestimable green node in this heavily urbanized area, the park’s ecosystem is also restored and recuperated by implementing integrative ecologic strategies. While the fragmentation of the permeable surface has been reduced, by revitalizing convenient areas as water collecting and storing bioswales and transforming mid-terrain and the current pool into a water collecting basin for irrigation when necessary, the project aims to facilitate the restoration and recuperation of the site’s ecosystem as well as protection of the top soil from erosion and water-loss. Through the implementation of native groundcovers, perennials and shrubs as well as native tree species, the proposal creates an ecologically self-sufficient green infrastructure for Gezi Park boosting the biodiversity also by providing resting points for the fauna.

Aiming to augment a diverse and dynamic integration of Gezi Park to the daily life of Taksim, the project lastly proposes the restoration and recuperation of its urban activities. Promoted as a park intertwined with digital culture, the central lawn of Gezi Park is designed as the main event esplanade while the side aisles have been reconfigured and reactivated with the flexible activity pods. As the historically most altered areas of the park, these aisles are the friction zones with the close vicinity and will continue evolving with the city, therefore, dynamic program pods can also be altered/multiplied/reduced over the course of their life time according to the demands and needs of the public.

All these responsive interventions transpire Gezi Park as ecological and reactive catalyst that evokes the urban memory.

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Connected Commons of Taksim

Republic Monument & Transitory Space An active point of orientation at the intersection of above and below ground

Attained Taksim to its current city square status upon its erection, the Republic Monument is one of the most influential symbols of the era of the young republic as well as the most prominent landmark on the site indicating the start of Istiklal Street. The monument and its close periphery is not only a space where official ceremonies are held or demonstrations sparked but it is also a landmark where a multitude of people meet, wait or apart from on a daily basis. However, the vast surface that constitute the form of this area today is a merged vague composition of functionally and characteristically distinct zones. While the remnants of these distinct spaces (Cumhuriyet Street, Republic Monument roundabout and Republic Square) are still legible on the site, the transitory area around the monument where they are monotonously amalgamated with the confusing spread of subway exits create an undefined, disproportionate and illegible surface. This illegible perception disorients the ways of public use, circulation and engagement with the space.

Mediating the infrastructural components in an orienting way, the project aims not only to support and improve the circulatory conditions of the area but also bring navigating definitions without mitigating but instead harnessing the connection. Arraying around the Republic Monument, the connecting voids are purposed to integrate the crowded above and below ground as interactive open-

ings providing not only clear point of orientation, wayfinding and easy disabled access but also, generating an active connective medium with the social processor, a space for collaboration, creativity and learning for the future definitions of Taksim’s urban scene. Leading towards Istiklal Street, Maksem’s interaction with the square also integrated in this navigating array including Taksim’s narrative of water as part of this focal point.

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Connected Commons of Taksim

Cumhuriyet Street An ecologic pedestrian carpet, a dynamic event alley

Extending from Taksim Square until Osman Bey district, Cumhuriyet Street was planned as a monumental linear boulevard leading to the Republic Monument and circulating towards its roundabout. Equipped with orderly planted plane trees offering a scenic arrival view to Taksim, the design of the boulevard embodied the contemporary spatial approaches and values of its time period. Later expanded with the inauguration of Tarlabasi Boulevard, Cumhuriyet Street acted as an essential circulatory corridor providing pedestrian vehicle connection while also feeding the daily transportation and circulation of Taksim.

Currently, although partially pedestrianized with the construction of the underground tunnel, the axis poorly functions as a pedestrian connection towards Tarlabasi and Osman Bey directions due to unsolved traffic accumulation problems at the borders of the pedestrian area, and also, due to its transformation into a vast impermeable surface that lost the navigating legibility of the space.

Aiming to restore its longitudinal continuity and create a dynamic & ecologic event corridor leading to the Republic

Monument, the project integrates the ecosystem components to spatially define and reactivate the alley. As Cumhuriyet Street is located on one of the historic water routes of Taksim originating from Maksem, performative ecologic water and green systems are implemented to improve climatic aspects, accessibility, safety, and walkability. To create a continuous pedestrian carpet and a welcoming entrance to the area with decreased air and noise pollution, airport bus stop has been removed and the alley is completely pedestrianized after the junction only allowing vehicles for service to Talimhane in a limited hourly schedule. Tree-lanes on both side of the tunnel space are integrated with bioswales filtering surface and storm water to increase the bioclimatic conditions of the site while also creating programmatic interaction with user. Smart urban furniture (seating, lighting, drinking fountain, evaporating water mist, newsstand) are ‘plugged in’ along the alley to support the daily life, invite people to rest and interact with water features, as well as to inhabit a multitude of future events in combination with the sloping aisle of Gezi Park.

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Connected Commons of Taksim

Taksim Municipal Garden An active intermediary park of connections

As one of the initial public amenities in the area, historically, Taksim Municipal Garden consisted of meandering paths venturing towards Park No.2 with a contrasting spatial organization in comparison to Gezi Park’s geometrical layout. With its densely planted trees, the area insinuated the start of a more organic stroll towards Harbiye after the urbanized form of Gezi’s esplanade.5 Today, the remaining portion of the Municipal Garden, not only still employs the role of connecting Gezi Park to Elmadag and Harbiye, but also houses one of the subway exits, and thus, functions solely as a transitory passage area as it lacks inviting programmatic or circulatory components.

The current grid arrangement of the hard surface areas and the paths do not allow for efficient access causing trodden paths to appear on the green surface as people tend to take short-cuts while also creating blocked paths with trees in the middle as the trees initially planted in a different spatial organization.

Aiming the improve the efficiency of the subway exit as well as the connection to Harbiye, the project rearranges the circulatory trails both respecting the locations of the trees and also, considering the paths created by passersby. All parts of the new landscape of Taksim Municipal Garden are therefore, in transit with no dead-ends to assist pedestrian mobility as well as increasing security. The public axis from Gezi Park to Park No.2 constitutes a fundamental pedestrian and green system connection, however, currently the frequency of use significantly decreases after Gezi Park. Extending the programmatic connection to Congress Valley with dynamic program pods, the project also creates activity areas to slow down and spend time in the park while establishing a more vibrant and actively used connecting park enhancing and strengthening the continuous itinerary.

5

“History of the Taksim Promenade.” IAE Blog, June 7, 2013. https:// blog.iae.org.tr/en/other/history-of-the-taksim-promenade.

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Connected Commons of Taksim Ataturk Library A connected, open, interactive and ecological campus: integration of academic and recreational activities

Located in between the two campuses of Istanbul Technical University on a slope looking over the Bosphorus, Ataturk Library and its surrounding green open space carries an immense potential to devise public space continuity, extending the interior street of the newly planned Ataturk Cultural Center and stretching in between two campuses creating an open campus zone where academic and recreational programs are intertwined. While removal of the fences restraining the public use of the library’s garden is the first physical attempt to reactivate and reconnect the area to its immediate surroundings, by providing multiple entrances and incorporating the augmented environment of digital interactivity, the project aims to support recreational and educational experiences, rendering interdisciplinary information accessible not only to students, but to all citizens on an everyday space.

Aiming to enhance the academic and socio-recreational programs within this dynamic and more accessible public space, a variety of open pods and devices for creativity, leisure, learning, teaching, reading, sports, or resting are introduced. All embodied within the supported ecological infrastructure of the area, this open campus zone not only transfers the university experience to public space but also ensures the human-nature interaction as well as the stimulation of its biodiversity by incorporating native plant species and employing a network of infiltration areas leading towards Bosphorus.

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Coupling of the digital & physical

Art in Taksim Facilitating an arts & culture ecosystem Augmenting socio-political encounters at the intersection of human and natural spheres, the public realm provides a collective platform for exchange and expands its boundaries as information and action-the mediums of this exchange, increasingly invent non-spatially bound inclusive arenas as part of the public sphere. With a broad composition of collective, open and adaptive tools, the hybrid framework of the project investigates and facilitates to experiment with the interaction of new typologies and channels aiming to ensure an evolving common meeting ground for all with the active participation of the user. In this adhocratic approach, art is part of Taksim’s everyday life as a social experience as well as a catalyst to elicit dormant affairs and episodes of publicness. Similar to Deutsche’s interpretation, the public sphere idea in this hybrid framework replaces the definitions of public art as art that occupies or designs physical spaces and addresses independently formed audiences with a definition of public art as a practice that constitutes a public by engaging people in the common. 6 Introduction of such approach in Taksim is particularly influential as Beyoglu district is a central node for arts and culture not only for Istanbul but also for the entire country.

With its well-established institutions and dynamic daily life, Taksim is a fertile lab for the implementation of this hybrid framework to incite and encourage a potent arts & culture ecosystem in Istanbul, constantly creating an interface between the institutional and individual art, as well as the local and global art & culture network. While the physical layers of the framework constitute welcoming and enabling urban fields and socio-spatial atmospheres, democratizing aspect of digital tools facilitates communication to broader audiences and renders inaccessible art accessible; it multiplies unintentional encounters that engages and inspires all kinds of users; it manifests and feeds a presence of arts both in physical and digital space reclaiming and enhancing connectivity through the publicness of art.

6

Rosalyn Deutsche, “Art and Public Space: Questions of Democracy” (Duke University Press, 1992), 39.

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Coupling of the digital & physical

Scenarios in Taksim A chain reaction of interactivity continuous interaction. “ 8 “The consequences of an act are boundless, because action acts into a medium where every reaction becomes a chain reaction and where every process is the cause of new processes.” 7 Prompting enabling fields rather than symbolizing culture and nature, the project generates a design mechanism that responds to indeterminate conditions of the pluralistic city and its ecology through proposing an adaptive hybrid framework that is open to change, accommodate time and offer tools for reproductions, transformations and rediscoveries. Consisting of a diverse sequence of zones with different spatial qualities, Taksim’s connected commons are promoted to instigate different events and experiences, reciprocally reasoned or nurtured by the active collaboration of its public. This design mechanism proposes an intertwined way of engagement with public space by introducing collective program as a consequence of interactive superimposed layers, allowing flexible development; anticipating active participation of the user and ecology; conceiving continuous and legible spatial organization for more interaction; considering the significance of open spaces as public spaces; and addressing these issues in multiple program scenarios in the processes of multitudes of cultures. It offers soft urbanism strategies that are dynamic, flexible, ad hoc, free of the controlling obsession with certainty, predictability, or permanence. Instead, it incites “the unfolding life of the flock, its movements, its collective effects, the flow of the continually reshaping mass and the flow of the landscape in

Both physical and digital layers and strategies of the framework regulate these indeterminacies while allowing the shifts and the modifications to create links and let new realities emerge through the establishment of connections, allowing the ground to be activated by new channels and networks between people. The hybridity of the framework and the conversation of its adaptive layers create a divergent infrastructure to respond to the ever-changing conditions of Taksim and its spheres, constantly staging contingencies and refusing to be crystallized into definitive form but instead allowing for endless derivatives and diversifications. This mutual interference, therefore, will create a chain reaction of interactivity and information that goes beyond the imagination and specific usage scenarios of the spatial designer for certain times and conditions, rather it generates the tools for the public to continually reinvent, reformulate and reshape their common ground to ensure the long-term viability of Taksim’s public sphere.

7 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 175-176.

8 Sanford Kwinter, “The Building, the Book and the New Pastoralism,” ANY9: Urbanism vs. Architecture, Cynthia C. Davidson, ed. (New York: Anyone Corporation, 1994), 21.

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Identity Studies A dynamic space of reconciliation With its diverse and multilayered identity; divergent history and conflicts; shifting dynamism and influence, Taksim emerges as the most symbolic and vigorous gravitational point of the city and the country. This exact feature is what constantly exposes Taksim to changing local and global, socio-political, socio-cultural, socio-ecological and socio-economic demands and stories of the society; and again this exact feature is what renders Taksim an enduring public space for all. To secure Taksim as a lasting stable ground, to protect its integrity, and to prevent its deterioration, the project focuses on discovering a latent structure empowering and instigating its dynamics from a tension zone of confrontation into a pluralistic space of reconciliation. Because as Deutsche asserts, “…, the term public space does not designate an empirically identifiable terrain or even a space produced by social relations.

Nor does public space refer only to concrete institutional sites where meanings are manufactured and circulated.

It designates instead the relations structuring vision and discourse themselves.” 9 Offering a strategic organization that responds to demanding programs rendered uncertain by the unpredictability of contemporary urban life, the project proposes a contemporary template for a co-evolving system of mutual interconnections; within a compound and strategic scheme, the hybrid framework places Taksim at the central node where the city flows through Taksim both in physical and digital form. It aims to accommodate the possibility

of converting Istanbul’s central hub into its greatest civic amenity that anticipates transformability, emergence and complexity of natural and cultural processes.

While the hybrid framework inaugurates and facilitates the tools and interfaces for a cohesive change and growth over time, the restored historic artefacts of Taksim become the organizer of the space and the witnesses of its past to set the foundations for its future. In Arendt’s words “Remembrance alone, the retelling of deeds as stories, can save the lives and deeds of actors from oblivion and futility”. 10 And it is precisely for this reason, the narratives of Taksim’s past are integrated within the proposed structure to provide a measure of truthfulness and a greater degree of significance to the actions of individuals while preserving the memory of deeds through time. In so doing, the framework incorporates and adds to the multilayered identity of Taksim for these deeds to become sources of inspiration for the future; it enables an ever-changing cultural landscape, a dynamic and symbolic space of reconciliation, and a democratic eco-political project that inclusively evolves with the city.

9

Rosalyn Deutsche, “Art and Public Space: Questions of Democracy” (Duke University Press, 1992), 43-44.

10

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 198.

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URBAN PLANNER

Team 1. Architect, Urban Designer / Author Architect (Team Leader)

5. Architect / Assistant

Focus areas and role/impact in the team: Dialectic of Pluralism within Public Space Design, Infrastructural Public, Soft Systems/Open Work in Architecture, Design & Historic Preservation Background and Experience: Architect and Urban Designer - prior experience as researcher, with awarded competition and implementation projects, holding international recognition for innovative design work and research expanding from published papers and exhibitions on the relationship of Public Space and Infrastructure to implemented public park projects with historic preservation content.

Focus areas and role: Architect, Digital Design and Graphics, Digital Fabrication, Critical Theory, Urban Interiors, Interior Design, Public Space and Everyday Life

2. Architect, Urban Planner / Author Urban Planner

6. Architect, Research Assistant / Assistant

Focus areas and role/impact in the team: Trans-scalar design research, Territorial urbanism and infrastructure, Contingent infrastructures, Collective urban form, Ecological Urbanism Background and Experience: Architect /Planner with built and executed public space competition projects and urban master plan works that received international recognition through awards; holding temporary positions as invited lecturer and design studio critic with published academic work on contingent/resilient infrastructures.

7. Sociologist / Advisor

3. Landscape Architect / Author Landscape Architect Focus areas and role/impact in the team: Urban ecologies, urban ecosystem rehabilitation, resilient water management strategies, environmental health Background and Experience: Landscape architect and designer focusing on urban ecosystem restoration with work experience on completed public park project with impacts on urban design and scale, as well as awarded competition projects and contribution to international academic seminars and workshops.

4. Architect, Associate Professor / Author Architect Focus areas and role/impact in the team: Poetics and politics of public space, spatial impacts of the networked society, information-driven design and digital design technology Background and Experience: Architect and an educator. Awarded designer with competition and commissioned projects with published papers in internationally prestigious journals, proceedings and books, as well as invited lectures in scientific venues.

With tenure and visiting professorships focusing on studio education; design practice; design theory and criticism; and design computation and informatics.

Background and Experience: Architect/Designer, working on the liminal zone in-between arts and architecture. Experience with executed public space competition and institutional projects. Received design and merit awards internationally. Current work oscillating between various scales of urban living and architecture.

Focus areas and role: Landscape Urbanism, Infrastructural Networks, Soft Systems, Urban Resiliency, Design Theory, Background and Experience: Architect/Urban Designer, currently working as a researcher in an internationally recognized university, focusing on urban infrastructures. Received international architectural design awards and fellowships. Previous experience includes executed large scale urban competitions and research projects across the globe.

Focus areas: Qualitative research, ethnography and social community research, digital media strategies, social theory Role: Advising and supporting the team to interpret social analyses, practice innovative media and technology in socio-spatial contexts, conceptualize democratic, inclusive “co-creation� processes, and devise physical-digital public interaction contents such as cyclical events, surveys, forums, urban actions, citizen communication and participation tools.

8. UX (User Experience) Designer / Advisor Focus areas: User research, user experience design in digital product development, retail design & customer experience design, user interface design Role: Assisting the team to establish a custom digital interface designed to promote urban participation and collective creativity processes facilitating interaction models, user-centered design, content consistency and comprehensibility, hypothetical user scenarios and dynamic content optimization.

9. Lawyer / Advisor Focus areas: Urban legislation, construction law, cultural heritage preservation policies, urban development policies for master/zoning plan Role: Consulting the team to develop new public space policy recommendations and legislative implementation strategies by ensuring the values of equity, public participation, accessibility, transparency, efficiency, fairness, accountability and preservation.

Taksim Urban Design Competition 2020