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The manipulated grid of the quarters of Teşvikiye, Topağacı and Maçka _ Google Earth Image

After a quick first reading, one might worryingly think that the taxonomical phylogeny of architecture and design movements seems to have arrived to a point in which the tool used by the designer is setting both the name, and unfortunately, the manifesto of the practice. Even though the writer seems to be clarifying the heuristics and the agenda of this so called new style, after a more attentive second reading, the reader notices the insinuating sarcastic tone and the conveyed message. The honest and aboveboard self-critic the author brings by questioning the feasibility of a single design team to redesign a 6 million square meter urban land of Istanbul, (where he was one of the members of this design team) reassures the reader that this reading is not about the declaration of this new style, but a wise opposition to such ways of using parametric design tools.

The (maybe not) ironic title picked for the writing contains the phrase “A New Global Style” which actually is one of the “global” crisis caused by the modernist practice of architecture and urbanism. Architects declaring an “International Style” and setting “Five Points of Architecture” have caused lack of context-specific identity, especially in developing countries like Turkey (following the Istanbul Kartal Masterplan case study) due to the low cost applicability of these points and this style, and of course to the reduced design development and construction time. Turkish architects and real estate developers of the era ended up destroying the historical fabric of their cities (the high costs of restoration processes and the lack of municipal regulations did play a significant role) in order to keep up with the “International Style” and thought to have created Modernist housing and/or cities. This loss of urban identity today is going through a reactive process. A horrifying solution of eclectic pre-modernist panels and ornaments, are being placed on modernist fenestration proportions and façades, mimicking the destroyed historical fabric – either through reconstruction or simply façade maquillage on the existing. This solution for seeking or rediscovering context-specific identity is absolutely futureless. So if a 6 million square meter urbanism proposal is to be prepared for the city of Istanbul, which should be able to solve more than just housing, infrastructure and overcrowding problems, context-specificity must be set as the primary design focus. But which context?

The writer gives an important definition for the unplanned settlement patterns as “continuous oscillation between moments when points of occupation spawn paths and paths in turn attract occupation” – which is how the post-1950 Turkish metropolises have been experiencing urban sprawl. While the production of Istanbul Kartal Master plan, “…the adjacent context [has been] an important input for the generation of the urban geometry” and Maya’s hair dynamic tool is used to connect the surrounding fabric to each other by distorted curved lines, which would then evolve to this new field of “Parametricist” grid. The adjacent context that is aimed to be connected, makes part of the unplanned settlement patterns of the city. In the future, there is a great possibility that a similar urban design proposal could be in discussion, so the information source of this proposal may not exist in the future. The interpretation of the geometry as a grid typology – through various sophisticated computational tools, makes the reader ask if the grid is a common typology of the adjacent or the contextual urban fabric. Expanding the late-Ottoman, early-Republican Istanbul, grid has been superimposed onto the steep topography of quarters like Teşvikiye, Topağacı and Maçka – alongside a couple of others, in today’s one of the central districts, Şişli. Infrastructural problems – even in the pedestrian scale – have been faced and housing units with natural lighting problems have been constructed through this model. The inadequacy of the grid typology on inhabiting the landscape of Istanbul has been experienced almost a century ago. Therefore the grid is neither a common nor a suitable organisational technique for the city of Istanbul, and has almost no social recognition.

“Formal distortions need to have purpose or cultural relevance and cannot stand alone as games

or algorithms. Within this new discourse, meaning can be constructed locally and relationally.”

Michael Meredith – Never Enough (transform, repeat ad nausea)

Using a less sophisticated tool, one can wonder around the city of Istanbul on Google Earth and read the topography of the city even without a satellite view. Although formulated in the 90s with this name, Landscape Urbanist organisational techniques had been used in this cultural context for decades and the topography of Istanbul has been experienced to be the most suitable medium to construct the urban fabric and the networks of transportation – even so without detailed municipal plans or inclusive master plans. In fact, the superimposed grid of Teşvikiye had to be broken at various points creating a zigzag curvature, in order to be able to take hold of the existing landscape. Although the topography of the specific site of the Kartal Masterplan seems to have less significance – hence it is situated in the flat south bank of the metropolitan area, a sub-center that is aimed to attract citizens, could stimulate social acquaintance and introduce a context-specific identity (along with other organisational and infrastructural gains), more likely through the medium or the creation of landscape. Complementing to the computational process of the proposal, it is important to underline that the social, cultural and physical inputs that we introduce as data for these advanced digital tools, will only then have an aim or meaning. Such data should set the parameters of the designer and/or the planner’s practice, not the comfort of the parametric design tools themselves.

“It is important to imbue digital technologies with some creative and intellectual force that

engages the history or architectural problems…”

Gregg Lyn – Folding in Architecture

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It would be interesting to have a reading about the possible application of bio-computational techniques into the practice of urbanism.

Deleuze and the genesis of Form

This essay regarding the form, the creation of it, the transformation is very complex and full of knowledge to understand. The main factor or point of attraction is the way things first came to creationism; religious, inertia, Aristotle, and or Platon. But, how can something so simple be created? A bubble? a spherical shape? Really, it all comes to the same generation minimal point of a geometrical form. But then it all comes to change, transformation of the form , oscillation. But really when do difference and repetition come to a drastical point of reality?

“Actualization breaks the resemblance as a process no less than it does with identity as a principle. In this sense, actualization or differentiation is always a genuine creation.”

Embryogenesis, this is a much more complex subject that is taking in account by Delanda and Deleuze, its all about the creation of things, but not geometrical forms, what really happened inside an egg? Transformation, stretching, augmentation,  a whole kinematics of the egg appears which implies a dynamic. My reflection was the spaces created in this process, where full of other possibilities of form, and the possibilities of “real forms” and “virtual forms”.

The “ social Strata” a very specific subject, when a group of people has no equal access to society and this society subdivides and many different subjects. Rolls in society are like chain of events you can start scaling up, but not all of the time they form a center and the rest on the outside, “to transform a loose ranked accumulation of traditional roles into a social class, the social sediment needs to become consolidated via theological and legal codifications.”

For me it’s really difficult to criticize a built project of outstanding architects, but the rolex center has several things that in my opinion could be better. They say the most important part of the project is the communication with the landscape and the idea of not having walls, instead different levels in the floor that divide up the spaces. This idea is a bit out of place because the building is a totally squared form in the middle of a flat surface that has no interrelation with its surroundings.  And the idea of the curves and holes in the roof top just make this library in to a pavilion of walking surfaces. The structural part is very interesting, they manage to have a great stetic and build an almost clear space with no big columns of walls.

RHIZOME

Here Deleuze tell  us how a data could be understood, perceived  or interpreted taking  the rhizomatic  structure as an example.

Deluze tries to explain his ideas based on 4 principles.

1&2- principle of connection and heterogeneity: Here part of rhizome could be connected to other part and must be. Here he takes an example of  a book saying  the linguistic feature is not what makes the rhizome, but it’s the mixture of semiotic chains with politics, economics, circumstances relative to the arts, science and social struggle that defines it.

3-Principle of Multiplities: It says the data has no object or subject, but it’s the multiple factors which blindfolds, which results in more multiplities to define the data.

4-Principle of signifying ruptures: Rhizome could be shattered or broken in a given spot, will start from that point.

5 and 6 -Principle of cartography and decalcomania: Rhizome is not accountable to any structural or generative model.

To explain his theory, the author has used an example , saying a book does not have any object or subject, but it is made of variously formed matters, and very different dates and speeds. I dont agree with his point of view because book is made of lot of matters, but these matter is an outcome of a subject  or an object, and if there is no subject to begin with, then there would not have place for matters to form a book.

BLUR BUILDING

This building is filled with a fog mass resulting from natural and manmade force. It is an experiential  space where every person is given an in-house jacket , where the jacket react and change colour according to the person who is standing next to you. A questioner  is made to fill before entering the space, according to which the jacket reacts. People when they pass by each other it turns red when they attract and turn green when they repel.

This is an architecture of atmosphere at the same times it is also a space which connects you emotionally because of its above mentioned quality.

CASE STUDY:  Schumaker- Parametricism

Today, architecture is at the core of advanced series of changes. Most innovation are achieved by alternating the accumulated developments and collecting individual stylistic researches into the collective. This happens with help of developing computer technologies, which in collaboration with the creative process of designing produced such phenomenon as parametrizm.

Thanks to advances in computer design technology, it becomes possible to implement the objects of any complexity. Thus, having some experience in programs, nothing restrain architect in the realization of his ideas to create the model. However parametrizm, according to Schumacher, has certain dogmas and rules that must be followed:

 - Avoid familiar typologies

- Avoid flat  objects

- Avoid clear spaces / areas

- Avoid repetitions,

- Avoid straight lines

- Avoid right angles,

- Do not add or remove without complicated joints,

- Do articulation

- Increase, decrease,

- Distorted,

- Repeat,

- Use curves, bends,

- Invent elements

- Make the original, not a copy

And, in my opinion, these rules are a paradox. If everything is done to ensure that there are no boundaries for creativity, why there are still certain limits that cannot be transgressed?

However, this is not the only problem. With the development of programming and simulations it becomes easier to create monotonous, but every time unique models. And there is a question about whether all that complex and unusual things that are created with the help of these programs are beautiful? Sense of style and sense of taste fade into the background, making parametrizm more process or method rather than style.

Nevertheless, it has characteristic advantages. The use of research areas, as one of the fundamental aspect in creating a model. It gives a result that is used as a strong base. On the basis of this framework urbanism takes on new meaning, by reaction of the city with the social and economic trends. Using a variety of scripts for generating blocks depending on the plot size, proportion and orientation allows to find the best solution.

Parametric Urbanism, in my opinion, is an excellent method for constructing a framework for further design. However, the use of parametrizm in buildings makes the city even though a single structure, but still faceless. Trying to avoid “rectangular” master plans by Le Corbusier still return them to the same problem. It seems to me, that one person or one company can not create a whole city. One way or another it will consist similar units, and urban is still an alive organism, with a variety of styles.

Overall, I can say that despite all odds with the theory of Patrick Schumacher, I still would like to explore this area, because it is certainly a powerful tool in the design of cities. Due to using core research, it is possible to create a unique foundation for a city ,which with all its complexity will also has its characteristic sense.