about Turkish Traffic practice and Space performance
kadikรถy. studies in space and design
* historic dimension * place research * how are spaces defined * space practice * experiment design: taksim * bibliogaphy
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historic dimension
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
36.000 inhabitants1400
942.000 inhabitants1900
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
942.000 inhabitants1960
12.000.000 inhabitants2008
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
today1946
today1966
coastline kadikรถy
today1982
today
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
kadikรถy
historic maps
maltepe bostanci sudiye playa
kartal pendik
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
kadikรถy
historic maps
maltepe bostanci kartal pendik
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
historic maps
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place research
kadikĂśy. studies in space and place
12 lines
04 lines
01 lines
79 lines
26 lines
01 lines
01 lines
02 lines
traffic modes
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
ido - ferry
bus / tram
bus / 6 perons
focusing area
turyol - ferry bus / 4 perons
dolmus / minibus
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how are spaces defined?
The room construction we call city, is full of spaces, places and more or less defined borders. We are affected in our daily lifew by many different types of them, without even recognicing them. Followoing is a small collection of obvious and less obvious borders i found in the area of kadikรถy iskelesi.
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
defined by buildings
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
defined by walls
≈
kadikĂśy. studies in space and place
defined by wateredge
kadikรถy. studies defining in space and spaces place
topography defined by topography
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
defined by light
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
ยง defined by regulation/rules
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
defined by sound
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
defined by mobile elements
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
defined by people
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
defined by people and interaction how are spaces defined?
kadiköy. studies in space and place
“(Social) space is a (social) product ... the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action ... in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power.”
Lefebvre, Henri: The Production of Space, Blackwell 1991, p. 26
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space practice
space opportunists With every new ferry arrives at one of the ferry stations a urban spectacle can be watched. Especially during the rush hour groups of hawkers are presenting their goods loud and spread out to the arriving ferry passengers. The movement of crowds and the big fluctuation of the human accumulation make a very high level of mobility nessesary. This mode of selling goods can be found almost at every space created from people bulk, from Taksim to Kartal. The sold goods can be switched according to the season, weather and current occasion. This characteristics lead to the description of "opportunists" in space or also "space invaders".
space practices
space creators As a next step on a institutionalisation scale after the "space opportunists" are hawkers with a solid place - given though the habit and time. those traders creating passages according to the performative conditions - like the pedestrian walkway along the sea side in kadikรถy. At late hours - after rush hours - this urban phenomenon can be observed in a even stronger matter. The smaller crowd passing through allows the hawkers to reduce the passage by approx. 70%, using more room to present the goods and ensuring every passenger a close look on the tender.
space practices
level of institutionalization >
institutionaliszation of space and orders We can talk about institutionalized orders in space, if we can find the same hawker at the same position every day again. Starting from a single guy on the highway selling glitter balls, to the cay places in kabatas or the consolidated Balik Ekmek shop in Eminönü or Karaköy with 15 employees. Their offers and position are good enough to attract people to vistit them again - the "synthesis activity" as Martina Löw it calls. The idea of the circle (pictogram) results of sightings of hakwers selling additional supplies next to the allrady institutionalized ones - offering the opportunity of a institutionalization again.
space practices
dolmus
dolmus dolmus
communicational space In spite the banality, another interesting practice is to be mentioned in the analysis area: the communication spaces, created between dolmus-, minib端s- or taksidrivers and potential customers on the side of the streets. This space starts forming with an action from the prospective client with showing interest by waving with the arm, taking a streight look or easely standing at a certain spot. From the other side the communication practice will be opened for example by flashing the flood light, through eye contact or even honking the horn. In the latter case the described subtle space will become "visible" to outside standing persons.
space practices
light
collective knowledge We can find spaces created and kept by collective knowledge in every country and city. But esspecially Istanbul is rich in such spaces, who are just visible for "knowing" people. This starts for instance with the construction of rubbish places on the streetcorner in lack of provided rubbishbins, to the point of using public transportation, where it is ammost impossible to take a dolmus without being adept to the informal network. A similar construction is to be seen in bis bus stations, where people are waiting on a collective known spot where the certain bus will stop. Martina Löw is describing this incident as Spacing. "We can talk about institutionalized spaces, if occured orders remain in effect through their individual actions and standard synthesis activity and spacings are following.”(Löw; 2001, p. 226) “Spacing” - moment of positioning in relation to other other people or social goods “Syntheseleistung” / synthesis activity - creation of room / process of recognicing, imagining, remembering
space practices
collective knowledge
kadikĂśy. studies in space and place
performative traffic "Place, space, culture and practice are each constituted within, and constitute, a joint flow of movement. In this flow it is difficult to distinguish practice that is concrete such as physical work of engineering, from mental and philosophical work that create sites. Performative actions create sites that fill the void that easily emerges between the physical, the mental, and the social sites. (argument taken from Lefevbre: Production of Space)" (Jonasson, 2004: p. 60) “(...) traffic places are ideological constructions and bearers of a spatialtemporal ideology, which is interpreted, negotiated, accepted, ignored, unnoticed or resisted by traffic participants. ... Traffic participants must negotiate (with) all sorts of material and cultural representations as well as key indications in discourses since these representations act as moral agents with the mandate to act in place of humans and structures.� (Jonasson, 2004: p. 60)
defining spaces
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
20 0
accessibility
40
60 80
speed
!
absolute presence
respect
fit participant
performance in traffic
"Performative actions include several acts that are connected by the common task of creating places. Thus, traffic places are products of utopian vision, (mis)interpretation, contestation, resistance, ritual, struggle, power, and collaborative maneuver." (Jonasson, 2004: p. 60)
space practices
critical mass
Performance (Improvisation)
eye contact
performance; (from Latin perificere: to carry out, ...) - 1. The act of performing; carrying into execution or action; execution; achievement; accomplishment; representation by action; as, the performance of an undertaking of a duty. - 2. in social science used for a concrete behavior, carried out as s “social” - 3. in psychology used for a behavior, witch is beeing learned improvisation; is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act. (wikipedia.com)
space practices
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experimental design: taksim
the model of "matrix-space" In many cases in modern Istanbul we can watch a "copy-mentality" from western order systems. if we take a look at the traffic sector, the american model of car depending transportaion is marking a wide range of newer build up urban areas. The same circumstance could be found in public transportation. Imported global designs for bus and metrostations might be inexpensive for the first moment, but soon after implementation the daily use shows important deficiencys. Its more or less a worse case scenario - either the capacities are to small or easyly the user doesnt want to or cant use the facilities as from the designer supposed. An example: Istanbuls Metrostations offering basically enough capacity in room and number of escalators. Just their arrangement is not considering the
habits of the user. So it always comes to blockage in the performative flow of the crowd - this could lead to seriosly problems, especially because a dramandas increase of passenger numbers is to be expected due to the completion of the metro line. Another example are the latly installed bus staions all over the city - a glas shelter is sitting on high concrete block. But the enourmous number of passenger and the their traditional practice let them not use those offered facileties. Also busdrivers are not used to those circumstances - witch arises last but not least in a huge gap between the "station" and the door. This phenomenon can we seen even at the new BRT lines - people standing in front of curbe edge, not giving the busdriver the chance to stop as he is supposed to.
kadikรถy. studies in space and place
make cultural and collective knowledge visible ...
The often heared argument, that people first have to learn how to handle the new technology, blinds out the fact of cultural habits, witch definitly has to be considered, even in times of globalisation. There are just two ways out of this dilemma - by amplifying the reglementations and defining hard borders, such as specified fenced walkways in metrotunnels or gates in front of the bus platforms. Another approach could be the self-defining and -ordering space under consideration of local practices and traditions. Nalan Bahcekapili writes in a essay about Istanbul traffic, "it seems obvios, that the traffic flow, projected or not, would not proceed very different. Breach of rules would appear in a projected area, while unwritten rules would be developed in unplanned area." Martina Löw is using the term of "spacing" for this act of positioning to eatch other and "synthesis activity" with lead to those occuring orders. (mentioned earlier in collective knowledge)
In 1991 Dieter Läpple allready introduced the idea of a “matrix-space” in his "Essay about the space" to construct a space out of this social behavior. This "matrix-space" doesnt have a absolute physical form - social orders, corporate pratices and physical substrat are forming the space it-self, while constantly reshaping it. At the end would stand a "container room" (refering to the “Behälter-Raum” from Albert Einstein) witch would reflect every social and corporate correlation. Taking those ideas into consideration about creating a „relational ordinal-room“ (Läpple; 1991; p. 180) this would lead to a totally (pre-) undefined area, leaving the challenge of designing constantly changeable tools to make those occuring rules visible to all participants. On the following pages there will be a experiment set-up to create such a room, respecting all previos findings about space practice and definitions.
osmanbey / sisli
talarbasi
taksim golden horn historical peninsula
beyoglu
besiktas
bosphorus
B
D
M T
B
D
B B
D
B
D
M T D
traffic hubs
D T B M
dolmus-stop tram-station bus-station metro-station
level of use very dense transfer use regular use
M
very low use / no use
bus connection between park & istiklal over bridge bus
dolmus
taxi zone
connect all transportmodes bus
dolmus
shuttle buses
mostly un-used space
dolmus
removed stairs / amphitheater taxi area entrance to metro / traffic control / view point
performative station area changeable bus staion sign defined pedestrian area open station area marked by colour and material
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bibliography
Bahcekapili, Nalan: Performativer Verkehr; in: Dervis, Pelin et all.: Becoming Istanbul, Istanbul, 2008. Jonasson, Mikael: The Performance of Improvisation: Traffic Practice and the Production of Space, University of Halmstad, Sweden, 2004, p. 52 f. Läpple, Dieter: Essay über den Raum,Für ein gesellschaftswissenschaftliches Raumkonzept; in: Hartmut Häußermann et all. (Hg.): Stadt und Raum. Soziologische Analysen, Pfaffenweiler (Centaurus) 1991, p. 157-207. Löw, Martina: Raumsoziologie, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Frankfurt (Main), 2001.
* pem 515e - place and design theory * assistant professor dr. a. senem deviren * it端 istanbul - fall 2010 * by christian scheler