Urban Political Thresholds in Slums

URBAN POLITICAL THRESHOLDS IN SLUMS

URBAN POLITICAL THRESHOLDS IN SLUMS Conflict Mitigation, Incremental Design, and (In)Formal Development Strategies within Tarlabasi Istanbul

Philip Galway-Witham Robinson College An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil examination in Environmental Design in Architecture (Option B) 2012-2014 This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text.

All images by author unless otherwise stated.

15,463 words (approx)

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ABSTRACT For communities at the bottom Istanbul’s socioeconomic ladder, the rampant growth of Istanbul in recent years has led to a highly organized and effective campaign of urban transformation that promises to expropriate thousands of residents from their homes. Of the sites undergoing this form of wholesale urban transformation, the informal settlement of Tarlabasi in the city centre has become a highly contested socio-political environment, with the demolition of physical urban fabric compounding the effects of forced eviction and relocation on local residents.

In a slum predominantly comprised of highly stigmatized non-Turkish minorities, politically charged undercurrents of social exclusion and economic gentrification have exacerbated and accelerated the current Tarlabasi Renewal Project. It is in the context of this development process that this thesis explores the capacity of architectural and urban design to act as a catalyst in the mitigation of conflict within informal settlements.

Through the proposal of an intervention that creates three-dimensional patterns of connection, inhabitation and interaction, the thesis speculates on the effects of recalibrating relationships within Tarlabasi’s existing urban networks and the possibility of encouraging dialogue and intersection between disparate actors.

An analysis of the underlying economic, political and historical forces that have driven the existence of slums or ‘Gecekondu’ in Istanbul frames an understanding of the questions of informality and informal settlements; presenting a series of primary spatial and design questions. A close reading of the social-political and economic causes of compulsory purchase and forced eviction is coupled with a dissection of the spatial ramifications of this form of urban conflict. Informed by these factors, the design research examines three key approaches to slum intervention; infrastructural connectivity, architectural catalysts that provide points of intersection and dialogue, and a framework for stakeholder-driven, incremental design. This is underpinned by an investigation into contemporary practices of slum intervention globally, and the thesis draws from existing methods to combine these approaches into a hybrid design strategy.

A model of formal/informal partnership is explored that responds to the manifestations of conflict embedded in the on-going Tarlabasi Renewal Project and proposes an alternate method of urban regeneration and building procurement that works to engage with disparate actors. Finally, the merits and challenges of stakeholder driven and incremental design are discussed; raising questions as to the limitations and responsibilities of the design professional in intervening in informal settlements. The thesis concludes with a speculation as to the role of the architect in the context of slums and an ever-growing global housing crisis that perpetuates and sustains informal settlements as contested urban space.

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CONTENTS Abstract List of Accronyms + Organizations Acknoledgements

05 08 09

Introduction

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Overview: Vertical Urban Infrastructure and Conflict in Slums Setting the Context: Informality as an Endemic Urban Condition.

Aims + Objectives Methdology

12 15 18 18

01: The Informal

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02: The Contested Space

54

03: The Urban Stitch

82

04: The Catalyst

116

05: The Partnership

158

06: The Incremental

168

Conclusions

196

Bibliography List of Illustrations List of Interviews Apendix: Slum Audit - Case Studies

203 206 206 208

01.1: The Gecekondu Phenomena of Istanbul 01.2: Tarlabasi as an Informal Settlement 01.3 - The Tarlabasi Renewal Project 01.4 - Documenting Dereliction, Stakeholders + Informality in Tarlabasi

02.1 Manifestations of Conflict Within Tarlabasi 02.2 The Boundary and the Threshold - Urban Mapping of Conflict In Kibera 02.3 The Boundary and the Threshold - Urban Mapping of Conflict In Tarlabasi

03.1: Stabilizing + Connecting Urban and Social Fabric 03.2: Supporting the Stitch - Stabilizing Fins 03.3 Weaving the Stitch - Linking Tarlabasi

04.1: A Case for Architecture + Urbanism as a Catalyst for Development 04.2 Defining The Brief - Developing Catalysts from Kibera 04.3 Defining The Brief - Applying Catalysts Within Tarlabasi’s Contested Spaces 04.4: Reconstituting the Block: An Institutional Catalyst

05.1: Existing Development Practices - Legislative Possibilities + Drawbacks 05.2: Stakeholder Compensation + Land Procurment 05.3: Construction + Community Actors

06.1: A Case for Incremental Growth 06.2: Self-Build Incrementalism 06.3: Stakeholder-Driven Urban Regeneration

Hybrid Intervention in Slums Responsibilities and Limitations of the Architect

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28 34 36 42

56 64 66

84 88 100

118 122 126 128

160 163 166

170 173 186

198 200

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS + ORGANIZATIONS AKP Amnesty International BDM GAP INSAAT Gecekondu IMM Istanbul Chamber of Architects NHA Tarlabasi Board of Renewal

Justice and Development Party Human Rights Advocacy Organization Beyoglu District Municipality Primary Developer of Tarlabasi Turkish Informal Settlement or ‘Build

by Night’ housing.

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Official Body of Architects for the City Neighborhood Housing Ascociation District-Level Heritage Board

TOKI

Turkish Mass Housing Authority

TTDD

Tarlabasi Community Support Ascociation

TTM UNESCO UN HABITAT Yapsat

Tarlabasi Community Centre United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United Nations Humans Settlements Programme Quasi-Formal Smale Scale Development

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitute to Ingrid Schroder for her enthusiasm, unfailing support, and committment to my project over the course of this degree.

Additionally I would like to thank Alex Warnock Smith for his continued assistance in the production of this thesis. Furthermore, Felipe Hernandez, Joris Fach, Peter Cleg and Wendy Pullan have been invaluable in thier imput in this reaserch design project.

Special thanks are also due to Maximillian Sternberg, Martin Schwegmann, Adam Higazi, Jonathan Lewis, and Simon Smith. I would also like to mention Tures Architects Istanbul who have been intstrumental in providing base drawn information and survey data from which the design of this project has been made possible I would like to also mention my family who have been an enormous source of support and encouragement throughout this degree. And finally thanks to my colleagues on the course, whose input and advice has helped enormously in the visual and written narrative of this work. They have also been a source of support and have made this project enjoyable.

Critics Mary Beard Peter Beard Beatie Blakemore Mary Beard Barbara Campbell-Lange Tom Fox Edmund Fowles Spencer de Grey Rod Heyes John O’Mara Makoto Saito Carolyn Steel Tom Weaver Mary Anne Steane

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INTRODUCTION

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“ON THE ONE HAND, PARTICIPATORY PROCESSES AND MECHANISMS ARE INCREASINGLY IGNORED; ON THE OTHER HAND, CIVIL SOCIETY AND NGOS ARE DISCOURAGED FROM INTERVENING IN URBAN POLITICS. SO, CENTRALLY DESIGNED, TOP-DOWN URBAN POLICIES ARE IMPOSED ON SOCIETY WITH NO ATTENTION TO SOCIAL DEMANDS.” ELICIN, 2014: 150

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Overview: Vertical Urban Infrastructure as a Response to Urban Conflict in the Slum of Tarlabasi Following sweeping changes to development and planning legislation, the informal and marginalized communities of the city of Istanbul have begun to experience in recent years a process of systematized forced eviction and relocation (Schwegmann, 2012: 96). Historically stigmatized and socially excluded populations within the city centre have been targeted by mass urban regeneration projects in the name of civic regeneration and economic growth (Schwegmann, 2012: 76). In a city where an estimated 50% of the housing stock is informal, large-scale redevelopment areas have been identified as districts in need of wholesale regeneration (Neuwith, 2005: 150). These are frequently the sites of Gecekondu communities or districts of non-Muslim/Turkish minorities. These have included the Roma settlement of Sulukule and more recently, the derelict neighborhood of Tarlabasi, a stone’s throw away from the political heart of Istanbul, Taksim Square (Schwegmann, 2012: 75).

The election of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, which ran on a platform of urban regeneration and renewal, has resulted in the reorganization of planning and urban development policy within Istanbul (Elicin, 2014b: 5). Vast infrastructure projects, coupled with the development of satellite cities designed to house up to 60,000 residents, have typified the modus operandi of current government urban development (Elicin, 2014b: 1). For communities at the bottom of Istanbul’s socioeconomic ladder, the rampant growth of the city has led to a highly organized and effective campaign of urban transformation that promises to expropriate thousands of residents from their homes (www.tarlabasiistanbul.org: accessed 02-01-14). The neighborhood of Tarlabasi in central Istanbul represents one of the first districts targeted by this process of wholesale urban transformation, and is the primary site of this thesis. It is a derelict neighborhood that has been, in the last thirty years, illegally inhabited by squatters following the departure of the original resident communities of Armenian and Greek merchants (Schwegmann, 2012: 211). Tarlabasi is traditionally a district occupied by non-Turkish communities and highly stigmatized as a source of crime, prostitution and urban deprivation. Plans for its first phase regeneration of Tarlabasi propose the eviction of 3,200 of its residents and the destruction of its historic urban fabric.

It is this form of contested, informal space that the thesis explores, examining the conditions of sociopolitical conflict within informal settlements. Through a discussion of the underlying factors and actors within informal spaces experiencing conflict, this thesis addresses how given urban environments, land and infrastructure are commandeered by informal use and the effects of such inhabitation at a political, social and civic level. The research examines, on a spatial and societal level, the impact of urban and architectural interventions at points of conflict between disparate actors in slums. Through the connection and reinterpretation of thresholds and boundaries that are the physical result of socio-political conflict within Tarlabasi, the project aims to test the recalibration of urban networks as a means to create spaces of interaction and dialogue. It examines, thereby, the capacity of subsequent informal and incremental growth to develop a form of regeneration that mitigates entrenched societal and economic divisions within the slum. Drawing from research into contemporary practices of slum intervention (See Appendix), the thesis explores the use of vertical urban infrastructure, catalysts of socio-economic opportunity and informal, incremental growth, as a means to create spaces that change existing patterns and spatial manifestations of politically charged urban conflict in Tarlabasi.

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Figure 01: Aerial View from Sultanhamet accross the Golden Horn to Galata and Beyoglu

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Figure 02: View of the informal settlement of Kibera, Nairobi

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Setting the Context: Informality as an Endemic Urban Condition The Preveleance and Significance of the Informal Settlement The United Nations estimates that by the year 2050, over one third of humanity will inhabit slums and informal settlements (UN Habitat, 2003). The prevalence of informal settlements is truly a global condition, from stacked favelas in Sao Paolo and BogotĂĄ, to the sprawl of corrugated metal roofs of Mumbai and Nairobi (Davies, 2006: 23). Rampant urbanization, coupled with an evergrowing, globalized economy, has led to extremes of economic, political and social inequality; manifesting acutely in the contemporary, global slum (Davies: 2006: 27) This global economic growth has required an explosion of urban labour; attracting those in search of the opportunities offered in rapidly growing cities (Elgina & Oyva, 2013: 3). The availability of education, healthcare, paid employment and an end to subsistence agriculture all contribute to the appeal of cities for the global poor (Elgina & Oyva, 2013: 3).

However, a lack of economic capital, space, municipal oversight and political will in these same cities of opportunity have played important roles in exacerbating a worldwide housing crisis; a crisis that is responded to by the urban poor with the creation of homes using whatever space and materials can be found (Hamdi: 2004, 20). Slums push their inhabitants to live on the periphery of city life spatially and socially, through illegal squatting, building on unused plots and re-inhabiting derelict structures. The exact form of each slum is unique, adapting as well as possible to the conditions that exist. The precarious nature of existence in these informal urban spaces presents serious risks to the lives and livelihoods of slum dwellers, with the threat of eviction compounded by poverty, poor living conditions and a chronic lack of access to civic and municipal services.

Despite this, slums also present a level of freedom that is particular to urban environments that exist outside the realm of formal legislation, planning and municipal code. Spontaneous and entrepreneurial growth, often supported by the absence of debt, taxation and planning codes provide a flexibility to urban living for those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder (Elgina & Oyva, 2013: 3). Concurrently, the informal economies they promote contribute an estimated 25-40% to the annual GDP of developing countries in Asia and Africa (World Bank, 2014). Furthermore, they provide transitional space and shelter for new city dwellers moving from the rural to the urban; a setting from which they move into the formal socio-political zones of the civic society (Saunders, 2011: 5).

Spatially, slums present complex environments of simultaneous connection and exclusion. Such communities are frequently socially or politically stigmatized, with views exacerbated by political indifference or active defamation (Davies: 2006, 61). This in turn leads to the informal city becoming a site of inherent conflict; be it between squatter and municipality, between slum baron and tenant, or ethnic minorities and political parties. These conflicts, whether acute, such as post-election violence in Nairobi, or chronic, as in the case of Istanbul’s developer driven expropriation, exacerbate and deepen existing divides between actors in these politically complex informal spaces.

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Throughout this research design project, ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ are used consistently. Additionally, it is important to distinguish a critical difference between the legal status of a settlement as ‘informal’ and ‘informality’ as a condition. The term ‘formal’, for the purposes of the paper, refers to urban actors who, despite allegations of corruption and illegal development practices, are official bodies within the discourse of the development of Tarlabasi. This includes the municipality, commercial developers, national and district level planning and housing agencies.

As the research examines the quality of slums, urban spaces and the political status of the actors within Tarlabasi, the legally precarious condition of the neighborhood will be generally referred to as ‘informal’, irrespective of the explicit legal status of a particular structure or resident. This term additionally encompasses organizations that, despite perhaps legally existing within the political landscape of Istanbul, are deeply invested in the interests of stakeholders whose legal and political status are less clear. Crucially, ‘informal’ is used in many cases as a designation of a settlement or district of a city that exists illegally. Tarlabasi claims such a classification due to the illegal inhabitation of derelict structures by its inhabitants that typifies the neighborhood (Schwegmann, 2012: 209).

In contrast, the term ‘informality’ encompasses a much broader definition that refers to “the compendium of social practices of adaptation that enable….. communities to transgress imposed political and economic recipes of urbanization.” (Teddy Cruz at TED Global, 2013). By this term, informality relates to activities that fall outside the remit of formal procedures of economic and political practice. These include issues such as the existence of informal economies, construction and micro-business, coupled with self-organized political and social networks that exist at the periphery of civic life. In addition to its informal status, Tarlabasi contains a myriad of these networks of informality, from small-scale informal markets to pop-up businesses and stalls (Schewgmann, 2012: 221). These are coupled with various social networks that, while under threat due to the urban transformation process, add layers of informality. Throughout this thesis both the terms ‘informal’ and ‘informality’ are examined; dissecting their respective latent benefits and risks.

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“THE URBAN EXPLOSION OF THE LAST YEARS ECONOMIC BOOM ALSO PRODUCE DRAMATIC MARGILIAZITION, RESUTLING IN THE EXPLOSION OF SLUMS IN MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD. THIS POLIARIZATION OF ENCLAVES OF MEGA WEALTH SURROUNDED BY SECTORS OF POVERTY AND THE SOCIAL ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES THEY HAVE ENGENDERED IS REALLY AT THE CENTRE OF TODAYS URBAN CRISIS.” TEDDY CRUZ AT TED GLOBAL 2013

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Aims + Objectives:

Throughout this study, the following questions are asked; creating the structure for the design and research conducted: 1): In what ways might new urban infrastructure enable spontaneous, incremental growth and promote a sustainable three-dimensional informal urban model for Tarlabasi?

2): How can a multi-actor development approach provide a stabilising socio-political framework within Tarlabasi?

3): How might the creation of such a development model act as a catalyst for socially and politically responsible urban regeneration within the Tarlabasi Renewal Zone?

Methedology:

This design research adopts a combined methodology of academic research, urban and architectural design, and first hand site and ethnographic observations. The academic research is conducted within two particular areas, with the first focusing on informal settlements, informality and socio-spatial conditions of urban conflict within Tarlabasi. This is drawn from academic literature and primary sources such as the key legal documents that have facilitated the Taralabasi Renewal Project. Through this, the qualitative mapping of conflict in Tarlabasi and a structured discussion of the underlying forces behind informal settlements is conducted. The second area is the study of contemporary practices in the design of slum interventions identifying key approaches that respond to the question of informal settlements. Research into contemporary slum intervention practices took the form of a limited ‘slum audit’ that catalogued a variety of design responses and approaches in informal settlements (See Appendix).

Building on this, the thesis develops a series of design interventions, at a variety of scales, that work to question existing spatial relationships within the slum. This is done to understand how the realignment of existing urban networks into a three-dimensional system may create spaces of interaction and dialogue.

These scales of intervention, from the macro urban, to the micro building level, draw from an exploration into contemporary forms of intervention within informal settlements, especially infrastructural improvements, micro development projects and incremental, self-build initiatives. The design element works to create a series of spatial urban conditions that examine the realignment of existing patterns of inhabitation habitation and socio-political division. With this exploration into recalibrating informal networks at the level of the urban, the block and the building, this thesis questions the capacity embedded, multi-actor architectural design has to encourage dialogue and conflict mitigation. Through the use of three of these existing approaches in unison, the thesis explores a form of slum intervention that addresses the spatial and societal factors of conflict within this contested space.

This combined methodology was first tested in the informal settlement of Kibera in the first year of this degree. As such, this design research methodology has been used to examine two informal settlements of socio-political conflict. These two sites, the informal settlement of Kibera in Nairobi, and the neighbourhood of Tarlabasi, while diverse in their spatial fabric and the nature of the societal strife present, represent critical examples of urban conflict that manifest on the threshold between the slum and the formal city.

This approach has been to develop and define an intervention strategy that harnesses in unison disparate contemporary slum design theories and tests this within the context of both Kibera and Tarlabasi. For the purposes of this thesis, which works to distil the initial moves made with the Kibera project into a refined strategy within Tarlabasi, lessons learned from the first year of this course form a springboard from which the design and research elements are developed. Throughout the thesis, small samples of work conducted in Kibera are included to illustrate the how the design research has been informed by these initial tests.

A ten-day site visit was conducted in March 2014, where Tarlabasi was documented and mapped.

Additionally, activists involved in protesting the current urban transformation project and one of the nine architectural practices that have been working on a portion of the renewal zone were interviewed. These semi-structured interviews were supported by informal conversations with academics within the fields of urban renewal, gentrification and informal settlements. Finally, a limited ethnographic study of the residents of Tarlabasi was executed through informal discussions and photographic essays.

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Year One: Kibera - Site Plan of Design Intervention

Year Two: Tarlabasi - Site Plan of Design Intervention

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Figure 03: Image of Houses Within Kibera, Nairobi

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Typical Derelict Street Within Tarlabasi, Istanbul

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Sattelite Image of Kibera, Nairobi. Courtesy of Google Earth.

Accessed 10/10/12.

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Sattelite Image of Tarlabasi, Istanbul. Courtesy of Google Earth.

Accessed 11/02/14.

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Extents of Open Space Along the Physical Edges of Kibera, Nairobi.

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Extents of Open Space Along the Physical Edges of Tarlabasi, Istanbul.

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01: THE INFORMAL

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“- THE EMIGRATION OR BETTER EXPULSION OF THE FORMER HOMEOWNERS, WHICH ALSO APPLIED TO THE TARLABASI AREA, LED TO THE VANISHING OF THE NON-MUSLIM COMMUNITY TO A GREAT EXTENT AND LEFT BEHIND ABANDONED HOUSES. THE LAST TWO MAJOR EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF EXPULSION COINCIDED WITH THE BEGINNING OF INDUSTRIALISATION IN TURKEY, WHICH LED TO A MASS MIGRATION FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE.” SCHWEGMANN, 2012: 13

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01.1: The Gecekondu Phenomena of Istanbul Understanding Historic Development Factors This thesis explores social, political and economic factors behind the development of Istanbul’s informal settlements since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of modern day Turkey in 1923 (Sudjic, 2011: 206). A brief overview of the historical and urban context and causes of the developmental slums in the city follows.

Istanbul has, for hundreds of years, represented a crossroads of culture, trade and technology (Neuwith, 2005: 64). Even before its ascendancy as the centre of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (now Istanbul) exemplified the typology of the mercantile metropolis; a hybrid of religions, ethnicities and economic and social classes living in a proximity unheard of throughout much of the rest of West Asia and Europe (Aksoy, 2011: 232). A physical link across the Bosphorus straits, the city is as diverse topographically as it is socially (Sukris, 2011: 226). Stretching for over 100 kilometres, the urban fabric of the city is vast; containing leafy boulevards of European quarters in stark contrast to its cramped squatter settlements that continue to engulf the surrounding countryside (Sudjic, 2011: 208). Istanbul has grown exponentially in the last 60 years, with its population exploding to 12.9 million in 2010 from 1.2 million in 1950 (LSE, 2010: 207). Today an estimated 17% of Turkeys’ population live in this metropolis; boasting a populace greater than that of 40 European countries (Sudjic, 2011: 207).01 Key to Istanbul’s growth has been the existence of informal settlements throughout the city. Specifically, the policy and phenomena of ‘gecekondu’ has been referenced by all of the authors studied. A combination of the Turkish words for ‘night’ and ‘to happen’, ‘gecekondu’ refers simultaneously to a legal policy and an urban architectural typology. As a policy, it refers to the legal due process that is afforded to squatters in the event they are able to construct a dwelling within a single night, irrespective of ownership of land (Nuewith, 2005: 64). Today, the term is also synonymous with portions of the city in disrepair or that fall outside the bounds of the ‘formal’ city politically and economically. While often at the periphery of Istanbul, many established informal settlements, including Tarlabasi, exist within the centre of the city.It is estimated by Neuwith in ‘Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters’ (2005), that over half of the city exists in a state of either legal ambiguity, or outright contravention of planning and landownership regulations. Despite the existence of what technically may be defined as ‘slums’, Neuwith’s writings on these urban phenomena are generally positive in their influence and significance (Neuwith 2005: 151).

Massive rural-to-urban migration led to the process of urbanization that followed in the wake of World War Two (Sahin & Caglayan 2006: 16). The alignment of Turkey with the Western bloc in the Cold War that, with assistance from the Marshall Plan, facilitated a rapid industrialization and creation of a market economy in the country, requiring large increases in Istanbul’s worker populations (Sahin, Caglayan 2006: 16). Despite the concerted modernization and urban redevelopment efforts initiated by Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, longstanding insufficiencies in the provision of formal housing typified the first half-century of the modern Republic (Tekeli, 1994: 168).

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01 - Sudjic makes the case that it was through the combined effects of the ‘Radical Modernization Project’ of the 1920s and 1930s and Turkey’s alignment with the West (harnessing the benefits of a capitalist globalized economic model) that facilitated the growth of the cities, with the existence of its informal settlements a by-product of this process rather than a key factor.

Figure 04: Examples of Early Gecekondu in the Context of Mass Urban Developments on the Outskirts of Istanbul

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Due to the fact that the state was unable to provide sufficient housing programmes, it tolerated Gecekondus for approximately forty years (Schweggmann, 2012: 338). Today, the residents of these often marginalised and economically vulnerable urban spaces are now the target of widespread “dispossession, displacement and property transfer to wealthier actors.” (Kuyucu, 2009: 25).02 Another key aspect in which the informal settlements of Istanbul are studied is through the examination of socio-economic forces behind these urban spaces. Mete Turan’s “Poverty, Prudence, Place-making: Strolling through Gecekondus” offers a more technical definition of the term Gecekondu, referencing the law in the following passage: “Gecekondu Kununu (Gecekondu Law; Law No. 775, July 1966) refers to it as “dwelling erected on the land and lot which does not belong to the builder, without consent of the owner, and without observing the laws and regulations concerning construction and building” (Karpat, 1976, pp. 15-16).” By referencing underlying elements such as theories on ‘de-peasantization’ (Turan, 1987:10) and inherent financial prudence of those on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder, the paper presents a well-rounded context to the issue of Gecekondus. Additionally, a strong case is made for an anthropological and historical grounding of the phenomena of Gecekondu throughout Turkey in the 1970s and 1980’s, referencing the influence of feudal and tribal structures in early Turkish history as a key factor in the collaborative efforts made by communities in the construction of self built housing outside the purview of formal development processes (Turan, 1987:12).03 The study of public perceptions of their own city draws additional insights into the built environment of the metropolis and its informal settlements. In “Squatter (gecekondu) Housing versus Apartment Housing: Turkish Rural- to-Urban Migrant Residents’ Perspectives” (2004) Erman examines empirical research into the perceptions of urban dwellers and their views towards informal settlements. It is critical to note that this study was conducted through research into gecekondus in Ankara and, therefore, must immediately be studied through the lens of a divergent geographic context. However, its methodology, goals and the results found offer invaluable insights in to a much more nuanced view of disparities between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ living in Turkish cities and specifically with regard to a demographic split in with regards to the issue of quality of life. An example of this showed that, in general, rural women who more recently moved to the city preferred gecekondu living due to the community provided and its increased interconnectedness. In contrast, rural migrant men preferred the aspiration of living in an apartment due to the associated views of cleanliness, status and economic opportunity (Payne, 2009).04 As part of the anthology titled “Living in the Endless City” (2011) published by the London School of Economics, Omer Kanipak discusses collective societal psychology as a contributing factor to issues of social mistrust and segregation in Turkey. In the opening passage he writes: “We need to factor in human behaviour, and the psychological conditions of the people using that part of the city. We will need to use social psychology to analyze the effect of how certain groups of people behave on the physical environment.”(Kanipak, 2011: 243).

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02- Examples of this include the opening of the Bosphorus bridges in 1973 and 1988 and new highways that remade the cities’ “time-distance relations,” which restructured the hierarchy of central areas, inducing land speculation and a reassignment of central business districts. (Tekeli 1994, p. 168) 03 - The paper cites a key midway point as ‘pseudourbanites’ (Turna, 1987:8), where migrants have yet to fully set up their gecekondu, yet are economically tied to the city with employment, working in urban environments whilst collecting financial capital.

04 -Examples of this are statistics on perceptions of the risk to Istanbul’s residents that were stated to be much higher than the actual incidence of crime, with over 44% of residents stating that this was one of the three aspects they felt were worst about their city.

YENSHEHIR

HACIAHMET

TARLABASI SURURI MEHMET EFENDI

TAKSIM SQUARE

KAMER HATUN

ISTIKLAL

100m

TAKSIM

400m

BEYOGLU (GOLDEN HORN)

FATIH DISTRCT (SULTANHAMET)

N

Scale 1/10,000

Figure 05: Image of the Extent of the Gecekondu Phenomena in Istanbul

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05- Kanipak makes the case that widely held very assumption of building malpractice in Istanbul’s municipal bodies actually exacerbates the incidence of such non-compliance with building code and planning permission, thus increasing the ‘illegality’ of the city as a whole.

He highlights key underlying social conditions that create the apparent idiosyncrasies discussed in his examples of the city. From the seemingly planned collection of single types of small businesses in various districts of the city, to the manner in which low-level commerce is conducted, he asserts that underlying communal relationship conditions in Turkish society create spaces of mistrust: “The level of confidence in society is one of the lowest compared to many other countries in the world. Surveys conducted by, for instance, Professor Yilmaz Esmer’s team, as part of the World Values Survey research, show that Turkish people do not have a great level of trust in each other or in the governing systems.”(Kanipak, 2011:244.)05 While this review of contributing factors to the development and prevalence of informal settlements in Istanbul is by no means exhaustive, it highlights a number of considerations that must be taken into account when considering intervention in slums. These include powerful forces of urbanization that have driven the development of the city since 1923, coupled with deep-rooted perceptions of the nature of Istanbul’s informal settlements as spaces of marginalization and exclusion. These elements of exclusion have been fuelled importantly by a systemic failure of the city’s institutional bodies to respond to the severe demand of housing and urban services that has followed in the wake of Istanbul’s exponential growth since World War Two. Furthermore, this overview has highlighted issues of inherent mistrust between urban dwellers and legislative and municipal bodies; perhaps representing an underlying condition of animosity that exacerbates and perpetuates instances of conflict and contention within the social and urban fabric of the city. With these underlying issues in mind, an exploration of the specific background and history of Tarlabasi follows.

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01.2: Tarlabasi as an Informal Settlement History, Legal Status and Conditions Tarlabasi is a quarter in the district of Beyoglu, formerly known as Pera (Greek for “on the other side”), referring to its position across the Golden Horn from the historic peninsula of Sultanahmet. Due to its history as a quarter inhabited by Greek and Armenian merchant traders, the predominant architectural vernacular shows a particularly Greek aesthetic (interview with Tures Architects, March 2014).06 However, consecutive waves of politically driven emigration of the Greek and Armenian populations from Istanbul meant that, by the 1980s, the vast majority of Tarlabasi’s original population had abandoned, or been expelled from, their homes (Schwegmann, 2012: 213). In their place, communities fleeing the Kurdish conflict in the 1990s occupied the abandoned buildings. This influx supplemented rural-to-urban migrants who had moved in during the post-war waves of industrialization from the 1950s to the 1960s (Schwegmann, 2012: 213). Since these initial instances of immigration to Tarlabasi, a sizable community of Roma have taken residence in the slum, alongside illegal immigrants from West Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan and, most recently, refugees from Syria (Stini, 2011: 23). An urban space inhabited by these traditionally stigmatized communities of Kurds, Roma, refugees, and illegal immigrants, Tarlabasi is distinctly segregated from its immediate surroundings (Cetin, 2013: 5).

For many residents in Tarlabasi, subsequent generations have gone on to acquire title deeds or Tapu deeds, for properties originally illegally inhibited (Sahin & Caglayan 2006, p. 16). However, there is significant contention as to the legality of such title deeds due to the original informal acquisition of property (Gunay, 2013: 3). Additionally, in light of the urban transformation process underway in Tarlabasi, the compulsory purchase and forced expropriation practices taking place render any and all title deeds irrelevent in the context of security of tenure.

Despite deficiencies in formal services, economic security and legal land tenure, Tarlabasi’s informal status endows the settlement with a unique character that defines its urban fabric as much as its negative conditions. Within often cramped and poorly constructed buildings, a plethora of activities take place (Neuwith, 2005: 20). From housing to small businesses, to schools and community centres, these structures are often self built and comprised of salvaged materials built into the fabric of the existing derelict buildings. However, the exterior conditions do not represent the functions inside. Throughout Tarlabasi, micro economies abound, servicing not only the informal settlement, but also feeding back into the formal urban fabric in the form of human resources, market places, services and low cost enterprises (Nuewith, 2011, 63). In the words of environmental theorist Stuart Brand, slum dwellers are: ‘poor but intensely urban. – They are not stuck in poverty, they are getting out of poverty as fast as they can.” (Stuart Brand, TED Conference, Monterey California, 2006) Amongst Istanbul’s derelict and marginalized urban spaces, few have been the focus of as much contention as that of Tarlabasi. This historically diverse area is undergoing physical and social changes that, if left unchecked, will result in the total destabilization of the community, coupled with the destruction of much of its existing urban fabric (Gunay, 2013: 5).

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06 - While the first buildings built in Tarlabasi date from the 16th centaury when the Ottoman Empire allowed Western diplomats to settle in Pera (Sahin & Caglayan, 2006), the majority of the building stock remaining in Tarlabasi date from the 19th Centruy.

“....[TARLABASI] IS SITUATED ON THE EUROPEAN SIDE IN THE DISTRICT OF BEYOGLU CLOSE TO THE WELL-KNOWN PEDESTRIAN SHOPPING STREET OF ISTIKLAL AND TAKSIM SQUARE, THE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND POLITICAL HUB OF ISTANBUL.....TARLABASI IS, EVEN THOUGH BEING SOME HUNDRED METERS AWAY FROM THE TOURISTIC MAIN QUARTER OF ISTANBUL, A DERELICT INNER-CITY SLUM AREA WITH A HISTORIC YET DILAPIDATED STOCK OF BUILDINGS.” SCHEGMANN, 2012: 209

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01.3: The Tarlabasi Renewal Project A Legacy of Legislation, Corruption & Expropriation The process of urban transformation taking place in Tarlabasi has a history that can be traced to legislative reform that followed the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Coming to power in 2002, the AKP is led by current Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Additionally, the Mass Housing Authority, which wields considerable power in urban regeneration projects, is directly controlled by the Prime Minister. The platform of the AKP has supported widespread market liberalization of publicly owned land to encourage commercial investment into Turkey’s rapidly expanding cities (Elicin, 2014: 151). The close connection between TOKI, the Prime Minister and commercial construction developers such as GAP INSAAT has been criticized by many as a source of the corruption in the construction industry in the country (Schwegmann, 2012: 238).

In the wake of the 1999 Izmit earthquake that left at least 17,000 people dead and over 120,000 buildings destroyed, the AKP ran a campaign based largely on national housing and planning reform for the urban poor (Ozkan and Frison, 2008: 5). This was proposed as a means to address the growing need for housing and urban infrastructure, as well as the country’s weak economic condition following a crash of Turkeys financial markets in 2001 (Schegmann, 2012: 230). Importantly, this included the overhaul of the nationalized Mass Housing Authority, (TOKI) and a regime of top-down, wholesale urban transportation projects, such as the Tarlabasi Renewal Project (Ozkan and Frison, 2008: 4).

In 2005, the system of nationalized urban transformation led to the adoption of legislation that has facilitated the renewal project underway in Tarlabasi. Law no. 5366, or the “Protection of Deteriorated Historic and Cultural Heritage through Renewal and Re-Use” act.

(Act no. 5366, 2005:1), enabled previously protected inner-city sites of heritage to be tendered out to private developers for investment and commercially driven growth (Cetin, 2013: 7).07 By this law, which is ostensibly designed to retain inner city districts and protect them from dereliction and natural disasters, developers have the ability to destroy existing buildings and forcibly purchase property within prescribed development zones (Act no. 5366, 2005:1).

As the first of the development zones identified under Act No 5366, the neighbourhood of Tarlabasi is in the process of wholesale urban transformation, with nine urban blocks comprised of 278 buildings undergoing ‘regeneration’ (Cetin, 2013: 6). This renewal project, first announced in 2006, was tendered out to invited developers to bid (Yalcintas, 2008: 184). The GAP INSAAT Construction Company was awarded the tender contract and published its master plan for the project the same year (Schwegmann, 2012: 234). It is important to note that there is evidence that suggests severe corruption in Turkey’s construction industry, with GAP working on master plan schemes well before Tarlabasi had been identified as a renewal zone to the public, let alone the appointment of the developer for the project (Cetin, 2013:7).

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07 - According to Özkan and Frison (2008) main criticisms of the Act have included: economic gentrification, a subversion of tender and construction law and poor planning processes by fragmenting the development.

Figure 06: Exisiting Building Elevations Within Renewal Zone of Tarlabas.

Base Drawings Courtesy of Tures Architects. Scale 1/200

Figure 07: Exisiting Building Elevations Within Renewal Zone of Tarlabas.

Base Drawings Courtesy of Tures Architects. Scale 1/200

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“THE LIVELIHOOD SITUATION IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD CAN BE DESCRIBED AS PRECARIOUS. AS ALREADY DESCRIBED ABOVE, THE HUGE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIVISION CAN BE DEMONSTRATED BY THE INCOME. THE MAJORITY OF THE RESIDENTS OF TARLABASI WORK ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TARLABASI BOULEVARD AS LABOURERS ON A DAILY BASIS, SUCH AS STREET VENDORS, FLOWER SELLERS, AS WAITERS OR AS WASTE COLLECTORS” SCHWEGMANN, 2012: 221

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At present, there exist three routes of compensation for title holders within Tarlabasi: 1) the selling of title deeds to the developer for funds, 2) space in the new development as determined by fees and rates, 3) resettlement into TOKI managed housing in the periphery of Istanbul. However, refusal to comply with such arrangements, which are often announced with little warning, results in the forcible eviction of residents with no compensation whatsoever (Schwegmann, 2012: 234). Furthermore, these mechanisms of compensation apply solely to residents who own Tapu/title deeds. Therefore, tenants and squatters (who comprise approximately 33% of the community), are not eligible for any form of compensation (Sahin & Caglayan 2006: 16).

An additional shortcoming of the existing land procurement measures is the level of compensation given when it is provided. At present, the value of individual properties has been set by the municipality at a flat rate per square metre, well below market value; automatically depriving stakeholders of considerable financial assets. The reason for this is that for all three options, only the ground floor area of a property is used to calculate the compensation (Schegmann, 2012: 237). This condition is of particular relevance for option 2, where residents are provided with housing within the new development. The new property they would theoretically be provided with would be far smaller and of less value than the original space owned. Additionally, when TOKI housing is provided (as in option 3), residents are required to finance such housing at high rates. Apartments in the allocated settlement Kayasehir, cost 306TL per month, for 180 months (Schwegmann, 2012: 235). For many this social housing is financially unviable, as the monthly income of Tarlabasi’s residents ranges between 300TL to 2000TL per month (the Tarlabasi Community Center of Bilgi University in 2006), particularly considering the additional transport costs involved with living 30km from the city centre.

Due to the political desire to gentrify Tarlabasi, this national oversight has resulted in a scheme that requires the almost complete destruction of the existing building stock (GAP INSAAT unknown: 29).

In its place, the nine architecture practices involved in the renewal project have proposed a recreation of historical architectural styles, with modernized floor plans and mimicking previous façade designs.

Furthermore, initial attempts at community engagement, clearly documented in GAP INSAAT early publications, appear to have been for predominantly PR purposes (Schwegmann, 2012: 224).

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The Tarlabasi Renewal Project is not without opponents, and it is important to note that with respect to engaging with local stakeholders, the Istanbul Chamber of Architects has been instrumental in enacting lawsuits against the developer and municipality in the current contest over forced expropriation (Gunay, 2013: 3). Thus far, the Chamber of Architects has filed 191 suits since the announcement of the eviction process. (Ă–zkan and Ă–ykĂź F, 2008 :3). Furthermore, following interviews with activists involved in the opposition to the renewal zone, there appears to be indications that an over expenditure of budgets, coupled with corruption, has stagnated progress on the development.

However, much of the information on the finances of the renewal zone is tightly controlled by the developer, the majority of the statements made about the financial fragility of the redevelopment possibly being merely hearsay and cannot be verified. Additionally, during visits to the site it was apparent that, whilst demolitions are underway throughout the renewal zone, construction has yet to commence and is now years behind schedule.

In light of the legislative and political circumstances that have led to the implementation of the ongoing Tarlabasi Renewal Project, it becomes apparent that in addition to challenges in responding to questions of informality and informal, there exist conditions of urban conflict and deeply entranced societal division that have worsened qualities of life and livelihood for thousands of residents. From the destruction of built fabric to issues of gentrification that has led to forced evictions and mass expropriation, these instances of conflict have turned Tarlabasi, at a political, social and physical level, into contested urban space. As such, in the discourse of to how to intervene within this complex site, the notion of the contested space must be addressed; an additional level of analysis and reading of socio-urban fabric.

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50m

Extent of Renewal Zone and Open Spaces Caused by Demolitions. Scale 1/5000

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N

01.4: Broken Fabric Intact Documenting Dereliction, Stakeholders + Informality in Tarlabasi The following pages constitute part of a photo essay created during site visits to the Tarlabasi renewal zone in March 2014. There are two elements: the first explores the extent of dereliction and destruction resultant from the renewal project. The second provides a series of portraits of residents of Tarlabasi taken at a weekly informal market that runs parallel to the regeneration zone. The intention of this photo essay is to exhibit the stakeholders and historic architecture that are currently under threat from the developer-driven process of expropriation

Derelect and Abandoned Buldings within the Renewal Zone.

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Facade of Derelict Building Within The Renewal Zone.

Recently Demolished Buildings Within One of the Blocks in the Renewal Zone.

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Corner of Block within Renewal Zone with Corrugated Metal Sheeting.

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Typical Street within the Renewal Zone. These Have Become Some of the Most Dangerous Areas of Tarlabasi.

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Examples of Still-Inhabited Buildings on the Edge of the Renewal Zone.

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Street Heading North into Tarlabasi through the Renewal Zone.

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Owner of Mechanic Workshop, Kurdish, 30+ years in Tarlabasi.

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Hotel Owner, Kurdish, 26 years in Tarlabasi.

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Cloth+Carpet Shop Owner, Kurdish, 10+ years in Tarlabasi.

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Spice Vendor, Kurdish, 10+ years in Tarlabasi.

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Mechanics Employed in Tarlabasi, unknown origin or residency status.

Fruit Sellers, Syrian, unknown time in Tarlabasi.

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Residents of Tarlbasi, unknown origin or legnth of stay in Tarlabasi.

Shop-owner, Kurdish, unknown time in Tarlabasi.

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02: THE CONTESTED SPACE

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“ - THE RENEWAL PROJECT WILL VERY LIKELY CAUSE THE EXCHANGE OF THE WHOLE POPULATION OF THE RENEWAL AREA. THE CLAIM FOR THE CONSERVATION OF THE HISTORICAL BUILDING STOCK PROVIDES THE BASIS FOR THE CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION PROCEDURE OF THE FORCED MEASURES EXPROPRIATION OF LEGAL PROPERTY OWNERS, HEAVY-HANDED EVICTIONS AND DEMOLITION OF THE EXISTING BUILDING STOCK.” SCHWEGMANN, 2012: 245

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02.1: Conflict in Within Informal Sites Manifestations of Conflict in the Tarlabasi Renewal Zone While it has been demonstrated in section one that the systemized processes of urban planning reform has lead to the promised wholesale transformation of the informal settlement, the effects of this on-going redevelopment programme have yet to be discussed.

Additionally, through an exploration of the various manifestations of conflict existing in Tarlabasi, a more detailed analysis of the key actors is conducted.

Perhaps the most apparent and extensive manifestation of conflict that has resulted from the implementation of the Tarlabasi Renewal Project is the physical destruction of a sizable portion of the building stock within the Renewal Zone. The urban transformation underway will result in the almost complete demolition of historic buildings.

These are to be replaced with new structures mimicking the neoclassical Greek and Ottoman vernacular of the facades, but completely restructure the layout of the urban blocks. The destruction of this historic fabric has been met by widespread condemnation by local and international architects and activists and by an official statement made by UNESCO in 2010 (Schwegmann, 2012: 242).08 This form of conflict has resulted in the stripping of the architectural identity of the neighbourhood and constitutes a manifestation of violence against the informal settlement and its community. Furthermore, apart from the repercussions for residents of these structures, the demolition of the existing fabric represents a condition of ‘urban cleansing’ (that works towards the social gentrification of Tarlabasi (Kocabas, 2006: 14).

It is important to note that a critical side-effect of this form of urban conflict is a subsequent level of illegal inhabitation by refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria. Following discussions with activists working in Tarlabasi and with locals within the informal settlements it has become apparent that in the wake of the evictions that precede the demolition, the now fully-derelict structures have become occupied by refugees who have re-inhabited the abandoned buildings. This poses a very serious threat to the safety of this community as the buildings they squat in have been stripped of their windows, doors, and in many cases, the roofs and floor joists. During a telephone interview with one of the activists based in Istanbul, it was mentioned that the presence of this new community has been met with distrust and apprehension by the more established residents of Tarlabasi (Jonathan Lewis, March 2014). A combination of language barriers and an exclusion from the existing social networks of the slum create a further level of conflict within Tarlabasi that is a direct result of the on-going demolition of its historic urban fabric.

A further form of conflict resultant from the Tarlabasi Renewal Project has been touched upon earlier but requires elaboration; specifically the forced eviction of the existing community. At the crux of this process of urban economic gentrification is the removal and dispersion of an established community.09 The exponential growth of urban development in Istanbul in recent decades has led to an explosion of land values, particularly in the city centre (Tekeli 1994, p. 168). The high value of the land on which Tarlabasi is situated has contributed to the developer/commercial impetus for the redevelopment of the slum.

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08 – The condemnation of the renewal project was not however, unanimous.

It is critical to mention that within the discourse of support and criticism of current planning and development policy, there exists a distinct divide between two groups of professionals and theorists. (Lovering & Turkmen, 2011: 84).

09– As Elicin states: “Urban politics has become one of the most significant intervention areas of the political authority in Turkey. The neoliberal policies which gained momentum in the 2000s created a considerable pressure on urban politics and urban planning.”

(Elicin, 2014b: 1)

YENSHEHIR

HACIAHMET

0 +/- 5 .00M H EL C LEV

SURURI MEHMET EFENDI

TARLABASI

E ANG

TAKSIM SQUARE

TARLABASI RENEWAL ZONE

KAMER HATUN

ISTIKLAL

TARLABASI BOULEVARD

ISTIKLAL BOULEVARD

100m

TAKSIM

400m

BEYOGLU (GOLDEN HORN)

FATIH DISTRCT (SULTANHAMET)

57 N

Scale 1/10,000

“MOST OF THE BUILDINGS INSIDE THE PROJECT AREA ARE NOW EMPTY, AND FOR SEVERAL WEEKS, PEOPLE BOTH LOCALLY AND FROM ELSEWHERE HAVE BEEN TAKING OUT WINDOWS AND DOORS, EXPOSING THE BUILDINGS TO RAIN, FROST AND SNOWFALL. PIPES, CABLES, AND IRON BARS HAVE BEEN RIPPED OUT AS WELL, OFTEN DESTABILISING THE ENTIRE BUILDING STRUCTURE EVEN FURTHER. RESIDENTS WHO STILL LIVE, WORK, OR EVEN ONLY PASS THROUGH THE PROJECT AREA, HAVE REPEATEDLY EXPRESSED THEIR ANGER AND CONCERN ABOUT THIS, DEBATING HOW THIS FITS IN WITH THE MUNICIPALITY’S PROMISE TO “PROTECT” AND “PRESERVE” TARLABASI.” WWW.TARLABASIISTNABUL.ORG

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10 – As Elicin writes, the collective civic backlash to the Gezi Park development “ - developed into an impressive urban movement when a group occupying the park was brutally attacked by the police” (Elicin, 2014b: 5)

With its proximity to the political centre of the city, Taksim Square, and Istiklal Boulevard (a highly fashionable commercial and recreation district) the proposed programmes of the Tarlabasi Renewal Project respond to the needs of inhabitants of the upper bracket of Istanbul’s economic hierarchy (Grewell et al. 2006, p. 11). Plans to replace the housing and family-level businesses within the informal settlement with hotels, high-end residential and large-scale commercial buildings has resulted in the almost complete exclusion of the existing stakeholders from the ‘renewed’ Tarlabasi (Sahin & Caglayan 2006: 16). Consequently, the economic forces behind the on-going urban transformation project present a major point of conflict between actors within the informal settlement, where the financial interests of the municipality and developer appear diametrically opposed to the needs of its inhabitants. The consequence of this form of economic conflict is not only the eviction of thousands of inhabitants from the renewal zone itself, but also a resultant further spike in land values that in turn, promises to financially exclude residents within the surrounding area (Kocabas, 2006: 14).

Conflict of economic interests between the municipally supported developer GAP INSAAT and the stakeholders of Tarlabasi is exacerbated by the demographic make-up of the community, (Elicin, 2014: 14). Comprised of predominately Kurdish and Roma residents, coupled with smaller groups of highly-ostracized West-Africa illegal immigrants and Istanbul’s largest homosexual community, Tarlabasi is widely perceived by the rest of the city’s residents as an area of crime, depravity and social unrest (Schwegmann, 2012: 209).

This social prejudice and exclusion, while by no means unique to Tarlabasi, presents a serious point of conflict between residents of the formal and informal urban spheres. Long-standing tensions between the Turkish and non-Turkish communities of Istanbul have been brought to the forefront by the AKP with informal zones and those in support of their communities have been frequently classified as ‘provocateurs’ or ‘illegal groups’ (Elicin, 2014b: 5) The upturn in the use of such rhetoric can be linked to the shift in planning policy in 2005-2006 that has led to urban transformation initiatives including Tarlabasi (Lovering and Turkmen, 2011: 78).10 This fact, coupled with the extreme measures taken by the developers and municipality in the facilitation of regeneration projects within inner city Istanbul, support the assertion that deep underlying animosities between the disparate ethno/political groups within these slum conditions constitute a critical form of conflict within Tarlabasi.

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Understanding Networks of Conflict + Connection Explorations into Assemblages of Urban Actors in Tarlabasi

RIOT CONTROL TOKI

INCREASING GDP PROTECTION OF LAW/ORDER

NATIONAL GOVERNANCE

QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENT URBAN REGENERATION AMENDING PLANNING LEGISLATION

PROTECTION OF LAW/ORDER NATIONAL LEGISLATION PROTECTION OF SLUM DWELLERS DESECULARIZATION RETENTION OF POWER

GENTRIFICATION

ACCESS TO CAPITAL

RAPID GROWTH

COMMERCIAL FORCES

MASS HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

POLITICAL LOBBYING COMMODIFATION OF HOUSING

BUILDING CODE LITIGATION POLITICAL STRUCTURES COMMERCIAL LICENCES

TAX REVENUE TRANSPORT INFASTRUCTURE

MUNICIPAL GOVERNANCE

SOCIAL SAFETY NET

FORMAL SERVICES

JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT CRIME PREVENTION

REGULATED INFASTRUCTURE PLANNING PERMISSIONS MUNICIPAL POLICING

PUBLIC SPACE PROVISION COMMUNITY POLICING EDUCATION HEALTHCARE

SECURITY OF TENURE

MICRO ECONOMIES FAMILIAR NETWORKS

GECEKONDU BUILDINGS NEEDS-BASED DEVELOPMENT

INFORMAL GOVERNANCE

UNREGULATED CAPITALISM ETHNO-SOCIAL TIES INFORMAL INFASTRUCTURE WATER PROVISION

SANITATION

ANTI-AKP MOVEMENT

UTILITIES INFRASTRUCTURE

ELECTRICITY/GAS

ROAD MAINTENANCE

COUNTER CULTURE TAKSIM SQUARE

SUBVERSIVE POLITICS ETHNO-POLTICAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT ADVOCATING EQUALITY KURDISH SELF DETERMINATION POLITICAL ACTIVISM ISLAMIST MOVEMENT SECULAR MOVEMENT

THE SYRIA QUESTION

GDP

JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE/OVERSIGHT

SECULARIZATION

MACRO-LEVEL GDP GROWTH

ACCESS TO PUBLIC SPACE

DESECULARIZATION

ACCESS TO LEISURE FACILITIES

EARTHQUAKE RISK REDUCTION

CRIME PREVETION/PUBLIC SAFTEY

HOUSING PROVISION

LEGAL PLANNING PERMISSION

CONSTRUCTION SKILLS TRAINING

SECURITY OF TENURE

@

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION

S

S

INCREMENTAL GROWTH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION

ACCESS TO ONLINE SERVICES

POLITICAL MOBILIZATION

PUBLIC TRANSPORT INFASTRUCTURE

POLITICAL CONTROL

ELECTRICITY/GAS INFASTRUCTURE

ACCESS TO LITIGATION/LEGAL ACTION

WATER/SANITATION INFASTRUCTURE

COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

PUBLIC HEALTHCARE INFASTRUCTURE

ACCESS TO FREE PRESS/MEDIA

EDUCATION

Diagramming Exisiting Actors, Relationships and Services Within The Informal Settlement of Tarlabasi

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RIOT CONTROL

GDP

TOKI

S

INCREASING GDP

@

PROTECTION OF LAW/ORDER

NATIONAL GOVERNANCE

PROTECTION OF LAW/ORDER NATIONAL LEGISLATION PROTECTION OF SLUM DWELLERS DESECULARIZATION RETENTION OF POWER

S

S

BUILDING CODE LITIGATION POLITICAL STRUCTURES COMMERCIAL LICENCES

TAX REVENUE

MUNICIPAL GOVERNANCE

REGULATED INFASTRUCTURE PLANNING PERMISSIONS MUNICIPAL POLICING SECURITY OF TENURE

GDP

QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENT URBAN REGENERATION AMENDING PLANNING LEGISLATION ACCESS TO CAPITAL

GENTRIFICATION

S

RAPID GROWTH

COMMERCIAL FORCES

MASS HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

S

POLITICAL LOBBYING COMMODIFATION OF HOUSING

S

TRANSPORT INFASTRUCTURE

GDP

@

SOCIAL SAFETY NET

FORMAL SERVICES

JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT CRIME PREVENTION

PUBLIC SPACE PROVISION COMMUNITY POLICING EDUCATION HEALTHCARE

GDP

S WATER PROVISION

SANITATION

UTILITIES INFRASTRUCTURE

ELECTRICITY/GAS

ROAD MAINTENANCE

S

GDP

@

ANTI-AKP MOVEMENT

S

COUNTER CULTURE TAKSIM SQUARE

SUBVERSIVE POLITICS ETHNO-POLTICAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT ADVOCATING EQUALITY KURDISH SELF DETERMINATION POLITICAL ACTIVISM ISLAMIST MOVEMENT THE SYRIA QUESTION

MICRO ECONOMIES FAMILIAR NETWORKS

SECULAR MOVEMENT

GECEKONDU BUILDINGS NEEDS-BASED DEVELOPMENT

S

GDP

INFORMAL GOVERNANCE

S

UNREGULATED CAPITALISM ETHNO-SOCIAL TIES INFORMAL INFASTRUCTURE

INCREMENTAL GROWTH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION

S

Diagramming Macro Level Demands and Services of Groups of Urban Actors in Tarlabasi

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Figure 08: Protesters in Clouds of Tear Gas in Takisim Square During the Gezi Park Protests.

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17 – As Elicin writes, the collective civic backlash to the Gezi Park development “ - developed into an impressive urban movement when a group occupying the park was brutally attacked by the police. In other words, the resistance initially had an urban agenda reclaiming the right to the city. Finally, the Prime Minister vowed to respect the Court’s decision which has subsequently been announced in favor of the citizen initiative on 2 July 2013. The Gezi Park events may thus be evaluated as a reaction to the overall agenda setting attitude of the Prime Minister in urban matters which provoked immense discontent in Istanbul citizens.” (Elicin, 2014b: 5)

Throughout the renewal zone, there is a level of dereliction that has drastically changed the dynamics of street activity in contrast to the other areas of Tarlabasi (interview with Jonathan Lewis, March 2014). Once vibrant streets occupied by vendors and small-scale workshops and hotels have become spaces typified by crumbling, vacant buildings cordoned off by corrugated metal sheeting. This has resulted in areas within the renewal zone becoming significantly more dangerous than the rest of Tarlabasi: “The days when the area had a very bad reputation for crime, but those were also days when there was a strong sense of community. During the day at least… you were fairly safe. But now is a very different story.” (Jonathan Lewis, March 2014). Anecdotally, at a number of points during visits to Tarlabasi, this author was warned by residents of the yet-to-be developed Tarlabasi not to go into the renewal zone. In addition, as the renewal zone sits on the edge of the settlement, access to the rest of the informal settlement from Tarlabasi Boulevard is significantly limited due to the dangers that this area now poses. While this is a temporary condition, lasting only as long as the demolition and reconstruction process takes place, it limits access to much of Tarlabasi for a period of up to ten years. Concurrently, the spatial ramifications of this egregious dereliction would likely appear throughout the site for similar time periods as the rest of the informal settlement is renewed by the municipality and developer. Therefore, the temporary spatial effects of the renewal project represent a further form of conflict that directly impinges on the living conditions of the residents of the slum.

In contrast to these micro-level spatial conditions of conflict, there exists a larger element of socio-political urban tension. This is the political unrest and civic protest to developments within the Taksim area, the most famous of which is Gezi Park, Situated on the northern edge of Taksim Square, the riots protesting its redevelopment marked a significant catalyst in an on-going movement of civil disobedience and dissatisfaction with the AKP regime, particularly in the discourse of urban redevelopment and planning (Elicin, 2014b: 5). While it is important to note that the Gezi Park protests did not directly connect with the Tarlabasi Renewal Project, the mounting public discontent with the AKPs development policies has engendered a broader political atmosphere of unrest, (Elicin, 2014b: 5). FOOTNOTE 18 The fact that Tarlabasi is located close to this central rallying point for groups leading civil disobedience rallies has an additional important spatial aspect. The perception of Tarlabasi as an under-policed zone, outside the remit of formal forms of control, has led to the slum being the temporary refuge of protesters from riot police during times of acute political protest. This was witnessed by this author on a number of occasions on the nights of March 9th and 10th, 2014, where protesters, some having thrown rocks at riot police on the nearby Istiklal boulevard, ran into the streets of Tarlabasi when pursued by security forces firing tear gas canisters and water cannon.

While the scope of this design research project does not extend to the phenomena of the Gezi Park protests and their implications, it is prudent to acknowledge that, within the discourse of conflict in this informal settlement, Tarlabasi is situated physically and politically in a volatile district of the city.

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02.2: The Boundary and the Threshold: Urban Mapping of Conflict In Kibera The spatiality of the conflict within Tarlabasi is a central theme of this thesis and has been mapped and documented as a means highlight opportunity areas for intervention. The forms of mapping used in this study were developed first in the Kibera project. With the Kibera intervention, urban/political thresholds and barriers were identified as flashpoints of conflict within the informal settlement. These spaces, due to their nature as boundaries between disparate societal groups or tribes, also represented areas of Kibera that were located on the periphery of the settlement, creating an edge condition that resulted in points of segregation and imposed intersection.

The existence of these thresholds and barriers exacerbated ethnopolitical tension and represented areas synonymous with the most egregious levels of violence during the post-election violence of 2007/2008. Spatially, they take a myriad of forms: from physical and infrastructural boundaries between sectors of a city, to more transient demarcations that are a result of sustained activities that typify and amplify a socio-political prejudice that exists within the collective psyche of one community against another. The manner in which this mapping was conducted is depicted on the following pages.

Mapping Flashpoints of Contested Space in Kibera

Exploring the Edge Condition in Kibera

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LAINI SABA RAILWAY HALT

The conduit continues north into the richer formal districts near kibera, allowing for services and Inhabitants to move freely between the two communities

At the threshold flashpoint of violence, these towers initially act was watch towers to mitigate violence, but will become spaces of service provision and community over time, mitigating violence in a long term way.

Individual towers within kibera are appropriated, providing new levels of expansion space and a new language to the informal settlement while adding security and visibility to the slum

KIBERA THE NAIROBI DAM IS THE SOURCE OF THE WATER, WHICH WILL BE COLLECTED DURING THE RAINY SEASON SO AS TO PROVIDE WATER AND SERVICES TO BOTH FORMAL AND INFORMAL ACTORS DURING THE DRY SEASON A RAM pump LIFTS THE WATER TO THE top of the first tower and gravity is harnessed to allow the water to move along the conduit, with smaller release pipes providing water downwards along the site

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02.2: The Boundary and the Threshold: Urban Mapping of Conflict In Kibera

Timber Structures

Corrugated Iron Structures

Rent Cost

Dwellings with Single Adults

Local Businesses

Child Population Density & Schools

Understanding the Site: Case Studies from Kibera

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Site Mapping of Key Elements within Flashpoints of Urban Conflict

67

FORMAL STRUCTURES

FLASHPOINT SITES

COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS

INFORMAL STRUCTURES

EXTENT OF STRUCTURES

02.3 The Boundary and the Threshold: Urban Mapping of Conflict In Tarlabasi Similarly, each of the manifestations of conflict within Tarlabasi presents one of two spatial conditions. The first is that of exclusion, perpetuating political and societal disconnect between actors. This is perceived as an urban boundary, be it societal, economic or physical, which separates one demographic group from another. Examples of this include the stigmatization of Tarlabasi as a no-go neighbourhood, and its physical isolation from the rest of Beyoglu district due to the largely inaccessible highways to its North and South. The second spatial condition is that of the physical intersection of conflicting actors; exacerbating animosities and tensions between disparate groups. These points of intersection are perceived as physical and social thresholds between disparate actors within the renewal zone.

This is often through the imposition of one actor onto the other, such as physical destruction of urban fabric in Tarlabasi. The following drawings and images document these thresholds and barriers in Tarlabasi.

Qualitative Conflict Mapping: Exploring relationships Between Actors and Forces Behind Contested Urban Space in Tarlabasi.

68

Figure 09: Tarlabasi Under Demolition.

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Documenting Existing Macro Conditions Mapping Transport Routes and Connection Points This site plan outlines the location of key public transport interchanges around Tarlabasi and the routes of exisiting transport links. It is apparent from this image that while bounded by two well connected roads, no public transport infastructure connects through Tarlabasi, leaving the interior of the slum disconnected from the rest of the city. Drawn as an open-space plan, the density of Tarlabasi is clearly visible.

70

30m

N

Scale 1/5,000

71

A strong social boundary exists to the North and South of Tarlabasi, with the perception of this slum being a site of dangerous crime and social unrest widely held throughout the surrounding area.

The two highways that delineate Taralbasi act as strong physical barriers. As these are multi-lane streets, it is very difficult for pedestrians to cross, further isolating the informal settlement

The extreme level change, with a gradient at times steeper than 1/10, creates a sunken nature to Tarlabasi, making it invisible to outside views, but also make crossing through the slum much more difficult.

72

As the urban transformation project continues in Tarlabasi, this boundary between slum and non slum will shift.

As gentrification and demolition push residents away from Tarlabasi Blvd as it becomes an extension of Istiklal and the high-end residential and leisure activity that takes places there, the slum will incrementally be destroyed.

These barriers and boundaries are more porous for those wishing to escape the forces of police and political control.

During riots along Istiklal, protesters would flee into Tarlabasi as this was perceived to be a no-go area for police.

The forces gentrification and commercial investment have acted to strengthen some of the boundaries between slum dwellers and the forces of development as demolitions and evictions are carried out.

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Documenting Existing Macro Conditions Mapping Points of Conflict + Contested Space The demolitions that have taken place have been mapped below. The effect of these has been a destruction of social and physical fabric in the slum, with an increase in crime in the renewal zone. Additionally this has created flash points of conflict within the community as abandoned buildings are appropriated by refugees from Syria.

Plan of the Extent Forced Expropriation and Exvition of Proposed Renewal Area Following All Stages Completed.

Scale 1/10,000

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As the renewal project is the first Phase of a multi stage development of the entire site, the demolitions and regeneration projects that are to come have created an environment of political and social tension within the wider community.

The edges between slum and non-slum have become flash points for points of conflict and crime, particularly within the area of the renewal zone. This is due to the fact that the demolitions and mass eviction of the community has broken down much of the social cohesion in the informal settlement.

Throughout the edge of Tarlabasi Blvd and Istiklal, the rolling riots that have stemmed from Taksim square have turned this entire neighbourhood into a zone of political unrest and tension. Even outside times of acute violence, this area of Istanbul is one of its most contested urban environments.

75

Typical Urban Grain of Tarlabasi Outside the Renewal Area. Scale 1/2000

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Typical Urban Grain Following Demolitions Including Mettal Walling Around Blocks. Scale 1/2000

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The Urban Fabric of Tarlabasi: Typical Elevations within the Renewal Zone Figure 10: Exisiting Building Elevations Within Renewal Zone of Tarlabas.

Base Drawings Courtesy of Tures Architects

Towards the north of the site, the built fabric becomes more modern. However these areas have also been identified for evetual gentrification and forced expropriation.

Constructing on top of exisiting three-storey buildings it is not uncommon to see Gecekondu additions within Tarlabasi. One of the many manifestations of informal habitation that typifiy this slum.

Disrepair and neglect, fueled by the lack of security offered to onwers and tennants of these structures has been used as a primary reason for the complete destruction of the neighbourhood.

78

While not techincally within the UNESCO World Heritage Zone of Istanbul, the historica value of the exisiting urban fabric has been defended by the Istanbul Chamber of Architectrs, the United Nations and Amnesty International

Due to the historical diversity of the community, a number of churches are located in Tarlabasi alongside several mosques.

With the demolitions underway in the site, many of the designated buildings have been stripped of thier windows, doors and interior fixings and structures.

This renders them particularly dangerous to the already vunerable community,

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Many of these now-abandoned buildings have been inhabited by at-risk communities of Syrian refugees and illegal immigrants.

HIGH DENSITY FORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

SERVICES CONDUIT

URBAN FABRIC CONSERVATION + STRUCTURAL BUTTRESSING

S URBAN FABRIC CONSERVATION + STRUCTURAL BUTTRESSING HIGH DENSITY FORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

SERVICES CONDUIT

COMMERCIAL REDEVELOPMENT EXPANSION TO EXISTING BAZAR

GDP

S

S

COMMU PUBLIC INFAST H

COMMUNITY SELF-GOVERNANCE LEGAL SERVICES POLITICAL MOBILIZATION

@ S

COMMUNITY LED TRANSPORT INFASTRUCTURE HUB

URBAN FABRIC CONSERVATION + STRUCTURAL BUTTRESSING

S C

HIGH DENSITY FORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT HIGH DENSITY FORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

S S

COMMERCIAL REDEVELOPMENT EXPANSION TO EXISTING BAZAR

SERVICES CONDUIT

GDP

S

URBAN FABRIC CONSERVATION + STRUCTURAL BUTTRESSING

URBAN FABRIC CONSERVATION + STRUCTURAL BUTTRESSING COMMUNITY SELF-GOVERNANCE LEGAL SERVICES POLITICAL MOBILIZATION

@

UNITY LED SERVICES TRUCTURE HUB SERVICES CONDUIT

SERVICES CONDUIT

HIGH DENSITY FORMAL HOUSING DEVELOPMENT

SERVICES CONDUIT

S

MAPPING ZONES TO CONNECT AND STABILZE. IDENTIFYING POSSIBLE PROGRAMME TYPES AND FORMS OF INTERVENTION. Drawing from the mapping and exploration into the manifestations of conflict within Tarlabasi, this conceptual masterplan outlines a series of intervention points and routes that begin to intervene within the site from either a stabilizing or a connecting perspective. This initial diagram begins to inform a process of understanding the slum from a spatial standpoint.

JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE/OVERSIGHT

SECULARIZATION

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION

PUBLIC HEALTHCARE INFASTRUCTURE

MACRO-LEVEL GDP GROWTH

ACCESS TO PUBLIC SPACE

POLITICAL MOBILIZATION

EDUCATION

LEGAL PLANNING PERMISSION

DESECULARIZATION

ACCESS TO LEISURE FACILITIES

POLITICAL CONTROL

ELECTRICITY/GAS INFASTRUCTURE

SECURITY OF TENURE

EARTHQUAKE RISK REDUCTION

CRIME PREVETION/PUBLIC SAFTEY

ACCESS TO LITIGATION/LEGAL ACTION

WATER/SANITATION INFASTRUCTURE

HOUSING PROVISION CONSTRUCTION SKILLS TRAINING

GDP

S

S

COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY ACCESS TO FREE PRESS/MEDIA

@

ACCESS TO ONLINE SERVICES PUBLIC TRANSPORT INFASTRUCTURE

03: THE URBAN STITCH

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“IT IS ABOUT BUILDING DENSELY INTERCONNECTED NETWORKS, CRAFTING LINKAGES BETWEEN UNLIKELY PARTNERS AND ORGANIZATIONS, AND MAKING PLACES WITHOUT THE USUAL PREPONDERANCE OF PLANNING. IT IS ABOUT GETTING IT RIGHT FOR NOW AND AT THE SAME TIME BEING TACTICAL AND STRATEGIC ABOUT LATER.” HAMDI, 2004: XIX

83

03.1: The Urban Stitch Stabilizing Thresholds and Connecting Boundaries: Based on the varying spatial conditions resultant from conflict present within Tarlabasi, two conceptual design moves emerge: urban ‘Stabilizers’ and ‘Thresholds’. The stabilizer is perceived to respond to threshold points within the site, developing a means to retain these points of interaction, whilst mitigating the instances of conflict present. This approach works to recalibrate relationships within existing spaces in Tarlabasi by creating new patterns of inhabitation and interaction; engendering dialogue and mitigating conflict. Due to the nature and the specificity of the identified conflict thresholds, the scale of the stabilizing principles is inherently at the level of the urban block. This warrants a design approach that works surgically within existing sites; contextually sensitive and relatively limited in its scope.

The connector principal asserts that through the bridging of spatial and social boundaries within the site, it becomes possible to create instances of interaction and social integration not present previously in Tarlabasi. Through the connection of fragmented urban spaces, such as Tarlabasi with its immediate context, there exists the possibility to develop socially and politically responsible interfaces between the informal settlement and its surroundings. This approach requires an urban level of design that works to respond to instances of conflict and social animosity at a macro scale.

Together, these two design principles, the ‘Stabilizer and the ‘Connector’, present the key aspects of a design strategy that is perceived as an ‘Urban Stitch’ through and across Tarlabasi. This approach to slum intervention draws research from into case studies of transport infrastructural and urban connection as a tool to respond to conditions within informal settlements (See Appendix). The shifting nature of Tarlabasi as a site of conflict site warrants a flexibility in the design of the Urban Stitch at a macro and micro level. It is the implementation of these two components that also presents the opportunity for additional moves to be made in responses to issues of conflict in Tarlabasi. The principles of connecting boundaries and stabilizing thresholds that represent points on conflict in slums were tested within the Kibera project; taking the form of a series of raised bridges and towers. These worked to intensify activities along points of conflict through adding vertical layers of infrastructure and connection and by linking disparate spaces. This is catalogued briefly in the following pages.

84

YENSHEHIR Intervention Zone

24.00m AOD

Intervention Zone

Irmak Cad.

HACIAHMET

22.00m AOD

Secondary Intervention Route

31.00m AOD

Secondary Intervention Route 30.00m AOD

Secondary Intervention Route

Intervention Zone

E LEV 0M 50.0 +/-

41.00m AOD

SURURI MEHMET EFENDI

TARLABASI 44.00m AOD

L CH

Primary Design Intervention: (In)lormal Civic Infastructure

E ANG

Secondary Intervention Route

52.00m AOD

57.00m AOD

Renewal Zone TAKSIM Tarlabasi Blvd.

66.00m AOD 73.00m AOD

KAMER HATUN 60.00m AOD

Intervention Zone

ISTIKLAL

Intervention Zone

Istiklal Cad. 83.00m AOD

100m

TAKSIM

400m

BEYOGLU

Ataturk Bridge

FATIH (GOLDEN HORN)

N

8585 Scale 1/10,000 Galata Bridge

Developing The Urban Stitch from Kibera

86

Developing The Urban Stitch from Kibera

87

03.2: Supporting the Stitch: Stabilizing Threshold Spaces and Buttressing Existing Structuress The stabilizer component of the design response is comprised of a series of standardized reinforced concrete fins that are placed within open spaces found in Tarlabasi. These 600mm thick elements are intended to fulfil a number of roles. First and foremost, the stabilizing fins function as physical buttresses for existing buildings and facades within the slum; acting as supports that stabilize structures vulnerable to the risk of earthquakes. The rationale behind this role is the fact that the original premises stipulated in the legislation that facilitated the initiation of the current urban renewal project were rooted in the requirement to retain and project historic inner city fabric from dereliction and earthquake damage. Importantly, they are, for the most part, not solid sheer walls.

Within these fins a variety of standardized perforations create voids.

These provide a framing of space that encourage and allow for a variety of occupation patterns. These fins have been developed as a modular system, where a variety of heights and widths allow flexibility whilst remaining standardized and easily constructed. This allows for a careful implementation in the tightly confined spaces of the slum.

Designed into the edges of these fins are a series of openings into which hydraulic dampers are placed. It is through these dampers, which act as structural buffers in the event of an earthquake, that the fins connect to the surrounding fabric. These are spaced at two metre intervals and have variability in their sizing that is closely tied to the sizes of the fins themselves.

The formwork from which they would be constructed has been proposed as a series of standardized, easily replicable sizes, with a limited number of variations to the openings allowed. These openings have been defined by the nature of spaces these fins occupy, and are determined by falling into one of the following categories.

The first form of opening is the building sized-opening, allowing for sizable activities and interventions to be built within the voids. The second type of opening is scaled to allow the creation of room-sized spaces between fins. These perforations are sized to allow bridging between the fins at the lower levels and providing a physical structure for informal and incremental inhabitation in the provided spaces.

The third iteration of perforation is designed to allow passageways to be created within the fins, providing a framework for new layers of circulation and connection to take place between the level of the street and the raised bridge. Finally, the fourth opening is sized to allow the infill of windows and doors, envisaging a form of inhabitation that harnesses the stabilising fins as primary structural elements in the provision of incremental and sustainable housing. By delineating and protecting disused open space, the fins provide opportunities for informal activity to growth within the resultant voids between fins. The inclusion of perforations allows for the possibility for sizable interventions to infill between fins, providing a number of spatial conditions that allow and encourage informal urban growth. Finally, as a series of supports, they allow the Urban Stitch to cross and interact with the site in a structurally and physically sensitive manner.

The following pages document the parameters for the stabilizing fins and their constituent openings, exploring a variety of inhabitation possibilities and parameters.

88

Adjustable Steel Truss Elements Create Railings and Supports for Bridge Additions Adjustable Steel Truss Elements Support Brdige Deck Adjustable Steel Truss Elements Support Brdige Deck

Bridge Deck Widens to Create Raised Public Open Space

Publically Accessible Level Change

Bridge Deck Provides Access Through and Within Tarlabasi

Level Changes Step Down Responding to Topography of Tarlabasi

Concrete Fins Provide Structural Stability for Infill Programmes to Create New Relationships between the Street and the Block

In Existing Open Spaces, Fins Frame Areas, Enabling More Accessable Places for Activities and Interaction

Concrete Fins are Developed in a Modular System that Adapts to the Changing Urban Fabric of the Site.

Bridging over Roads is Possible Through the Larger Frame-Like Elements that Ensure Exisiting Activities at Street Level are Not Adversely Affected

Concrete Fins Stabilize Exisiting Structures Scale 1/1,000

89

Developing a Module System for the Concrete Fins Typical Elevation Dimensions and Categories of Perforations Below are elevations and sections that document the variation in the dimensions of the stabilizing fins and the perforations that are built into them.

3m

9m

15m

6m

10m

12m

15m

Fin Elevation Studies: Typical Sizes to be Implemented in Tarlabasi. Scale 1/500

90

01 Building-Sized Openings - Warehouse Storage - Double Height Interventions - Traversing Roads + Exisiting Buildings

02 Window/Door Sized Openings - Infill Space for Windows and Interiror Doors - Allowing Light into Spaces Between Fins - Small Scale Bridges between Fins

03 Room-Sized Openings - Informal Economies + Social Spaces - Secondary Access Between Bridge and Street - Most Flexible Form of Perforation

04 Circulation/Access Openings - Allowing Circulation Vertically and Horizontally Between Fins - Sized to Allow Public Stairs to Fit Within Perforation - Posibility to be Used for Smaller Scale Interventions (Vendors)

Fin Elevation Studies: Opening Sizes to be Implemented in Tarlabasi. Scale 1/250

91

Developing a Module System for the Concrete Fins Applying Perforations Categories to Fin Sizes

92

93

Developing a Module System for the Concrete Fins Combing Perforations Categories to Fin Sizes

Small Perforations for Residential Infill

Room Sized Openings

Room-Sized Perforations For Small Buisness

Small Perforations for Access

Large Scale Access Route Large Scale Access Route

Small Buisness Space

Room Sized Openings

Small Perforations for Residential Infill

Small Perforations for Residential Infill

Open Space

Small Buisness Space

94

Small Perforations for Residential Infill

Large Scale Access Route Open Space

Simple Buttressing Wall

Small Perforations for Residential Infill Simple Buttressing Wall

Small Perforations for Residential Infill Market Space/Access

Mixed Use

Small Perforations for Residential Infill Small Perforations for Residential Infill

Small Perforations for Residential Infill

Warehouse Space

Fin Elevation Studies: Typica Fin andl Opening Combinations. Scale 1/250

95

Developing a Module System for the Concrete Fins Typical Parameters of In Insertion Within Tarlabasi

Typical Section: Simple Buttressing Element Between Two Inhabited Buildings

Typical Section: Double Loaded Multi-Storey Buttressing With Space for Residential Infill

Typical Section: Double-Loaded MultiStorey Buttressing of Damaged Facades

96

Typical Section: Single Loaded Multi-Storey Infill Mixed Use Fin

Typical Section: Multi-Storey Infill Mixed Use Fin - No Existing Fabric

Typical Section: Double Loaded Multi-Storey Buttressing With Commercial for Residential Infill

97

Stabilizing Fins

Stabilizing Fins

Stabilizing Fins Bridge Zone

Infill Zone

Infill Walls Supported by Fins

98

Stabilizing Fins

Stabilizing Fins

Bridge Zone

Bridge Zone

Bridge Zone

Infill Zone Infill Zone

Infill Zone

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03.3: Weaving the Stitch Embedding Three Dimensional Pedestrian Infrastructure Into Tarlabasi The second element of The Urban stitch, perceived as a infrastructural intervention that facilitates connection between Tarlabasi and its surrounding formal context, is proposed as a series of raised bridges that weave between existing buildings. The Urban Stitch acts as a spine along which new patterns of inhabitation, connection, and interaction are encouraged and facilitated. As a secondary route through Tarlabasi, it offers the opportunity for new forms of circulation and subsequently, a possible recalibration of the relationships between the street and the block. Supported by the stabilizing fins, this bridge addresses the severe level change of the site between Tarlabasi Boulevard to the South, and Irmak Boulevard to the North, by stepping down gradually and by providing easily accessible pathways between these three districts. In doing so, the walkway gives visual identity to the slum and promotes access into a settlement that is generally perceived as inaccessible and dangerous.

Highly sensitive to its surrounding context, the bridge weaves between the tightly packed buildings of the slum, placed in existing open spaces to ensure that inhabited structures are not adversely affected by any form of new demolition or eviction. This results in a winding layout that intertwines with existing circulation routes; intersecting at key points that are typified by the availability of open space and its connection to streets. The height of raised walkway varies, defined by the stabilizing fins that are responding specifically to immediate conditions. The height of the bridge is therefore between one and four storeys above grade.

Additionally, the width and extent of the bridge responds to its immediate context, varying between three metres at its most narrow to nine at its widest point. The intention of this variation in width is to allow for the Urban Stitch to function not only as a bridge, but also as a raised street that in places allows for a new level of activity and interaction. Responding to the spatial conditions of conflict in the renewal area, this provides the opportunity for previously removed patterns of urban life, such as the impromptu market or open spaces for gatherings, to take place on a contextually sensitive, elevated path that is embedded into the fabric of the slum.

Furthermore, creating this second level of interaction and activity offers a means to reinvigorate the derelict spaces within the renewal zone that have been dramatically altered during the course of the development, in particular the access to the rest of Tarlabasi along the thresholds between Istiklal and the slum.

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Critical to this bridge system is the manner in which it is connected directly with the informal settlement below. It is vital to note that the Urban Stitch not only links three neighbourhoods, but also connects vertically key points along its route with publicly accessible spaces and level changes. Defined by the placement of the fins, these access points are designed to be open-air stairs and ramps that facilitate access to and from the street. The principle behind these level changes reinforces the integration of the Urban Stitch into the fabric of the site, allowing the implementation of this vertical infrastructure to merge with the horizontal spatial relationships within the current urban grain of Tarlabasi.

Additionally, as this is envisaged to be implemented by the municipality as part of a partnership model, there is the desire to produce an architectural expression that touches on the interests of the municipality to encourage a dignity to Tarlabasi. In response to these design parameters, the tectonics of the bridging elements of the Urban Stitch include a modular steel deck clad in timber and a series of adjustable steel truss frames that connect this deck to the stabilizing fins below. These trusses would be mass-produced with minimal variation in their sizes, with adjustable connectors allowing them to swing freely into place; adapting to the varying spans between the stabilizing fins.

Due to the differentiation of distance between the fins, adjustable connectors are fitted to the base of each truss element, allowing them to slot into predefined openings on the top edge of the concrete elements. Furthermore, the top end pieces of the truss elements slot into grooves in the base of the steel modular deck, providing stability and rigidity. This level of flexibility, gives the Urban Stitch an adaptability that can respond to the requirements of specific site conditions, whilst affording the intervention with a visual presence and prominence that works in the interest of both the municipality and the stakeholders of Tarlabasi.

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HACIAHMET Placing the Stitch: Locating the Route of the Bridge Primary and Secondary (Subsequent) Urban Stitches Drawn here is the proposed route of the Urban Stitch, locating key intervention points along the length bridge. These are suplimented by additional hypothetical routes that envisage using this form of infastructural intervention to bridge through areas of Tarlabasi not yet under threat of eviction as a preventative measure.

22.00m AOD

Secondary Inter Route

30.00m AO

SURURI MEHMET EFENDI

Secondary Intervention Route

KAMER HATUN

N

Urban Stitch Masterplan Scale 1/2500

Intervention Zone

Irmak Cad.

rvention

31.00m AOD

OD

Secondary Intervention Route

Intervention Zone

+/-

41.00m AOD

0M

50.0

TARLABASI 44.00m AOD

GE

HAN

EL C

LEV

Primary Design Intervention: (In)lormal Civic Infastructure

52.00m AOD

57.00m AOD

Renewal Zone

T B

66.00m AOD 73.00m AOD

60.00m AOD

Intervention Zone

ISTIKLAL

Intervention Zone

Istiklal Cad. 83.00m AOD

Bridging Social and Physical Fabric: Raised Roof Decks Creating New Layers of Connection and Interaction

Model of Bridge Study Connecting with Exisiting Retained Facades

106

Model of Bridge Study Connecting with Exisiting Retained Facades

107

Bridging Social and Physical Fabric: Raised Roof Decks Creating New Layers of Connection and Interaction

108

Typical Section: Urban Stitch Bridging Between Two Raised Developments Infilled From Fins. Scale 1/100

Typical Section: Urban Stitch Bridging Over Infill Structures. Scale 1/100

109

Bridging Social and Physical Fabric: Raised Roof Decks Creating New Layers of Connection and Interaction

Typical Section: Urban Stitch Staight Length Over Stablizing Fins. Scale 1/100

Typical Section: Urban Stitch Level Change Over Stablizing Fins. Scale 1/100

110

Typical Section: Urban Stitch Bridging Over Infill Structures With New Relationships to Interventions. Scale 1/100

Typical Section: Urban Stitch Level Change Over Exisiting Road. Scale 1/100

111

112

113

114

115

04: THE CATALYST

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“SKILLFULL (PRACTIONERS) UNDERSTAND THE INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN DESIGN AND EMERGENCE. THEY KNOW THAT IN TODAY’S TURBULENT...ENVIRONMENT, THE CHALLENGE IS TO FIND THE RIGHT BALLANCE BETWEEN THE CREATIVITY OF EMERGENCE AND THE STABILITY OF DESIGN.” KAPLAN, 1996: 107

117

04.1: A Case for Architecture + Urbanism as a Catalyst for Development: Challenges + Possibilities The conditions of informality and poverty, coupled with precarious living conditions, present serious challenges from a social and design standpoint as to how to respond to the forms of urban conflict in Tarlabasi. This section specifically explores the notion of the ‘Catalyst’ and explores how the use of international development theory applied to the build environment may act as an initial facilitator of formal and informal interventions, in addition to the merits of enacting a methodology of “small change” to complex slum environments. The impetus for this form of intervention is based on an analysis of case studies and examples of contemporary capacity-building practices in the built environment (See Appendix). As with the analysis of thresholds, this element of the intervention strategy of the research design project was also tested in the Kibera study. How this was executed within the context of Kibera is briefly summarized later in this section (give section number) and acts as a springboard for programmatic responses used by this catalyst methodology in Tarlabasi.

Embedded in these issues of informality and illegality is a freedom for the urban conditions of the settlements (Hamdi, 2004: 21). Without the controlling influence of infrastructures such as taxes, building permission, business permits and regulations Tarlabasi’s inhabitants partake in a vibrant form of urbanism that is at once spontaneous and dynamic. Economically, there are also less obvious benefits to informal living. As Robert Neuwith writes in ‘Shadow Cities’: “Illegal Ownership, while perhaps legally precarious, is safer for poor people because they don’t have to go into debt to create their houses. They build what they can afford, and when they can afford.” (Neuwith, 2005: 9) This freedom that Neuwith advocates, the phenomena of “architectural emergence”, is central to the more positive aspects of Tarlabasi’s urban condition. As has been advocated by urban development specialists such as Nabeel Hamdi and John Turner, stakeholders (local inhabitants and communities engaged in the issues) are the best at ensuring the fulfilment of individual needs, particularly in cases of chronic urban stress (Turner, 1972).

However, this metabolism of spontaneous, unplanned and emergent urban growth is not without limits (Hamdi, 2010: 120).

The disadvantages, such as limited technical expertise, the lack of economies of scale to facilitate more ambitions forms of growth and the underlying fundamental illegality of emergence must also be recognized and considered (Sinclair, 2006: 27). Moreover, any needsbased growth and development that exists within informal settlements is inherently fragile. This necessitates a process of intervention that carefully ensures that forces such as gentrification and dependence do not take hold to an extent that they negate any real progress made in the improvement of political, social and economic capital within Tarlabasi.

Within the context of this design project and research, the knock-on economic and social benefits of a catalyst intervention system range from facilitating capacity building within the fields of self-construction and legal literacy, to the provision of community facilities that allow for residents to improve their housing stock and political and social capital on their own terms.

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Intervention Zone

Intervention Zone

49.00m AOD

58.00m AOD

43.00m AOD 43.00m AOD

60.00m AOD

44.00m AOD 62.00m AOD

44.00m AOD

A

A

65.00m AOD

47.00m AOD

53.00m AOD

B

64.00m AOD

B

C

Construction Skills Workshops

01

Hydraulic Dampers C

Formal Bridge/Urban Stitch 65.00m AOD

Workshop Spaces D 56.00m AOD 03

Yapsat Housing

Y

Market Space

D

E

02

External Facade Buttress

02

E

Y

04 66.00m AOD

Formal Bridge/Urban Stitch 05

Formal/Informal Planning Unit

F

Community Services Market Space 67.00m AOD

F

Public Meeting Space

60.00m AOD

Y

Retained Fabric G

Y

G

68.00m AOD

Void/Passageway Public Access

Urban Stitch

Yapsat Housing

Y Y Y Y Y

H

Yapsat Housing

69.00m AOD

Y

Retained Fabric H

Y

64.00m AOD

Buttress

Market Space

Intervention Zone

66.00m AOD

72.00m AOD

73.00m AOD 68.00m AOD

70.00m AOD

Intervention Zone

74.00m AOD

Intervention Zone

75.00m AOD

N

119

N

Urban Block Plan Urban Block Site Plan Scale 1/1250 Scale 1/1250

“AT FIRST, A SMALL MARKET EMERGES: CHEAPLY, SPONTANEOUSLY, INCREMENTALLY AND IN RESPONSE TO DEMAND AND TO CIRCUMSTANCES. NO-ONE DESIGNED A MARKET PLACE, NO ONE CONTRIVED A CENTRE. INSTEAD, CONDITIONS FOR TRADE WERE INFORMALLY STRUCTURED SO THAT IF IT WANTED TO HAPPEN IT COULD AND, IF NOT VERY LITTLE INVESTMENT WAS WASTED AND NO-ONE WOULD SUFFER.AT THE SAME TIME, WITH THE NEWLY INSTALLED STREETLIGHTS, CHILDREN WOULD GATHER AT NIGHT TO DO THEIR HOMEWORK, IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHTING IN THEIR OWN HOMES. AND WHERE CHILDREN GATHER, SO DO INFORMAL VENDORS SELLING CANDY, SOFT DRINKS, PENSILS AND PAPER, EXERCISE BOOKS AND THE REST. AT THE EXISTING STAND PIPE, MORE WORK AND ORGANIZATION TO INTEGRATE THIS FACILITY INTO THIS NEW PLACE ARE DONE – A WATER TRUST HAD BEEN SET UP AND IMPROVEMENTS, AND OTHER WATER SUPPLYFACILITIES, WERE UNDERWAY.” (HAMDI, 2004:74)

120

Reconfiguring horizontal spatial relationships in these contested zones through creating nodes of communal living will provide an impetus for social interaction and economic opportunity on the lower levels of the intervention. Existing social barriers and concepts of territorialism may be broken down through such forms of social interaction, where communal ownership and unplanned appropriation of space leads to a requirement for cohabitation and discourse. Furthermore, this intervention examines how the relationship between formal and informal metabolisms of growth may work in conjunction with one another; unplanned development made possible through the catalyst of a legal intervention. Through this, a new form of architectural urbanism comes into view: a method of development and growth that provides recognition and an intervention of scale to these spaces and inhabitants while retaining the positive and contextually sensitive advantages of self-made housing.

It has been revealed that the complexity of Tarlabsi’s informal status is closely linked to the roles of various actors, from the residents inhabiting the informal settlement and the commercial forces and developers , to the Istanbul and Beyoglu municipalities. The process for testing design interventions, responding to underlying sociopolitical conditions will draw from the roles and modis operandi of each of these actors. The explicit role of the various actors are explored in great depth in section five. It is the goal of this design project to explore the capacity of formal interventions, placed into informal spaces, to augment the latent positive qualities of unplanned development, whilst mitigating the severe challenges of such urban typologies. It is the position of this author that the scale, complexity and inherent qualities of Tarlabasi point towards a harnessing of formal development in a hybrid manner that crucially retains the informal nature of the site. This is not to say that Tarlabasi as an urban space should not eventually be formalized, rather that the forms of intervention and scope of this study suggest a more nuanced and considered approach; one that anticipates spontaneous growth and harnesses this urban momentum as a positive design tool.

The implementation of catalysts has several benefits from a purely spatial standpoint. In the dense compact sites that typify Tarlabasi’s urban grain, any design intervention would inevitably be forced to carefully respond to the existing structures in its vicinity. The nature of the site’s informality results in any and all available open space being appropriated by settlers. As such, design moves on any informal site should open access to the under utilised space in the interior of the settlement to minimize the negative impact of formalized interventions. A key aspect to the design methodology is the notion that these interventions are inherently incomplete. It is envisaged as a canvas on which residents may apply their own functions and uses through further development and construction. Without such flexibility it is likely that such an intervention would likely fail, as programming specific function is generally very difficult in unplanned settlements due to their constantly changing needs and characteristics.

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04.2: Defining The Brief Developing Catalysts from Kibera Experience gained from the tests made in Nairobi provides a useful sounding board against which the programme for the catalysts may be determined. These included the provision of elements of security, needs-based infrastructure, urban connectivity and physical space for housing and commercial densification.

Each of these test elements related to a specific condition relating to the urban conflict within the informal settlement of Kibera. The security facet, taking the form of rapidly deployable watchtowers to provide overwatch and publically visible control elements to mitigate violence, were implemented in limited open spaces and allowed a modicum of transparency to a highly discredited security force.

Infrastructural needs, such as clean water and sanitation, were implemented throughout the site by small water towers with toilet blocks at their base. Located in threshold sites, these were hypothesized to act as elements to recalibrate territorialisms within Kibera, by providing nodes of social interaction along borders between communities. Connecting these, a series of raised bridges allowed the flow of formal and informal residents through and across the site.

Finally, a series of simply constructed frames along threshold nodes facilitated the densification of spaces to allow commercial opportunity that would further assist in breaking socio-political barriers between groups. These are briefly summarized visually in the following pages.

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Corrugated Metal Roof Outer Building Fabric Layer

100x100mm Timber Purlins

Internal Building Fabric Layer 200x100mm Primay Timber Beams

Interlocking Pitched Frame Primary Roofing Structure Prefabricated Timber Panels to protect security forces from projectiles

100x200 Timber Overlapping Bracing Elelement

100x200mm Timber Overlapping Bracing Element

100x100mm Timber Struts Supporting Staircase System

200x100mm Primay Timber Columns Timber Connector

Watchtower Surveillance Platform

Stair Landing Floorplate

Modular Staircase Element to be built within the structure

Stair Landing Floorplate Supports

Interlocking 200x200mm Primary Timber Columns

200x100mm Primay Timber Beams

100x200mm Overlapping Primary Beams

50x50mm Timber Security Facade to Protect Structure 200x100mm Primay Timber Beams

Interlocking 200x100mm Timber Bracing Elements

200x100mm Primay Timber Columns

200x100mm Primay Timber Columns

Dual 100x200 Timber Posts

Inhabitation Tower Exploded Axonometric Scale 1/500

Watch Tower Exploded Axonometric Scale 1/500

Stainless Steel Gutter for Water Collection

Angled Timber Bridge Facade

Timber Walkway Side Panels

200x200mm Timber Roof Structure

Corrugated Metal Roofing

Prefabricated Steel Lateral Supports

Composite Timber Mast Supporting Water Tanks

20,000L Water Tanks to Provide Water for 100 People for 1 Week Timber Ladder for Vertical Access

50x50mm Timber Protection Facades

Timber Walkway Decking

200x200mm Timber Primary Breams

Timber Beams 200x200mm Composite

Prefabricated Steel Triangle Frames

200x200 Timber Bracing Elements

Four 200x200mm Primary Columns

Still Tension Element Concrete Blockwork Ground Floor Walls Four 200x200mm Primary Columns

Composite Timber Masts

Water Tower Exploded Axonometric Scale 1/500

Urban Bridge Exploded Axonometric Scale 1/500

Developing Catalysts from Kibera 123

Corrugated Metal Roofing 200x200 Timber Primary Beam Stainless Steel Gutter for Water Collection

Corrugated Metal Roofing 200x100mm Timber Bracing Element

200x200mm Timber Primary Beam

Corrugated Metal Roofing

Stainless Steel Gutter

Water Tank

Water Tank

50x50mm Timber Protection Facade

Timber Supports for Water Tank Water Tank Composite Timber Mast to Support Water Tanks

Composite Timber Mast Supporting Water Tank Ladder Opening to Above

Timber Decking Floor Plate

200x200 Timber Primary Beam

Concrete Block Infill Wall

Concrete Block Infill Wall Public Toilet

Reserve Water Tank

Composite Timber Mast

Primary Timber Columns Concrete Block Infill Wall Timber Door To Public Toilet

Public Water Point

In Situ Concrete Pad Foundation In Situ Concrete Pad to Support Timber Mast

Ladder Opening to Above

In Situ Concrete Pad Foundation

Timber Door to Service Space

In Situ Concrete Pad Foundation

Watch Tower Sections Scale 1/200

Lateral Supports

Lateral Supports

Lateral Supports

Timber Decking

Timber Decking

Timber Decking

Steel Triangular Frame

Steel Triangular Frame

Steel Triangular Frame

Composite TImber Mast

Composite TImber Mast

Composite TImber Mast

Steel Tension Cable

Steel Tension Cable

Steel Tension Cable

In Situ Concrete Pad Foundation

Bridge Tower Sections Scale 1/200

124

Timber Roofing Purlins

50mm Thick Security Panel for Protection from Projectiles

Corrucgated Metal Roofing

100x100mm Timber Struts for Observation Platform

100x200mm Timber Overlapping Bracing Elements 100x100mm Timber Struts for Stair Landing

50x50mm Timber Security Facade

200x100mm Timber Primary Beam

50x50mm Security Facade

200x100mm Timber Primary Beam Timber Door for Entry into Watchtower

In Situ Concrete Pad Foundation

Watch Tower Sections Scale 1/200

Parasite Interventions

Roof Systems Become Circulation

Lower Levels Become Commercial Hub Inhabitation Tower Section Scale 1/200

Developing Catalysts from Kibera 125

04.3: Defining The Brief Applying Catalysts Within Tarlabasi’s Contested Spaces Drawing from the design tests conducted in the Kibera project, a series of programmes have been determined for Tarlabasi. The intention of this is that each intervention can exist in isolation, providing tangible and incremental benefits to the actors involved, but form parts of a whole that offers a spatial and institutional presence. These individual catalyst programmes are defined within the following categories: the economic, socio-political and the constructional.

The first catalyst programme is the provision public open space for the establishment of an informal market within the block. This provides the opportunity for the impromptu markets that were lost as a result of the renewal project to be re-established. It is envisaged that this intervention also becomes a meeting place and communal space for the inhabitants Tarlabasi. Through this inhabitation of this space, the collective ownership of the area may then additionally mitigate territorial conflict and tensions between groups within the informal settlement.

Building on the principle that such collective ownership is crucial in the mitigation of aggravation between communities and urban actors, the informal market typology acts as a micro scale catalyst that sows the seed of this form of informal appropriation through formal intervention.

The second programmatic catalyst centres on the relocation of the Tarlabasi Community Centre and the provision of new spaces for its use within the intervention block. As one of the organizations directly affected by the forced evictions of the renewal project, the organization has expressed interest in finding a more suitable location for the facility (http://www.tarlabasi.org, accessed February 2014). Currently located in a much smaller building to the north of the renewal zone, this community centre provides nursery and teaching facilities for stakeholders and residents within Tarlabasi. The relocation of these essential services into a more prominent and suitable site within the urban block allows for these programmes to be integrated within the slum in a sensitive and sustainable manner; augmenting their impact. This programme would be coupled with full-time offices for representatives of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, allowing legal services to fall under the remit of the community centre. These social services represent the second crucial catalysing programme to be implemented within Tarlabasi. While these programmes are not intended to address all socio-economic stresses faced by Tarlabasi’s residents, rather they facilitate a greater significance of such programmes within the existing civic and societal fabric of the site.

The third programmatic catalyst is the provision of space that allows construction skills training and capacity building in the technical aspects of informal housing. By using larger perforations in the stabilizing fins, it becomes possible to provide spaces for workshops and testing areas where local stakeholders can improve their skills in self build housing.

With the assistance of design professionals from the Chamber of Architects of Istanbul, these spaces provide testing grounds for infill methods of quasi-formal housing within Tarlabasi, specifically within the context of the Urban Stitch. Through this form of capacity building, the ability of the community to provide for themselves, with respect to safe housing, is improved, while also providing a level of technical security and risk reduction in the implementation of housing that exists outside the remits of formal, developer-driven practices.

126

Urban Stitch Bridge Deck

Urban Stitch Level Change

Urban Stitch Adjustable Steel Truss

Yapsat Infill Housing Units

Informal Market Spaces + Cross Block Access Opensapce

NHA and Community Centre Facility

Construction and Techincal Skills Training Centre

Hydraulic Dampers

Urban Stitch Stabilizing Fins

127

Scale 1/1,000

04.4: Reconstituting the Block - An Institutional Catalyst through the Amalgamation of Micro Programmes within a Threshold site It is through the collection of these programmes together that a further, additional potential opportunity arises from this design strategy. It allows the scope and extent of the catalyst method to be limited and controlled, ensuring that impact of each programme is maximized through the proximities to additional catalyzing elements.

Through the collection of these programmes within a specific block in the renewal zone, it allows an exemplar form of construction and intervention between blocks and derelict spaces that enables such a form of building to be replicated throughout the site and along the Urban Stitch.

The rationale for this is to approach the issue of contested informal space in a temporal way, first spatially appropriating a zone of conflict as an initial intervention, then establishing services and connection, and finally, providing a framework that facilitates the growth of a reconfigured urban fabric that encourages long term dialogue and social interaction. These social and economic activities therefore possess the potential to mitigate conflict through their communalization of threshold spaces. While this intervention strategy does not explicitly design spaces for the creation of new social intervention, they are designed to create a scenario that, through the recalibration of inhabitation and connection patterns into a vertical and three dimensional network, creates social economic opportunities that facilitate this form of dialogue and growth. Therefore, it is through the provision of a physical and strategic framework that promotes quasi-legal housing development, that the beneficial forces of communal interaction and economic opportunity may be harnessed in the mitigation of urban conflict.

128

Study Model of Infilling Demolished Blocks With Catalysts Under the Urban Stitch

129

Study Models of Stacked Micro Catalysts Infilling the Block

130

Study Model of Stacked Micro Catalysts Infilling the Block

131

Reconstituting The Block - Stacking Services and Capacity Building Layering Programme Catalysts to Create an Instituion for Tarlabasi This cranked long section cuts through the bridge as it crosses down the block chosen for the catalyst programmes. It depicts the relationships of the various programmes to the bridge above. Note the multi-angle nature of the section line.

Glazed Meeting Space Above Covered Market. Used by Developer and NHA to make development aggreements.

Existing Inhabited Housing Butress Fins Infill Unused Gaps Allowing for Infill and Stablizing Exisiting Buildings

Access Stair to NHA Facility and Construction Workshop Spaces

Larger Yapsat Unit to Be Buit as Exemplar for Developer Intervention Strategy and Investment.

Tarlabasi Community Centre Nursery Space Below Exemplar Yapsat Housing Modules

Level Change and Crossing of Exisiting Street System

Vantage Point on Raised Deck above NHA Offices and Service Spaces

Triple Height Workshop Spaces for Construction Skills Training and Providing Yapsat Housing Building Experience.

Open Roof Deck Above NHA Meeting Rooms and Legal Councilling Spaces

Open Market Space Below NHA Meeting Rooms and Informal Planning Unit Offices

Cranked Site Section Along Bridge Bridge Scale 1/500

Developer Built Yapsat Housing Modules

Shared Ownership of Yapsat Roofs Create Play Spaces Public Access Level Change and Entrance Node to Urban Stitch Bridge

Informal Market Space and Access Cut Through Exisiting Block Exemplar Yapsat Housing Units Above Rentable Shop Space

Retained Facades

Entrance to Rentable Shop Space Retained Facades

Access Core and Entrance Node

Designated Developer Regneration Commercial Zone as Stipulated by the Tarlabasi Urban Renewal Project

Designated Developer Regneration Commercial Zone as Stipulated by the Tarlabasi Urban Renewal Project

47.00m AOD

R R

R

53.00m AOD

Urban Stitch

01

R 02 01 R 03 L

56.00m AOD

01

M

M

04 06

Urban Stitch

04

04 R

05

05 M M

60.00m AOD

R Urban Stitch

Y

R Y M M L Y Y Y

Y

Y

Y

64.00m AOD

Y Y

L

66.00m AOD

Urban Stitch 134 134

64.00m AOD

65.00m AOD

66.00m AOD

67.00m AOD

68.00m AOD

01 - Construction Training Workshop Space

02 - Techincal Training Workshops

03 - (In)Formal Planning Unit

05 - Community Services Space

06 - NHA Legal Councilling Space

R - Retained Exisiting Structures

F - Retained Derelict Facades

M - Informal Market Space

Y - Yapsat Hybrid Housing Development

L - Open Access Level Change

04 - Public Meeting Space

69.00m AOD

N

Catalyst Programme Zoneing Plan Scale 1/500

135 135 72.00m AOD

Buttressing Fins Public WC

Entrance to Community Facility

1:1 Construction Skills Workshops Access to Bridge Above Materials Skills Workshop Retained Facades NHA Reception + Meeting Space

Hydraulic Dampers

Services Core Techincal Training Workshop Public Access Level Change

Entrance to Community Facility Informal Market

Cross-Block Access Informal Market

Cross Block Access

Retained Facades

Informal Market Retained Facades

N

Ground Floor Plan Scale 1/500

136

Buttressing Fins Public WC

NHA Meeting Space

Access to Bridge Above Hydraulic Dampers

Retained Facade Chamber of Architects Office Space

Services Core Access to Bridge Above Buttress Fins Legal Councelling Spaces Community Centre Lesson Rooms Secondary Link Bridge

Community Centre Meeting Space

Community Centre Lesson Rooms

NHA Meeting Space Retained Facade

Community Centre Nursery Services Buttress Fins

Informal Market Entrance to Residential Block Infill

Buttress Fins Micro Buiness Infill Space Retained Facade Informal Market Micro Buiness Infill Space

N

First Floor Plan Scale 1/500

137

Rooftop Meeting Space Glazed Roofing Glazed Roofing Access to NHA Building Below Raised Bridge

Retained Facade

Services Core Access to Bridge Above Buttress Fins Community Centre Lesson Rooms

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Secondary Link Bridge

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Buttress Fins Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Retained Facade

Rooftop Meeting Space

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Glazed Roofing

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Secondary Link Bridge Through Residential Block

Buttress Fins Micro Buiness Infill Space Retained Facade

Access to Levels Above/Below Buttress Fins Micro Buiness Infill Space Micro Buiness Infill Space Micro Buiness Infill Space Micro Buiness Infill Space

Micro Buiness Infill Space

Buttress Fins Micro Buiness Infill Space Micro Buiness Infill Space

N

Second Floor Plan Scale 1/500

Entrance to Infilled Residential Block

138 Buttress Fins

Access to Levels Above/Below Buttress Fins

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

Buttress Fins Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

N

Third Floor Plan Scale 1/500

139 Buttress Fins

Access to Levels Above/Below Buttress Fins

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

Buttress Fins Yapsat Infill Housing Unit Yapsat Infill Housing Unit

N

Fourth Floor Plan Scale 1/500

140 Buttress Fins

Rooftop Public Open Space Public Access to Community Centre Public Access to Community Centre

Public Access to Urban Stitch

Public Access to Community Centre Rooftop Public Open Space

Public Access to Community Centre

Rooftop Public Open Space

Public Access to Urban Stitch Rooftop Public Open Space

N

Fifth Floor Plan Scale 1/500

141

Public Access to Urban Stitch

Reconstituting The Block - Stacking Services and Capacity Building Layering Programme Catalysts to Create an Instituion for Tarlabasi

Access to Bridge Above

Techincal Skills Workshop

1:1 Construction Skills Training Workshop

Chamber of Architects Office Space

Infill Yapsat Housing

NHA Meeting Space Public WC

142

Infill Yapsat Housing

Community Centre Nursery Services

Infill Yapsat Housing

Community Centre Lesson Rooms Informal Market Space

Infill Yapsat Housing

Informal Market Space

Scale 1/200

143

Reconstituting The Block - Stacking Services and Capacity Building Layering Programme Catalysts to Create an Instituion for Tarlabasi

Infill Yapsat Housing

Public Access Level Change To Urban Stitch Brdige

Infill Yapsat Housing

Infill Yapsat Housing

Informal Market Sapce

Cross Access Through Block

144

Infill Yapsat Housing

Bridge Accross Exisiting Road Network

Infill Yapsat Housing

Public Access Level Change to Urban Stitch Bridge

Infill Micro Buisness Space Cross Access Through Block

Scale 1/200

145

Access to Bridge From Instituion Adjustable Steel Truss Existing Inhabited Structure

Bridge Deck

Retained Exisiting Damaged Facades Glazed Facade Between Buttressing Fins

Hydraulic Dampers

Concrete Pad Foundations Supporting Glazed Facades

Access to Informal Market Techincal Skills Workshop Space

Public Entrance

Cross Section Through Skills Training Space Entrance Scale 1/200

146

Retained Exisiting Damaged Facades Adjustable Steel Truss Glazed Facade Between Buttressing Fins

Bridge Deck Existing Inhabited Structure

Infill Timber Floor Deck Hydraulic Dampers

Concrete Pad Foundations Supporting Glazed Facades

Level Change Triple Height Construction Skills Training Space

Cross Section Through Skills Training Space Level Change Scale 1/200

147

Infill Timber Floor Deck Access to Community Centre Glazed Roofing Between Fins

Retained Exisiting Damaged Facades

Bridge Deck Existing Inhabited Structure

Glazed Facade Between Buttressing Fins

Hydraulic Dampers

Raised Reception Space Concrete Pad Foundations Supporting Glazed Facades

Techincal Skills Workshop Office

Cross Section Through Skills Training Workshop Scale 1/200

148

Bridge Deck

Adjustable Steel Truss

Infill Yapsat Housing Access to Residential Units Community Centre Informal Meeting Space

NHA Office Space

Hydraulic Dampers

Access Through Block at Ground Level Public Level Change to Bridge

Infill Concrete Floor Deck

Insitu Concrete Floor Informal Market Space Retained Damaged Facades

Retained Damaged Facades

Cross Section Through Informal Market Level Change Scale 1/200

149

Access to Residential Units Infill Yapsat Housing Adjustable Steel Truss Bridge Deck Community Centre Treaching Spaces Infill Yapsat Housing

Informal Market Space

Public Level Change to Bridge

Access to Community Centre Nursery Facilities

Infill Concrete Floor Deck

Insitu Concrete Floor Retained Damaged Facades

Cross Section Community Centre Teaching Spaces Scale 1/200

150

Infill Yapsat Housing

Hydraulic Dampers

Access to Residential Units

Infill Yapsat Housing Adjustable Steel Truss Bridge Deck

Community Meeting Spaces

Insitu Concrete Floor Public Level Change to Bridge

Infill Concrete Floor Deck

Informal Market Space Retained Damaged Facades

Retained Damaged Facades

Cross Section Through Community Centre Meeting Spaces Scale 1/200

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

05: THE PARTNERSHIP

158

“PARTICIPATION AND CHANGE PUT EXPERTS IN A VERY DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIP TO PEOPLE AND TO PLACE. THE CHANGING ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF EXPERTS, PROVIDING SKILLS AND SCOPING OUT OPPORTUNITY, ENBALING OTHERS TO IMAGINE THE FUTURE THAT BEGINS NOW, CULTIVATING CHANGE AND THEN SUSTAING IT ALL SOCIALLY AND ECONOMICALLY, GIVES US A VERY DIFFERNT PICTURE OF THE EXPERT.” HAMDI, 2010: XVII

159

05.1: Existing Development Practices Planning Legislation Possibilities + Drawbacks This section addresses issues relating to the creation of a formal/ informal partnership for the regeneration of Tarlabasi that provides greater engagement with the community stakeholders. By examining three critical forms of urban development in the city, (private/public, public/informal, sanctioned/informal), a case will be made for how the use of these practices in unison lays the legislative foundation for a multi-actor partnership.

The first key legislative element for this partnership model is Act. No. 5366, “The Protection of Deteriorated Historic and Cultural Heritage through Renewal and Re-Use�. While in fact the same law that gave the legal justification for the current renewal project, it represents a key facet in a hybrid procurement strategy that works to engage actors at all levels. Due to the fact that TOKI has a mandate to allocate areas of urban renewal, the selection of Tarlabasi as a renewal zone, and the inclusion of private sector investment through Act no. 5366, allows financial capital and public infrastructural works to be injected into this economically depressed site.

The second key element in the foundation of a partnership model is the harnessing of the Yapsat system which is a traditional model of small-scale development that exists throughout Istanbul. This system, which is condoned by government policy, has been prevalent in Istanbul from 1948 particularly in Istanbul’s peripheral gecekondu neighbourhoods (Tekeli, 1994: 184). This form of shared development, with physical property representing compensation for services rendered, has allowed lower middle class and poorer communities to develop their urban fabric outside conditioned norms of construction (Tekeli, 1994: 184).

This form of procurement entitles tapu/title owners to provide space for building and through a partnership with a builder or contractor, develops the property. In lieu of the transfer of funds, the payment for this service takes the form of space within the new structure (Essen, 2005: 44). In short, landowners and residents are able to expand homes and businesses without the need for up front capital (Essen, 2005: 55). It represents an informal social contract that allows for the incremental and sustainable development of low-income urban zones without the need of explicit formal policies (Bugra, 2007: 44).

This renders possible a partnership model, where local stakeholders would be able to provide space and land for redevelopment in return for the redevelopment of their properties; reducing capital costs for the developer whilst allowing residents to remain within Tarlabasi.

This would result in a shared ownership condition that repairs dilapidated buildings and provides investment opportunities for commercial developers. It allows for direct involvement of landowners and stakeholders in the procurement of regeneration zones for development, whilst reducing the upfront capital costs of investment of developer partners.

160

11 - This was specifically focused on state-owned land and importantly, initiated a ‘Gecekondu Fund’ that was to be allocated at the municipal level towards the improvement of living conditions (Fehl, 2000: 175). Act no.

2981 allowed the provision of title deeds to squatter settlements on both private and public land (Grewell et al.

2006, p. 11).

The third planning consideration in the creation of a formal/informal partnership is the activation of two separate pieces of legislation pertaining to amnesties for informal settlement structures, and the provision for their transition into legal districts. Acts no. 775 and 2981, passed in 1966 and 1984 respectively, represent planning legislative moves taken by pre-AKP regimes to address the sizeable problem of squatter settlements, or ‘gecekondu’ throughout Turkey’s cities (Fehl, 2000: 167). Act no. 775 granted a general amnesty for informal settlement structures and provided municipal infrastructural services for gecekondu that met prerequisite standards.11 The use of these two strategies in unison allows for municipal renewal that is subsided by nationalized housing funds, reinforcing this hybrid strategy as it allows both private sector and public sector investment whilst retaining the existing community. This is due to the fact that without the designation of Tarlabasi as a renewal zone, it is not possible to intervene at an urban level with infrastructural or housing regeneration initiatives. These facets of current urban development and planning legislation act as the three primary angles from which development in Tarlabasi may be approached. Initially these elements appear diametrically opposed, with private/public gentrification partnerships, public sector in protection of legally precarious urban settlements and small scale urban growth each serving specific actors. However, the harnessing of these three elements in unison offers a form of slum intervention that engages with all actors in Tarlabasi.

161

1. INDIVIDUAL/FOUNDATION OWNERS WOULD SELL THEIR TAPUS [TITLE DEEDS] TO THE PARTNER COMPANY OF THE MUNICIPALITY THAT TOOK THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PROJECT. TAPUS WILL BECOME THE PROPERTY OF THE PARTNER COMPANY AND INDIVIDUALS WILL LEAVE THE AREA. 2. THE PARTNER COMPANY AND THE MUNICIPALITY WILL AGREE WITH THE INDIVIDUALS FOR THEM TO BE KEPT IN THE PROJECT WITH THEIR OWN TAPUS. THE FACT IS, ALL THE TAPUS MUST BE “STORY TITLE DEEDS” (“KAT MÜLKIYETI” IN TURKISH) LOCATED IN THE PROJECTED BUILDINGS. ALL IS DUE TO THE AGREEMENT BY MEANS OF FEES. 3. INDIVIDUAL OWNERS WOULD TRADE [SWAP] THEIR TAPUS WITH THE PARTNER COMPANY OF THE MUNICIPALITY AND MOVE OUT FROM THE LAND TO THEIR NEXT (BUILT UP BY THE LOCAL/METROPOLITAN MUNICIPALITY, OR THE PARTNER COMPANY, OR TOKI -THE GOVERNMENTAL ADMINISTRATOR BODY FOR SOCIAL HOUSING-) DESIGNATED AREA. TAPUS [TITLE DEEDS] WILL BECOME THE PROPERTY OF THE PARTNER COMPANY AND INDIVIDUALS WILL LEAVE THE AREA.” SCHWEGMANN, 2012: 234-235

162

05.2: Stakeholder Compensation + Land Procurment By designating Tarlabasi a renewal zone, it is possible to involve commercial developers who provide financial capital for construction and urban renewal. Through the use of a Yapsat form of land acquisition, the developer cooperates with local stakeholders in the renewal of the district, reducing capital costs for the commercial partner while improving the property of title holders. Furthermore, through the use of squatter amnesties, it is possible to ensure that residents remain in Tarlabasi and are provided with municipal and nationally-subsidised infrastructural services which in turn, drive down development costs for the commercial partners.

A procurement model that harnesses each of the development practices discussed earlier, (private/public, public/informal and condoned informal), would ensure a form of compensation for the purchase of land commensurate with its value. The activation of both Gecekondu and TOKI funds, facilitated through Act nos. 775, 2981 and 5366 would allow large-scale infrastructure to be financed at a municipal level in lieu of greater engagement with the community and a gradual formalization of the communities’ informal settlements. This would greatly reduce capital costs incurred by the developer GAP who under current practices is responsible for all urban level regeneration.

The designation of the zone as a renewal zone under law 5366 would allow the developer GAP to acquire property. By way of a scaled-up version of the Yapsat practice, it is possible to ensure the retention of the existing community and an equitable compensation strategy where prospective additional property are provided as payment for improvement services rendered. This model would ensure all residents, squatters and tenants included, would be allowed to remain in the settlement; a feature that the current Renewal Project does not provide. Finally, the shared ownership of individual properties that would be a product of the proposed partnership model, provides a communal investment in Tarlabasi, mitigating the risk of future wholescale gentrification projects being implemented. This model of shared property ownership represents a key difference between existing procurement practices and the proposed partnership of this thesis.

Additionally, within a context where commercial, municipal and community actors are equally engaged in the regeneration of Tarlabasi, the role of the architect as mediator presents an important opportunity. For the current Tarlabasi Renewal Project, architects have been appointed by the developer GAP and municipality to design the master plan of the project, with 9 practices involved in total (Schwegmann, 2012: 239). However, these firms have not been part of any community engagement or procurement procedures, resulting in a master plan that, by GAP estimates, will expropriate a minimum of 80% of the population (GAP INSATT, 2012).

With the appointment of architects as central mediators, able to consult with all actors at all scales, it would be possible to ensure greater involvement of local stakeholders, whilst mitigating the risks of the incremental self build projects that form part of the intervention strategy. Subsequently, the architect would be able to act as liaison between developer, stakeholder and municipality, to ensure the procedure of property acquisition and the shared ownership of land is conducted within the framework of the agreed partnership.

163

ACT NO. 3566 CREATION OF PARTNERSHIP ORGANIZATIONS SITE AUDIT + COMMUNITY NEEDS

02

03

04

05

DESIGNATION OF RENEWAL ZONE

FOUNDATION OF NHA

DEVELOPER APPOINTMENT

ANALYSIS OF SITE

TOKI-MANDATED NEEDS ASSESMENT

TOKI + Beyoglu Distric Municipality designate Tarlabasi as a renewal zone under Act no. 5366.

•

Limits of Renewal zone are determined and redlined.

•

Enactment of Gecekondu fund under Act No. 775 facilitated, allocating funds for infastructural redevelopment of municipal level services.

•

Tarlabasi Residents Asscociation + Community Support Asscociations form NHA to act as main conduit of negotiation.

•

Specialist assistance from chamber of architects and Bilgi University in an advisory, neutral capacity.

•

NHA draw support from local rstakeholders for partnership.

•

NHA informs community of the designation of the site as a renewal zone.

•

Renewal zone announced to invited developers.

•

Developers tender proposals under partnership framework.

•

Understanding of involvement of NHA a prerequisite to applicaton for tender.

•

Developer is appointed through Beyoglu District Municipality.

•

NHA is informed of developer appointment.

•

Developer works with NHA to asses local urban fabric.

•

Chamber of Architects assess the structural viability of existing structures, identifying buildings beyond repair.

•

Inhabitation of structures is audited with a renewal-level census of area executed by Beyoglu District Municipality

•

Skills of local stakeholders audited by newly formed NHA.

•

TOKI conducts services assesment of infrastructural services provided to exisiting community

•

Informal communities audited and provided amnesty under Act Nos. 775 and 2891.

• Squatter refugees granted temporary residency status and access to affordable housing within rengerated urban zone.

LAND PROCUREMENT + COMPENSATION

FOUNDATION OF REDEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP SITE ANALYSIS + LAND PROCUREMENT STRATEGY

01

•

06

NHA + DEVELOPER CONSULTATION

•

Abandoned buildings are appropriated by Beyoglu District Municipality under Act No. 3566.

•

Buildings are sold to developer.

•

NHA and developer create procurement aggreement for buildings in need of repair and regeneration.

•

Agreement stipulates the use of Yapsat development as payment for regeneration works.

S

GDP

SERVICES PLANNING YAPSAT DEVELOPMENT SCHEME PLANNING PERMISSION

07

08

09

10

11 DETAIL DESIGN

INFRASTRUCTURE FRAMEWORK

MASTERPLANNING + DESIGN DEVELOPMENT TENDER + CONSTRUCTION

•

12

TOKI INFRASTRUCTURE FRAMEWORK ESTABLISHED

NHA + STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION

YAPSAT AGREEMENTS ESTABLISHED

PLANNING APPLICATION

YAPSAT CONTRACTOR TENDER

BUILDING PERMISSION

Based on services audit, TOKI and Beyoglu District Municiplaity enact infrastructe intervention framework to be implemented alongside the developer/stakeholder regeneration of existing building stock.

• Gecekondu fund finances the implementation of this scheme.

•

Infrastructure services framework included in planning application for the renewal of Tarlabasi.

•

NHA acts as conduit in the planning of masterplan regeneration scheme.

•

Requirements of developer outlined and discussed with architects as mediator.

•

TOKI mandated framework included in the proposal.

•

Beyoglu District Municipality appraised of proposed masterplan.

•

Individual buildings are planned for Yapsat intervention.

•

NHA provides results of the community needs audit to provide the outline of the brief of all building interventions.

•

Abandoned properties are designated for wholescale use of developer in lieu of providing a community civic area for NHA.

•

Contracts with individual residents formed with developer through NHA.

•

NHA and developer present planning application formally to the Beyoglu District Municipality.

•

Consultation results of TOKI framework, Yapsat contracts and partnership agreements provided as supported documentation.

•

Chamber of architects add recomendation of the suitablity of the proposed framework with regard to community engagement and retention of historic fabric.

•

Yapsat structures develop architectural designs for each of the individual properties.

•

Phasing and construction considerations included in the tender of said structures.

•

Yapsat development buidlings are tendered, with special preference given to contractors within Tarlabasi as identified by the NHA following the community skills and needs audit.

•

Individual building applications made to the District Board of Renewal for review and consent.

•

Developer and NHA act as key stakeholders, supported by the strategic framework implemented by TOKI.

•

Permission is granted and construction initiates.

S

S

GDP

S

05.3: Construction + Community Actors In contrast to the current Tarlabasi Renewal Project, this partnership model proposes the involvement of community-based organizations and actors from the outset of the development (Interview with Jonathan Lewis, March 2014). To ensure local stakeholders are engaged at all levels in the process of urban regeneration, this procurement model would include the foundation of a reformed Neighborhood Housing Association (NHA) for Tarlabasi (Schwegmann, 2012: 239). Drawing from the organization powers of community bodies such as the Tarlabasi Community Support Association and the expertise of the “Tarlabasi Property Owners and Social Developments and Tenant Aid Association” (Interview with Jonathan Lewis, March 2014), a new Neighborhood Housing Association would be founded to act as the key representative of the community.

In contrast to previous community organizations, this body would act as the sole representative of the community, mitigating the failures of previous organizations that had failed to use collective bargaining in the face of the urban transformation in Tarlabasi (Schwegmann, 2012: 241). This section discusses how, through an examination of current building and heritage practices, the institution of such an NHA would work towards the implementation of an alternate development model for Tarlabasi.12 In light of the current practices of demolition, construction and architectural ‘heritage’, the creation of a community NHA and its involvement in the partnership, may provide an improved method of procurement at a building level. Within a partnership procurement model, the role of this newly formed NHA would be critical on a number of levels. From an architectural heritage standpoint, a partnership between residents and the developer would allow the existing housing stock to be maintained and regenerated; using the traditional Yapsat form of growth to minimize the impact of development.

The role of the NHA within this context would be to work with the developer and the architect, as sanctioned by the municipality, to assess the structural suitability of the existing structures; with abandoned and badly damaged buildings to be allocated to GAP. By expanding and repairing existing structures, the fundamental qualities of Tarlabasi, including street sizes, building dimensions and floor plans, are retained and due to the legitimacy afforded by the municipality, the NHA would be able to maintain efficiently the heritage buildings.

Through this, the requirements of the Tarlabasi district heritage board are met, within the parameters of the area’s designation as a renewal zone and the political requirements of TOKI and the AKP regime. Furthermore, through this method, local residents would be automatically involved in the design and implementation of building projects due to the shared ownership of the properties.

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12 - Building permission for interventions in Tarlabasi is granted by the Beyoglu District Municipality (BDM) and a municipal-level heritage board that is founded for each designated renewal zone (Gunay, 2013: 4).

Land is designated renewal zone under Act no. 5366.

Tarlabasi NHA + Community Asscociation form foundation to act as main conduit of negotiation with specialist assistance from chamber of architects and Bilgi University.

Municipality surveys site for formal stakeholders and informal squatters Contract for Development is Tendered to developer TOKI grants ammnesty to squatters and registers refugees as temporary residents of Tarlabasi Developer is appointed

Chamber of Architects works with municipality to identify at risk buildings and locations in need of improved infastructural services NHA works with developer to propose Yapsat regeneration schemes in additon to other compensation methods

Briefs for the current transformation project have been created with the architect as a subcontractor of the developer GAP (Interview with Tures Architects, March 2014). Collaborating with developer and the NHA, it would be essential that the needs of both actors are considered when developing a building brief for individual regeneration interventions. This would be done through the established housing associations that, through their collective bargaining capacity, would allow the needs of individual residents to be addressed (Interview with Jonathan Lewis, March 2014). As such, the architect may act as liaison between parties, ensuring standards required by the municipality and heritage boards are met, whilst protecting the interests of residents in a manner that facilitates economic profit for the developer.

As building consent is provided on a building-by-building basis, the use of a partnership model does allow for bureaucracy to be streamlined through the capacity of the developer to provide a wider master plan (interview with Tures Architects, March 2014). Due to the previous condition of land tenure, local stakeholders have had difficulty in the past gaining building permission to improve their structures (Interview with Jonathan Lewis, March 2014). With legitimacy afforded by the involvement of a municipally-sanctioned developer, the renewal of buildings is made possible, bypassing political obstructions faced by stakeholders. Concurrently, the proposed partnership model would allow TOKI-mandated infrastructural works to be coordinated with the proposed construction work by the developer/stakeholder, further improving the procurement process through a single regeneration plan.

Through the analysis of its legal basis, citing planning practices in Tarlabasi, a case has been made for a hybrid form ÂŹof development that involves the community, with shared property ownership and government subsidized infrastructure facilitating an incremental and stakeholder-driven form of regeneration. Commercial investment that retains the existing fabric and community of Tarlabasi has been examined, allocating municipal funds to improve infrastructural services to the derelict district. Responding to the highlighted shortcomings of the existing Tarlabasi Renewal Project, it has been proposed that the role of the architect as mediator is a crucial facet in the implementation of the procurement strategy. Providing legitimacy and professional skill to the process, the architect is uniquely situated as a potential liaison in the sensitive and politically charged issue of urban renewal in Tarlabasi. Using the foundations discussed, this partnership model of urban development forms the initial steps to an intervention strategy that mitigates the socio-political flash points of conflict within Tarlabasi.

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06: THE INCREMENTAL

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“....THE BEST IDEAS IN THE SHAPING OF THE VAST CITIES OF THE FUTURE WILL NOT COME FROM ENCLAVES OF ECONOMIC POWER AND ABUNDANCE, BUT IN FACT FROM SECTORS OF CONFLICT AND SCARCITY FROM WHICH AN URGEN IMAGINATION CAN REALLY INSPIRE US TO RETHINK URBAN GROWTH TODAY.” TEDDY CRUZ AT TED GLOBAL 2013

169

06.1: A Case for Incremental Growth A Possible Facilitator of Dialogue and Responsible Urban Regeneration The final section of this thesis explores the principal of incremental growth as a key element in responding to the underlying manifestations of the societal and urban conflict in Tarlabasi. It is important to note that in this incremental and user-driven approach, each instance of growth and intervention will be different; uniquely meeting the needs and the capacity of a given stakeholder or community. However, what is offered in this section is a speculation on how an incremental and informal method of growth may be made possible in light of the spatial and social interventions proposed in this thesis, exploring its latent benefits and risks.

While drawing from case studies of incrementally-driven design projects, the following pages do not didactically ‘design’ selfbuild buildings and spaces, but rather conceptualize a number of possibilities of inhabitation as a means to illustrate this approach.

This approach draws from research into exemplar projects and initiatives that harness incremental informal design within socially and economically challenging environments (See Appendix).

Encouraged and made possible by the Urban Stitch, the Catalyst and the Partnership, a discussion of two possible scales of incremental growth follows.

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“...PARTICIPATION IS NOT SOMETHING YOU TAG ON IF YOU HAVE THE TIME OR GOOD WILL, BUT AN ITEGRAL PART OF MAKING DESIGN AND PLANNING EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE. IT UNDERPINS TODAY’S CONCEPTS OF PARTNERSHIPS AND GOOD GOVERNANCE. IT CULTIVATES ONWERSHIP AND, WITH IT, A SENSE OF BELONGING AND RESPONSIBILTIY, BOTH OF WHICH ARE IMPORTANT TO THE HEALTH OF PLACE AND OF COMMUNITY.” HAMDI, 2010: XVI

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“FLEXIBILITY TO ACHIEVE GOOD FIT THAT CAN CHANGE OVER TIME WAS ARGUED NOT ONLY ON GROUNDS OF COST AND STANDARDS BUT ALSO ON GOOD DESIGN WITH A STRONG SOCIAL AND USER BIAS –“‘TO PROVIDE A PRIVATE DOMAIN THAT WILL FULFIL EACH OCCUPANTS’ EXPECTATIONS.”

- NABEEL HAMDI, HOUSING WITHOUT HOUSES, 1995

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06.2: Self-Build Incrementalism Embedding Communal Ownership through (In)Formal Yapsat Housing The first scale of incremental growth explored is that of the buildinglevel, self-build model. Facilitating densification, urban growth and socially responsible regeneration, this small scale Incrementalism is implemented by individual stakeholders, following the aforementioned Yapsat principles. Harnessing the structural support provided by the buttressing fins of the Urban Stitch, it is possible to construct safe and contextually sensitive housing that utilises the disused open spaces in Tarlabasi. While by no means a complete solution to the question of urban conflict within the slum of Tarlabasi, the needs-driven and sensitive nature of incremental growth presents a number of benefits.

Firstly, the quasi-legal conditions of the Yapsat housing model provides a framework for residential development that allows stakeholders to not only remain within the community, but also removes the requirement to acquire financial capital and burdens of debt before improving homes and living conditions. This design approach springs from the notion of ‘emergent architecture’ and its capacity to fulfil effectively the needs of the user, particularly in high risk, low-income environments (Hamdi, 2010: XIV). The rationale for this is drawn from a desire to reconfigure horizontal spatial relationships in these contested zones by creating nodes of communal living that provide a drive for social interaction and economic opportunity on the lower levels of the reconstituted urban block.

Through such forms of social interaction, where communal ownership and unplanned appropriation of space leads to a requirement for cohabitation and discourse, existing social barriers and concepts of territorialism may be broken down. Additionally, through the provision of technical and legal services within the Catalyst model, the risks embedded in this form of incremental growth are, to an extent, mitigated; providing a heightened level of security within political and physical environment of Tarlabasi.

The following pages explore spatially how the vertical spaces framed by the Urban Stitch may become interfaces for such forms of incremental inhabitation.

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174

Long Section Through Various Yapsat Housing Unit Types Scale 1/200 175

Examining Forms of Infill and Incremental Growth: Studying Relationships Between Possible Informal Building Types

EXPANSION SPACE

RESIDENTIAL UNIT

MICRO COMMERCIAL UNIT

Typical Single Family Multi Level Unit Study Housing + Expansion Space + Shop Space on Ground Floor

MULTI-UNIT RESIDENTIAL SPACE (WIDE SPAN)

EXTERIOR LEVEL CHANGE EXPANSION ZONE

CROSS-BLOCK CIRCULATION

WAREHOUSE SIZED COMMERCIAL PACE MULTIPLE OWNERS

Typical Multi-Owner Residents Pool Resources to Provide Larger Intervention Zone Multiple Housing Units + Commercial Space on Ground Floor 176

SPACE FOR VENDORS/STALLS ALONG BRIDGE

ACCESS TO RAISED RESIDENTIAL ENTRANCES

INTERIOR CIRCULATION ACCESS TO BRIDGE

MICRO COMMERCIAL UNIT

MICRO COMMERCIAL UNIT

Typical Level Change Zone Provides Node for Interaction and Connection Not Formally Owned, Informal Commercial on Ground Floor

WIDE BRIDGE DECK RAISED PUBLIC SPACE

RESI SINGLE FAMILY

EXPANSION ZONE (UNDESIGNATED)

RESI SINGLE FAMILY

EXTERIOR LEVEL CHANGE

INTERIOR LEVEL CHANGE MICRO BUISNESS (SHOP)

Multi-Programme Stacking Study Mixing Infill/Incremental Functions to Test Circulation and Spatial Relationships Between Actors.

177

Examining Forms of Infill and Incremental Growth: Studying Relationships Between Possible Informal Building Types

Large Scale Un-Designated Space.

Lack of Programme Specified Allows for Maximum Flexibility and Infill Possibilities 178

Small Scale Un-Designated Space.

Lack of Programme Specified Allows for Maximum Flexibility and Infill Possibilities 179

Cross Section Through 3-Storey Yapsat Housing Unit Scale 1/100 180

Cross Section Through 4-Storey Yapsat Housing Unit Scale 1/100 181

Cross Section Through 5-Storey Yapsat Housing Unit Scale 1/100 182

Cross Section Through Interior Level Change To Bridge Scale 1/100 183

Cross Section Through 4.5-Storey Yapsat Housing Unit Scale 1/100 184

Cross Section Through Meeting Space and Level Change To Bridge Scale 1/100 185

06.3: Stakeholder-Driven Urban Regeneration Urban-Level Incrementalism for Socio-Economic Engagement The second manifestation of the incremental approach is that of the urban-level multi-actor growth that, in contrast to the urban transformation process underway in the Tarlabasi, engages with each of the stakeholder groups in the site; providing a political and urban landscape conducive to dialogue and improved community level cohesion. This hypothesizes the spatial effect of taking to scale the Yapsat model, as advocated in the Partnership. Through this, the Urban Stitch acts as a spine along which urban regeneration is facilitated on a building-by-building level, critically engaging with the community in an equitable way. In its capacity as a community institution, this spine of regeneration, the Catalyst, acts as a node of intersection and connection that accelerates the upgrading of living conditions and building fabric within the slum.

Additionally, the remaining blocks within the renewal zone are designated for developer-driven growth that, through this improved interface with the community, creates a permeable urban threshold between Istiklal and Tarlabasi. Furthermore, due to the proximity of the Catalyst block to this new urban threshold, the reconstituted block, the institution with its initial Yapsat housing units represents a physical and social icon that assists in the reshaping of the image of Tarlabasi while assisting its residents in gaining political, legal and economic capital. This model of slum intervention incrementally and responsibility improves conditions within Tarlabasi whilst providing spaces of economic and social opportunity that, in conjunction with the Urban Stitch and the Catalyst, offers a hybrid model of responding to the question of conflict within informal settlements.

01 STRUCTURAL BUTTRESSES 02 MICRO-EXTENSIONS OF GECEKONDU 03 CONDITIONED INFORMAL NEW-BUILD 04 [IN]FORMAL-MUNICIPALITIES 05 CONTROLLED GENTRIFICATION 06 MICRO CONNECTIONS OF BUILT SPACE

07 RAISED PUBLIC AMMENTIY SPACE 08 LARGE SCALE [IN]FORMAL GROWTH 09 [IN]FORMAL INFASTRUCTURE 10 FORMAL+[IN]FORMAL PARTNERSHIPS 11 HYBRID TACTICS

STRUCTURAL STABILITY

S

COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITY

HOUSING PROVISION

SECURITY OF TENURE

WATER + SANITATION

TRANSPORT INFASTRUCTURE

PUBLIC OPEN SPACE

EDUCATION PROVISION

HEALTHCARE

POLITICAL MOBILIZATION

ELECTRICITY PROVISION

186

03

04

01

06

02 04

S

05

S

08

07 09

S

S

11

10 S

S

CONCEPTUAL STREETSCAPE MID-EXPANSION

Fins and Bridges are implemented act as infastructural and structural buttresses to informal settlements, allowing more sustainable and secure growth “Roof Rights”

Commercial Core

Formalizing Gecekondu

Commerical Lower Levels

LATE-STAGE EXPANSION PROCESSES

Urban Stitch has facilitated the expansive growth of the settlement, creating raised levels of connection and a hybrid urban fabric that is formal and informal

Self-Build Frames Informal Bridge Systems

Raised Social C

Expanded Gecekondu

188

Pirated Power Incomplete Frames Formal Development

Infill Frames

Exisiting Gecekondu

Expanding Formal Developments

Informal Core Incomplete Frame

Connectors

Hybrid Streetscapes Formalizing Gecekondu

189

Buildings Already Demolished Become Points of Intervention for Cores

Gecekondu Infill

Informal Civic

Yapsat Housing

Vertical Connection to New Expansions

Roofs Removed for Expansion

Tensile Supports for Streetway Canopy

External Buttresses Allow Expansion

190

Internal Buttresses

Low-Use Derelict Buildings Sele Demolition If Not Already Demol

Stakeholder Expansion

Yapsayt

Cores Infilled

Abandon

ected for lished

Roofs Removed for Expansion

Buildings Already Demolished Become Points of Intervention for Cores

TARLABASI RENEWAL ZONE BLOCK 362 EXISITING FABRIC ELEVATION SCALE 1/150 Housing

ned Buildings Reinhabited

Infastructure Supported From Cores

Tensile Public Canopy

Commercial Residential

External Buttresses

191

TOKI-Cores

Existing Houses Retained

Core Entrance

INTERVENTION HYBRID PROPOSAL SCALE 1/150

TARLABASI BLVD.

[IN]FORMAL CIVIC/POLITICAL SPACE

STRUCTURAL BUTTRESS/INFILL

CORE FOR DEVELOPER USE

FRAME INFILL + YAPSAT HOUSING

INFORMAL EXPANSION

CORE INFASTRUCTURE PROVISION

YAPSAT HYBRID INTERVENTION

COMMERCIAL EXPANSION

CONCLUSIONS

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“WHAT IS NEEDED IS AN ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGE - AN ARCHITECTURE THAT MOVES THE FIELD BEYOND THE DESIGN OF BUILDINGS AND TOWARD THE DESIGN OF NEW PROCESSES OF ENGAGEMENT WITH POLITICAL FORCES THAT SHAPE THEORIES, PRACTICES, ACADEMIES POLICIES AND COMMUNITIES.” GAMEZ AND ROGERS, 2008: 19

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Conclusion: Hybrid Intervention in Slums The Urban Stitch, The Catalyst, the Partnership and the Incremental This thesis has examined the underlying socio-political factors that have driven the urban transformation project underway in Tarlabasi as well as the effects this has had in creating contested spaces of conflict within this informal settlement. It has examined the conditions of informality and the legislative and economic forces at play in this precarious and irregular district of Istanbul. An exploration of the spatial manifestations of conflict has led to an understanding of Tarlabasi as an urban environment of societal and physical boundaries and thresholds.

This research has been driven by the question of how to intervene within this complex slum in the capacity of an architect working to mitigate the causes and instances of conflict in informal settlements.

Informed by a close study of contemporary practices in slums, this thesis has proposed a number of design interventions that have lead to a holistic, multi-actor urban strategy that asserts the development of new vertical layers of connection and interaction.

Points of conflict and intersection have been examined as opportunity zones into which incremental and informal activity may grow through the creation of structural and social stabilizers in the form of fins that delineate and buttress spaces between existing buildings. It has been proposed that these stabilizers also support a series of elevated walkways that stitch together disparate areas of the city; linking Tarlabasi with its immediate surroundings as a means to engender greater visibility and infrastructural connection. These two elements, collectively referred to in this thesis as the Urban Stitch, represent an urban-level response to conflict within the informal settlement that provides a physical interlocution of Tarlabasi with the formal city that surrounds it.

In the spaces created below the Urban Stitch, the principles of ‘small change’ and of the ‘Catalyst’ have been used to explore, at the level of the block, a realignment of existing patterns of inhibition and interaction through the implementation of micro interventions that provide capacity building skills and benefits to Tarlabasi’s residents. The amalgamation of these services - legal, technical and social - create a node of gathering and interaction for residents whilst embedding into the site an institutional building that gives prominence and political clout to a traditionally excluded and highly stigmatized community.

The manner in which this institution is placed into the derelict block also explores a means to retain and preserve the historic urban fabric of this architecturally rich site; further giving a voice and a visual presence to residents facing the destruction of their homes and forced expropriation. Collectively, this Catalyst approach to intervening within this informal settlement represents a neighbourhood-level approach to the mitigation of socio-political conflict in slums; empowering stakeholders and building capacity in a community.

198

Harnessing the capacity strengthening effects of the Catalyst, this thesis has explored the notion of incremental, informal growth, as a means to intervene within Tarlabasi at the scale of building unit. Using vertical growth as a means to provide housing and slum upgrading, the Incremental is the most speculative of the approaches in this thesis. Due to inherent flexibility and uniqueness of each instance of informal intervention, this principle is depicted in a number of hypothetical ways as a means to examine its latent possibilities. It also represents an approach that, due to the roles of the Urban Stitch and the Catalyst, may be taken to scale. This offers an alternative form of development that, given an appropriate level of stakeholder engagement, may act as a model applicable in areas Tarlabasi yet to be demolished.

The legislative and political level, the Partnership proposes the institution of an informal/formal model of urban regeneration as a means to address underlying conditions of socio-economic gentrification and engage with the actors driving the current demolition and eviction process. Identifying key pieces of legislation critical to the institution of a more socially responsible method of development, this Partnership model makes a case for the engagement of local stakeholders, professionals and NGOs in the regeneration of this slum. It explores in particular, a quasi-legal form of housing development that, coupled with municipal subsidies, offers a cost effective and participatory means for developer driven investment to act as a positive force for renewal.

Through the collective ownership and shared liability that this Partnership requires, it is hypothesized that this model of intervention presents a further opportunity to address, sensitively and effectively, issues of urban conflict and gentrification in Tarlabasi. Additionally this model explores, within the context of informal settlements and the spatial conflict embedded within them, the role of the architect as a mediator and liaison between actors.

199

Conclusion: Hybrid Intervention in Slums Responsibilities and Limitations of the Architect In isolation, each of these techniques of intervention is significantly limited in its capacity to address the manifold issues present in informal settlements facing urban conflict. Furthermore, even a cursory glance at the history of slum intervention, indicates that the inherent complexity and egregiousness of the economic and social exclusion present in these spaces mean that the majority of initiatives beyond the scale of the micro development project, fail. This can be through an insufficient level of funding, poor community engagement, a lack of political will or simply the idiosyncrasies in slums. Hence, single programme interventions within informal settlements often do more harm than good. In contrast, this design thesis, through infrastructural connection and linkage, neighbourhood capacity building and selfbuild housing, has attempted to develop an ‘emergent’ approach to slum intervention; a development initiative that is more than the sum of its constituent parts (each technique of intervention).

Through the proposed synthesis of these elements and the realignment of spatial relationships within and without Tarlabasi, a means to explore and understand these contested spaces comes into view. It is vital to note that this hybrid approach to intervening in informal settlements is limited and is not intended to be an automatic panacea for Tarlabasi or for informal settlements elsewhere. Rather, this thesis advocates for the combined use of these hitherto discrete forms of slum intervention provide the opportunity through which causes and instances of conflict in informal settlements may be explored and responded to.

Within the specific context of Tarlabasi, this has resulted in a specific design intervention that responds to conditions identified following an in-depth study of the causes and spatial manifestations of informality and conflict within the site. Additionally, this approach was first explored within the context of a very different slum, Kibera. As in Tarlabasi, research into the specific instances of conflict and division within the site resulted in a particular design response. Given the uniqueness of place fundamental to the nature of informal settlements, coupled with latent capacities and opportunities found in each, it is impossible to determine the applicability of the specific design responses developed in this thesis to other informal settlements.

However, the approach to intervening in informal settlements discussed in this thesis -, bringing together disparate design techniques and actors, is one that potentially has merits when applied to slums elsewhere. It is this approach, therefore, rather than the design of the discrete elements that form its constituent parts, where the role of the architect may find a new focus. As professionals that bridge many fields, and have the capacity to interact with actors in slums at all levels, architects and urban practitioners are uniquely positioned to address and engage with the complex matrix of challenges and opportunities that exist in informal settlements.

Instead of the architect as a designer of buildings, perhaps a role as mediator, technical facilitator and, critically, a designer of spatial networks, presents a more relevant position for the profession to address effectively, the ever-growing global urban slum crisis.

200

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 01: Aerial View of Istanbul, Image Provided by Tures Architects March 2014.

Figure 02: Aerial View of Kibera, courtesy of Hope is Rising Blog, http://hopeisrising.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/2009-05-18kibera-006.jpg Figure 03: Kibera at Sunset, Courtesy of Kent Werne via Flickr, http:// www.flickr.com/photos/kentwerne/2048776640/ Accessed 19-11-2012 Figure 04: Gecekondu on the periphery of Istanbul. http://bellpub. com/images/ugcoverphotos/UG_200302_CoverPhoto.jpg. Accessed 07/12/13 Figure 05: Urban Development in Istanbul. http://1.bp.blogspot. com/_nnnhP8EfTyo/S9fvm6_YREI/AAAAAAAAAOI/tj5QED05wE0/ s1600/23+copy+copia.jpg. Accessed 04/12/13 Figure 06: Typical Elevations of Derelict Blocks in Tarlabasi Renewal Zone. Drawings Coutesy of Tures Architects. March 2014 Figure 07: Typical Elevations of Derelict Blocks in Tarlabasi Renewal Zone. Drawings Coutesy of Tures Architects. March 2014 Figure 08: Protesters in Tear Gas During the Gezi Park Protests. http:// cdn.timesofisrael.com/uploads/2013/06/APTOPIX-Turkey-Protes_ Horo.jpg, http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/uploads/2013/06/APTOPIXTurkey-Protes_Horo.jpg. Acccessed 09/07/14.

Figure 09: Photo of On-Going Demolition of Buildings in Renewal Zone. Image Courtesy of Tures Architects. March 2014 Figure 10: Typical Elevations of Derelict Blocks in Tarlabasi Renewal Zone. Drawings Coutesy of Tures Architects. March 2014

LIST OF INTERVIEWS Oziem Orhan, Project Architect on the Tarlabasi Renewal Project at Tures Architects. 14/03/14 Jonathan Lewis, Photogpraher and Activist working in Istanbul. Creator of tarlabasiistanbul.com. 15/03/14 Ceren Suntekin, Taralbasi Community Asscociation. 17/03/14 Housing Rights Activist in Istanbul. Requested Annonimity.

Hotel Manager In Tarlabasi. Requested Annonimity. 12/03/14 Protesters during the riots of 9-10 March. Requested Annonimity.

Hotel Manager In Istiklal. Requested Annonimity. 15/03/14.

In addition, many informal discussions with residents of Tarlabasi informed this research. Due to the politically charged nature of this topic, the majority of the interviewees requested annonimity in the production of this thesis.

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APPENDIX: SLUM AUDIT

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209

RESETTLEMENT ARANYA HOUSING PROJECT

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Mass Housing

Location:

Indore, India

Date:

1988

Actors: Scale:

Vastu-Shilpa Foundation 6,500 units

Owners:

Local Stakeholders

Users:

Residents

Funding Partners: The Indore Development Authority

Indore, India in the early 1980’s was facing a shortage of Housing.

It had been estimated that approximately 51,000 families were homeless or living in illegal settlements. The Indore Development Authority initiated an affordable housing project for 60,000 people that would tackle this issue and at the same time be affordable to the government and urban poor. Previous efforts by the government to provide lowcost urban housing in India were aimed at supplying ready-built units. However, it took too long to construct a complete house and it became expensive for the low income group and also ate up too many resources.

A rectilinear site of 86 hectares was designed to accommodate over 6500 dwellings, largely for the Weaker Economic Section. This was an integrated approach for ‘a sustainable society’ where the mix of different economic levels of society could stay together.

KENYA SLUM UPGRADING PROJECT: KIBERA Launched in 2003, the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme is a partnership between UN Habitat and the Government of Kenya aimed at providing pilot projects in the alleviation of slum conditions within three key cities in the country.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Housing Relocation

Location:

Kibera, Nairobi

Date:

2003-2010

Actors:

Goverment, UN, Community 100+ Units

Scale: Owners: Users:

Local Stakeholders, Goverment Slum Dwellers

Funding Partners: The World Bank, Agence

Française de Dévelopement (AFD), Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the government of Kenya.

The first of these projects was in the informal settlement of Kibera in the nations capital. Working with local community leaders, a pilot project worked to relocate a limited number of families into housing units on the outskirts of Kibera. Engaging with local actors, NGOs and funded by International Donors, this project was designed as an exemplar of best practice in slum relocation and upgrading in Kenya.

Since the opening of the project and the handing over of properties to residents, there has been a major flaw with this project. Due to the high quality and high value of the housing units provided for residents, many have moved out of the apartments and back into Kibera to rent the units out to other inhabitants, providing a source of cash income.

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SELF-BUILD YERWADA SLUM UPGRADE PROJECT

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Slum Upgrade

Location:

Pune, India

Date:

2008-present

Actors:

Government + NGO

Scale:

400-500 Homes

Owners:

Various

Users:

Slum Residents

Funding Partners: National Slum Dwellers Federation, Mahila Milan, SDI Affiliates, Prassana Desai Architects

The Yerwada Slum Upgrade focuses on six dense slums in the cite of Pune, India. In 2009 the project commenced with door-to-door consultations with architectural models to discuss with local residents various forms of internvetion that could provide an improvement to their housing conditions. Community workshops were then formalized, working with Pune’s Prassana Desai Architects practice that created 3D models of exisiting slums. This proved invaluable to the local residents as it enabled them to visualize their community and the relationships between open space and their homess.

Micro loans were created to assist in the provision of this 10% contribution, facilitating minimal economic burdens on the residents and the community.

For those not able to secure such a loan, construction jobs were offered as a means to pay this back. As of July 2011, 460 houses were under construction.

Once built each family will receive a ninety-nine year lease and the community becomes a legal colony.

MICRO HOME SOLUTIONS One project is Design Home Solutions, piloted in the government’s slum-resettlement colony of Mangolpuri, northwest of Delhi, where residents are moved far from the city and allotted 23-square-meter (250-sq.-ft.) plots on which to build.

FACTSHEET Project Type: Location:

Self-Build Assistance

Mangolpuri, India

Date:

1999-present

Actors: Scale:

Design Home Solutions Resettlement

Owners:

Stakeholders

Users:

Residents

Funding Partners: Unknown

In Mangolpuri alone, 60% of residents are renters, and housing demand, coupled with increasing density, is leading to vertical expansion. Plot “owners” self-construct up to three floors to earn supplemental income, but the buildings are often unsafe and inefficient, with poor ventilation and light. Design Home Solutions offers financial products that provide households with access to small, affordable homeimprovement loans. Architects work with clients to develop effective, culturally acceptable solutions, and help monitor self-construction to ensure safe building practices. Upgraded houses are safer and healthier, and help meet demand in the rental market while providing additional income for households.

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INCREMENTAL: MACRO QUINTA MONROY In Chile, where it is projected that $10 billion will be spent over the next twenty years on housing, the government has hired the Chilean architecture firm Elemental to design a new social housing unit that can increase in value over time.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Incremental Housing

Location:

Iquique, Chile

Date:

2003

Actors:

Elemental

Scale:

100 Families

Owners:

Gov. + Residents

Users:

Slum Residents

Funding Partners: Iquique Municipality and National Government

The architects designed halfbuilt houses, called Incremental Housing, for one hundred families in the poor neighborhood of Quinta Monroy, in Iquique, which they have illegally occupied for thirty years. With only a $7,500 subsidy to pay for the land, infrastructure, and each housing unit, the architects designed the half of the house (30 sq. m. or 323 sq. ft.) the families would never be able to afford—the structure, bathroom, kitchen, and roof. To allow for expansion, only the ground and top floors are constructed; residents are responsible for the rest (72 sq. m. or 775 sq. ft.).

KAMBIMOTO UPGRADING PROJECT The Kambimoto project has been implemented by the Pamoja Trust, in partnership with Muungano wa Wanavijiji, working in the Mathare Valley slum. This informal settlement is on the northern edge of Nairobi. Once completed, approximately 70 units of new housing will replace the previous substandard housing located on site.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Incremental Housing

Location:

Mathare, Nairobi

Date:

2003-2010

Actors:

NGOs

Scale:

70+ Units

Owners:

Slum Residents

Users:

Slum Residents

Funding Partners: Pamoja Trust, in partnership with Muungano wa Wanavijiji,

The first units were delivered in 2005, following two years of construction. A further 20 were implmented in 2009 with the balance still on going.

This project works to keep residents on the same land they have tradtionally lived in, and allows for an incremental form of housing where the basic structure and infastructure are provided for.

The rest is provided by the residents within the framework outlined; allowing for vertical incremental growth.

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INCREMENTAL: MICRO NAMIBIA INCREMENTAL HOUSING II This project involves the incremental construction of 230 houses across Namibia. Houses are pre-financed by Namibia’s urban poor fund – Twahangana, reimbursements done by the government subsidy programme.

To date 223 houses have been built. Houses built are 34m2. Partners are required to contribute to the project, with the construction of bricks and other limited building materials a prerequisite.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Housing

Location:

Windhoek, Namibia

Date:

2011 - Present

Actors:

NGOs, Gov., Donors

Scale:

National Policy

Owners:

Shared Ownership

Users:

Locak Stakeolders

This initiative is being taken to scale throughout the country, with on going discussions examining how SDI could begin to implement clean sanitation and toilets into the brief of the implementation strategy.

Funding Partners: Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation Shack Dweller’s Federation of Namibia (SDFN) Namibia Housing Action Group (NHAG) The Rockefeller Foundation

MALAWI INCREMENTAL HOUSING This project involves the incremental construction of forty houses in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Incremental construction happens in three phases, the complete unit having three bedrooms, a sitting room, kitchen, storeroom, and external toilet and bathroom.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Housing

Location:

Lilongwe Malawi Ongoing

Date: Actors: Scale:

40 Units

Owners:

Local Stakeholders

Users:

Residents

Funding Partners: Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation Centre for Community Organisation & Development (CCODE) The Federation of Rural and Urban poor

Construction on site is managed by the beneficiaries of the projects, minimizing management and repayment fees. This embedding of the actors in the project is supported by the local government. The funding donors are supported by a government subsidy for housing construction and development.

Construction is on going on site and is designed as an exemplar of good governance practice and as a pilot project that may be taken to scale elsewhere in the country. Problems faced during construction have included the rising cost of materials due to the high inflation in the country.

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INFRASTRUCTURE GUARAPIRANGA INFASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENT The World Bank financed the project and the total amount invested reached US$ 336 million. Sabesp, one of the project executers, invested US$ 94 million to carry out the following actions: 390 kilometers of collector, back-bone collector and outfall networks in the municipalities of the basin 26,700 new sewer domicile connections serving 125 thousand residents 8,050 domicile connections in existing networks, supplying a total of 37 FACTSHEET thousand people two wastewater Project Type: Infastructure treatment facilities in the city of Embu-Guacu 20 sewage pumping Location: Guarapiranga, Sao stations and automated and Paolo centralized control systems of the Date: 1990s stations a nutrient removal system Actors: Municipality, Donors, in the Guavirutuba Streamlet World Bank Technological improvement Scale: Large Scale Urban and enhancement in water Owners: Sao Paolo Municipality treatment for supply. 264 kms of sewer network to serve 80% of the 580,000 inhabitants of the Users: Formal/Informal Dwellers Guarapiranga Water-basin; Funding Partners: Municipality, Donors, Drainage construction and World Bank restoration of 13 sq. km. of urban areas which had deteriorated due to insufficient drainage

BANG BUA CANAL COMMUNITY UBRAGDING Thailand’s Baan Mankong (“Secure Housing” in Thai) Community Upgrading program began in 2003 to improve housing, land-tenure security, and infrastructure for all 5,500 poor urban settlements throughout Thailand. A groundbreaking, large-scale approach that places slum communities at the center of the process, it has improved conditions in 1,546 settlements in 277 cities; in Bangkok, 422 of 1,200 slums are in some stage of improvement.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Community

Location:

Bang Bua, Thailand

Date:

2004-present

Actors:

NGOs + Local Community

Scale:

400 Settlements

Owners:

Various

Users:

Governmen

Funding Partners: Local Communites NGOs

The successful program subsidizes infrastructure and environment upgrades as well as low-interest loans for settlement re-blocking and new housing.

Squatter communities and community networks develop their upgrading plans in close collaboration with the independent public organization, Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI), and local governments, professionals, universities, and NGOs. Three thousand four hundred families live in twelve informal communities along a thirteen-kilometer (8-mile) stretch of the Bang Bua Canal.

214

TRANSPORT/ACCESSIBILITY METROCABLE MEDELLIN

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Urban Transport

Location:

Medellin, Colombia

Date:

2004

Actors:

Municipality

Scale:

Macro Urban

Owners:

Medellin Municipality

Users:

Local Residents

Funding Partners: Unknown

“Metrocable was conceived with the purpose of improving transportation conditions for the citizens of Medellín. The Metrocable aerial lifts broaden Metro de Medellín’s area of influence, whereas maintaining the highest quality standards characteristic of the company’s service throughout all routes covered. Such standards ensure smooth integration of the various transportation means encompassed by the system, which thus afford a speedy and safe commute.

These works and the investments made therein are imbued with a major societal dimension that seeks the common good. They are both geared towards the advancement of living conditions for the lower income population, which makes great use of our public transportation.” https://www.metrodemedellin.gov. co/index.php?option=com_conten t&view=article&id=61&Itemid=165 &lang=en. Accessed 24/11/13

ELECTRICAL STARICASE OF MEDELLIN

FACTSHEET Project Type: Location:

Transport Infastructure Medellin, Colombia

Date:

2011

Actors:

Municipality

Scale:

Neighbourhood

Owners:

Municipality

Users:

Local Residents

“The City of Medellin began by instituting policy solutions that focused on revitalizing the city’s poorest areas. New transit links were brought in to connect the slums on hillsides to the formal jobs below. Because the hills were too steep for bus rapid transit, gondolas and escalators were installed to provide creative mobility solutions for the residents.

The city’s former mayor, Sergio Fajardo, championed these and many other programs, some of which used striking architectural design, primarily created by local architecture firms, to create a strong sense of place. “ Archdaily. http://www.archdaily. com/443679/cities-are-for-peopleturning-underused-spacesinto-public-places/. Accessed 13/11/13

Funding Partners: Unknown

215

SOCIAL/CULTURAL KLONG TOEY COMMUNITY LANTERN “Klong Toey is currently the largest and oldest areas of informal dwellings in Bangkok. More than 140,000 people are estimated to live here, and most are living in sub-standard houses with few or no tenure rights or support from the government.

It includes new hoops for basketball, a stage for performances and public meetings, walls for climbing and seating both inside and on the edges.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Social/Cultural

Location:

Bangkok, Thailand

Date:

2011

Actors:

TYIN tegnestue with Students Single Building

The two-storey structure sits on top of a deep concrete block, which also acts as seating.

Bright lights, recycled wood panels and patterned orange metal frames create a scaffoldScale: like intervention with graffiti and Owners: Klong Toey Community other dwellings as the backdrop.

Wooden stairs and walls allow children to climb up and down Users: Local Residents the construction and reach small Funding Partners: Unknown platforms above.”

Archdaily. http://www.dezeen. com/2012/03/18/klong-toeycommunity-lantern-bytyintegnestue/. Accessed 25/03/14

PARQUE BIBLIOTECA ESPAÑA “The Project is located on one of the hillsides that have been affected by the violence since the 80´s because of the drug traffic network that operates in the city of Medellin. It is part of the government’s social master plan program to give equal economic and social opportunities to the population.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Library

Location:

Medellin, Colombia

Date:

2005-2007

Actors:

Municipality

Scale:

Public Instituion

Owners:

Medellin Municpality

Users:

Local Residents

Funding Partners: Municipality and Government of Spain

The program asked for a building with library, training room, administration room and auditorium on a unique volume.

The proposal was to fragment the program in three groups: The library, the rooms, and the auditorium; then join them with a bottom platform that allows flexibility and autonomy, improving the people’s participation considering each volume operates independently.”

Archdaily. http://www.archdaily. com/2565/espana-librarygiancarlo-mazzanti/. Accessed 13/05/13

216

VISIBILITY FAVELA PAINTING “The Favela Painting project started in 2005 when dutch artists Haas&Hahn (Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn) had the idea of creating public artworks in favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Not just to beautify, but also to create a dialogue with their surroundings.

After several successful projects, the image of a square painted in a design of radiating colors yielded worldwide fame and transformed Rio into ‘one of the world’s 10 most colorful places’, according to CNN.”

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Social/Art

Location:

Rio de Janeiro

Date:

2006-Present

Actors:

Haas & Hahn

Scale:

Urban Level Art

Owners:

Local Stakeholders

Users:

Residents

http://www.favelapainting.com/bio Accessed 19/07/14

Funding Partners: Crowd Funded

WOMEN ARE HEROES Moro de Providencia is a place of which the name has become synonymous for violence in Rio de Janeiro. However the reason this favela located in the center of Rio appeared on television screens in August 2008 wasn’t the regular scenes of clashes between drug dealers and the police but to present the art exhibition Women.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Social/Art

Location:

Moro de Providencia

Date:

2008-2009

Actors:

JR

Scale:

Urban Art

Owners:

Local Community

Users:

Various

In order to pay tribute to those who play an essential role in society but who are the primary victims of war, crime, rape and political or religious fanaticism, JR pasted huge photos of the faces and eyes of local women all over the outside of the favela, suddenly giving a female gaze to both the hill and the favela.

JR. http://www.jr-art.net/projects/ women-are-heroes-brazil Accessed 12/05/13

Funding Partners: Unknown

217

COMMUNITY ALEXANDRA INTERPRETATION CENTRE “The Interpretation Center celebrates Nelson Mandela in the township that was his first home in Johannesburg, when he moved to the city from the Eastern Cape in the 1940s. In the heart of Alexandra, settlement established as early as 1912 and currently one of the poorest urban areas in the country, the one room house and yard are diagonally across the street from Peter Rich’s new design on Hofmeyer Street and 7th Avenue.

FACTSHEET

The new Interpretation Centre is a mixed used 3 floor structure, conceived as bridge spanning over the animated and loud streets of Alexandra. The program contains an exhibition space to tell the story of the place, a jazz archive for the rich musical history born here, a library, training facilities, shops and restaurants.”

Project Type: Location: Date: Actors: Scale: Owners:

Archdaily. http://www.archdaily. com/58495/alexandrainterpretation-centre-peter-richarchitects/. Accessed 04/06/13

Users: Funding Partners:

MATHARE FOOTBALL FOR HOPE CENTER

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Community Centre

Location:

Mathare, Nairobi

Date:

2008-2010

Actors:

MYSA, FIFA

Scale:

Instituion Building

Owners:

MYSA

Users:

Local Community

Funding Partners: Architecture for Humanity and International Football Federation (FIFA)

“Mathare, a dense informal settlement located in Nairobi, Kenya, is home to the Mathare Football for Hope Center, part of the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) campus and designed as one of FIFA’s twenty Football for Hope Centers (other centers are planned for locations such as Baguinéda, Bamako, Mali; Katutura, Windhoek, Namibia; and Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa). The Center, as part of MYSA’s mission to encourage African youth to develop health lifestyles and become engaged citizens, combines public health, education, and football to increase awareness and education for youth in the most disadvantaged areas. It includes a soccer pitch, covered outdoor classroom with stepped seating overlooking the pitch, and a community center for public gatherings, education, community service, sports, and leadership development.” http://www.designother90.org/ solution/mathare-football-forhope-center/. Accessed 09/12/13

218

MICRO CATALYSTS COMMUNITY COOKER (JIKO YA JAMII)

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Community Kitchen

Location:

Kibera, Nairobi

Date:

2008

Actors:

NGOs, Community

Scale:

Neighborhood

Owners:

Local NGO

Users:

Local Residents

“The brainchild of Nairobi-born architect James Archer, the cooker is powered by dried rubbish, collected by local residents in Nairobi’s Kibera slum. In return for supplying rubbish, the residents can cook for free, or heat water for drinking and washing. As a result, the environment in the slum is becoming cleaner, protecting groundwater sources from pollution, and residents are reducing their expenditure on fuelwood. Drying and sorting rubbish to fuel the cooker is also creating an employment opportunity for local youth.” http://www.agfax.net/radio/detail. php?i=420. Accessed 14/10/13

Funding Partners: Unknown

IKOTOILET

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Sanitation

Location:

Kibera, Nairobi

Date:

2008

Actors:

Ecotact

Scale:

Micro Service

Owners:

Unknown

Users:

Local Residents

Funding Partners: Ecotact

“In 2008, Ecotact began designing and constructing Ikotoilet toilet and shower sanitation centers that also serve as sites for community activity. By providing services such as snack shops, shoe shines, telephones, and newspaper stands, Ikotoilets became a multiuse community space, a “toilet mall.” The profits from these business activities and from advertising provide revenue streams that help offset the cost of construction and maintenance of the sanitation centers. With nearly fifty facilities located throughout Kenya, Ikotoilets help reduce pollution and support municipal efforts towards cleaner cities. For only 5 shillings (about 5 cents; further subsidized rates are available for the urban poor), community members now have an affordable and clean sanitation option.” http://www.designother90.org/ solution/ikotoilet/. Accessed 23/01/14

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IN-SITU IMPROVEMENT NAYAPALLI IN SITU UPGRADING “Beneficiaries contribute 10% of the total amount for this project and the rest is covered by government through RAY funding. The community was engaged in housing designs and two-and three-story buildings were proposed as a result of these discussions.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Slum Upgrading

Location:

Bhubaneshwar, India

Date:

2010, 2014-Present

Actors:

ASF Sweden

Scale:

Community Level

Owners:

Local Stakeholders

Users:

Residents

Funding Partners: Government, ASF Sweden, Community

It was planned that both communal and individual toilets are to be constructed. Over the course of two years most of the houses had been constructed or were at some phase of construction. The second phase of the project of the project saw work on a community centre and the development of sustainable technical solutions for infrastructure. This includes sustainable small-scale solutions for water, sewerage, solid waste, electricity, energy, roads, drainage, garbage disposal, and urban agriculture.” http://www.upfi.info/projects/ nayapalli-situ-upgrading/.

Accessed 06/08/13

AMATIKWE HOUSING “The project sees the construction of 74 housing units in Amatikwe, Inanda, in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).

Construction was pre-financed by uTshani fund to be re-paid by government subsidy funds.

Applications were made to the Provincial Government yet funds have not been repaid.

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Resettlement

Location: Date:

Amatikwe South Africa 1999-Present

Actors:

NGOs, Government

Scale:

Macro Scale

Owners:

Unknown

Users:

Slum Dwellers

Prior to construction the community saved for three months, doing site allocations and house modeling and costing.

A community construction team was set up to build the houses with all being built by February 2001. Successful housing delivery by the Federation in this project and others helped keep open the space for community driven housing initiatives.” http://www.upfi.info/projects/ amatikwe-housing/. Accessed 04/02/14

Funding Partners: Misereor South African SDI Alliance Cordaid

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RECONSTRUCTION EMERGENCY RESETTLEMENT - THAPATHALI NEPAL This project facilitates resettlement activity for 200+ households, after an eviction in Thapathali settlement. Activity includes coordination with communities, identifying resettlement sites, preparing the land for construction of transit homes and maintenance of existing homes.

Owners:

Meetings were held with the evicted communities, other informal settlement representatives, the Alliance, the Department of Urban Development and Building Emergency Housing Construction (DUDBC), the Ministry of Urban Development, Thapathali, Nepal the Department of Surveys, UN Habitat, and other stakeholders Ongoing in order to decide on the best NGOs , SDI possible alternatives. The project shows the need to rehabilitate 230 Emergency Homes people suffering from forced eviction.

Unknown

Users:

Evicited Community

FACTSHEET Project Type: Location: Date: Actors: Scale:

Funding Partners: Lumanti Nepal Basobas Basti Samrakchan Samaj (NBBSS) and Mahila Ekta Samaj

http://www.sdinet.org/country/ nepal/projects/preparation-ofemergency-resettlement/1239/ Accessed 20/07/14

AMUI DZOR HOUSING CONSTRUCTION

FACTSHEET Project Type:

Pilot Housing Project

Location:

Amui Dzor, Ghana

Date:

Ongoing

Actors:

NGOs, Stakeholders

Scale:

Pilot Building

Owners:

UN Habitat

Users:

Stakeholders, NGOs

Funding Partners: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements Ghana Homeless People

This project involves the construction of a housing unit in Amui Dzor Settlement in Ashaman, as part of the Slum Upgrading Facility of UN-Habitat.

The Tema/Ashaiman Metropolitan Slum Upgrading Facility is working with the local urban poor federation to house 36 families as a pilot project. This housing unit will be a two-story structure made up of 31 dwelling units with the inclusion of 15 commercial units. The structure has 5 private and 13 shared toilets. In addition, a 12-seater commercial toilet with six bath/wash rooms will be attached to the structure for use by the community on a pay-peruse basis.

An important attribute of this project is its mixed use as it provides dwelling units for Federation members and also makes available rental stores and toilets for commercial purpose.

The central government and the Assembly have shown commitment towards scaling up the project by setting up a team to document the project successes to enable replication in other cities in Ghana.

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