Çok sesli mekansal pratiklerde katılımcılığın rolü: Kuzguncuk ve Yedikule bostanları

Abstract

Mimari tasarım süreçlerini yalnızca, aldığı eğitim nedeni ile tasarım yetkinliğine sahip olduğu düşünülen aktör, yani mimar üzerinden okumak ne kadar doğru olabilir?Alejandro Aravena'nın Şili'de gerçekleştirdiği Elemental Projesi'nin akılda uyandırdığı bu sorunun ardından, tasarım sürecinde bu süreci yürüten aktörlerden hangisinin ne tür bir pozisyonu olduğunu sorgulamak üzere çıkılan yolculukta; tasarımcı rolündeki mimar ile bu süreçte bir o kadar aktif olan kullanıcı ve aktivasyonun sınırlarını tanımlayan siyasi güç üzerinden bir katılımcılık okuması yapılmıştır.Bu okuma sırasında çok sesli mekan niteliğindeki kamusal mekanlar ve kamusal mekanların kullanıcı ile kurduğu ilişki üzerinden tarifleniş biçimlerini izlek edinen bir yöntem önerisi getirilmiştir. Mekanın kamusal niteliklerine göre değişen katılımcılık anlayışı, kullanıcı rolünün mekandaki etkinliğini belirleyen en önemli faktörlerden biridir. Tezin kavramsal çerçevesini karşılaştırmalı yönteme dayalı bir araştırma sistemi oluşturmaktadır. Durkheim'in dolaylı deneyim olarak da bahsettiği bu yönteme göre aynı olayın zaman içinde ve farklı yerlerdeki durumu karşılaştırılarak incelenmektedir.Yapılan çalışma kapsamında çok sesli mekan olarak nitelendirilen, çeşitli özellikleri bakımından benzerlikler gösterdiği düşünülen İstanbul'un iki bostanı üzerinden karşılaştırmalı katılımcılık okuması yapılmıştır. Bu benzer nitelikler tespit edilirken iki kavramsal süreci tanımlayan katılımcılık ve kamusallıktan faydalanılarak karşılaştırmanın altlığı hazırlanmıştır.Barındırdığı kamusallık ve katılımcılık niteliği ile gevşek kamusal mekan olarak tanımlanabilecek Kuzguncuk Bostanı ve onunla benzer nitelikler göstermesine rağmen bu özelliklere sahip olmayan Yedikule Bostanı, konunun tüm aktörleri ile ele alınarak tartışıldığı örneklerdir. Mimarlık ürünü olan sonucun oluşum süreciyle var olan ve süreci besleyen aktörlerin sayısı ile zenginleşen bu iki bostan, iki farklı varoluş mücadelesi vermektedir.İstanbul içinde önemli ve değerli fiziksel koşullara sahip olan bostanlar birer rant kaynağı haline gelmiştir. Siyasi iktidarın maddi çıkarları doğrultusunda biçimlendirmeye çalıştığı bostanların kurtarılma süreçleri, bu kamusal alanları benimseyen kullanıcılar ile mümkündür.Bu çalışmada katılımcılığın kamusal mekanı üreten, türeten, besleyen ve yaşatan hayati kavramlardan biri olduğu vurgulanmıştır. Gerçek bir çok sesli mekansal pratik örneği olan ve verdiği mücadele ile önemli kazanımlar elde eden Kuzguncuk Bostanı'nın, başta Yedikule Bostanları olmak üzere benzer vakalar için cesaretlendirici yaklaşımı ile örnek olması amaçlanmaktadır.

Would it be true to read architectural design process through the architects just because of their competence about design?According to this question which awakens in mind as a result of Alejandro Aravena's project Elemental in Chile, it is possible to investigate the main actors of design process. Architect as a conductor of the mechanism, user as an active member of the design and the political power as a limit identifier.The aim of the study is to formulate an approach to participation that moves beyond the token involvement of users towards a more transformative model. Public space, as a polyphonic space, identifies the boundaries of user participation according to the degree of its looseness.The story of participation runs parallel to that of democracy. The soothing Hellenic etymology of democracy the people's rule is disturbed by undercurrents of power, manipulation and disenfranchisement. These undercurrents are equally true in participation. It can be surprising, therefore, that the term participation is so willingly, and uncritically, accepted as being for the common good. It is the unequivocal acceptance of participation as a better way of doing things that is both its strength and its weakness. The strength in so much as it encourages all parties to engage in it, its weakness in so much as this engagement can be uncritical, and thus oblivious as to how to act in the face of the dangerous undercurrents.Participation presents a threat to normative architectural values. Once this threat identified, it is possible to overcome it and see participation not as a challenge to architecture, but as an opportunity to reformulate, and thus resuscitate, architectural practice.Instead of seeing participation as the move towards the establishment of common sense, it may be better to posit it in terms of making best sense. The philosopher Charles Taylor argues that best sense aims at 'not an absolute best but a partial best, the more realistic orientation about the good, but also allows us to best understand and make sense of the actions of others.' The idea of making best sense thus acknowledges three things;1-no one perfect solution exists2-others are involved in the process, it is not the work of the lone intellect or expert3-architecture is open to forces beyond the direct control of the architect.An independently organized participative process does not always tend to achieve agreement with all participants, but it should also retain the possibility of being in conflict with the organized nature of 'normal' politics.Not all participative processes are liberating experiences. Participation is not a liberating technique in itself. Control can be exerted through participative approaches as well, and this is one of the problems with compulsory participative programs.Participation types can be listed from less libertarian to the most libertarian as:Pseudo participation that covers techniques used to persuade employees to accept the decisions that have already been made' It may be argued that much of what passes for participation in architecture fits well into the category of pseudo-participation.Partial participation when there is not equal power in how the decision is made: 'the final power to decide rests with one party only' Partial participation still assumes that the final power resides with the person with most knowledge, in this case the architect. This may be a realistic analysis of architectural participation, but not one to aspire to if one believes that the goal of participation is the empowerment of the citizen user and not of the expert.One of the problems identified in transformative participation is that the channels of communication between the expert and the non-expert are not transparent, and so participation remains dominated by the experts who initiate the communication on their own terms, circumscribing the process through professionally coded drawings and language. The challenge, therefore, is how to move architectural participation from pseudo to the transformative.The issues that transformative participation brings forward actually present an opportunity, not a threat; an opportunity to reconsider what is often taken for granted in architectural practice.In Gillian Rose's phrase, 'the architect is demoted; the people do not accede to power'. This indicates that transformative participation cannot be achieved through the disavowal of expert knowledge. Nor is the solution to make the architect's knowledge more accountable by making it more transparent. Instead a move towards transformative participation demands a reformulation of expert knowledge and the way it may be enacted.Participation is a catalyst for new ways of looking at architectural practice, exposing the limits of normative architectural methods.The very act of storytelling, an act that presumes in its interlocutor an equality of intelligence rather than an inequality of knowledge, posits equality , just as the act of explication posits inequality. The authoritative positivist explanation of the expert is replaced by the suggestive and imaginative storyline of the potential dweller. Too often hope is associated with unachievable utopias, and participation is founded on idealistic notions of consensus; stories avoid such delusion whilst at the same time not shutting down possibilities and opportunities. The role of the architect becomes that of understanding and drawing out the spatial implications of the urban storytelling.Full participation where each individual member of a decision making body has equal power to determine the outcome of the decisions. Full participation is an ideal, but an impossible one to achieve in architecture. It depends on each party being in possession of the requisite knowledge and in there being transparent channels of communication. Neither of these pertains in architecture, where the expert knowledge of the participant user remain on different levels, and where the lines of communication are compromised by conventions and authority.Transversal participation which transverses different social strata, which is neither hierarchical (vertical) nor symptomatic (horizontal) and generates unexpected and continually evolving reactions.Kuzguncuk and Yedikule Orchards ,that takes place in İstanbul Turkey, are the cases about discussing participatory design process with all actors in loose space. Orchards which turned into the source of government annuities in Istanbul are fighting against political power for their public future. The only liberation depends on the public participation as participation means creating space for liberal speech.From the example of Kuzguncuk It can be said that the architect as expert-citizen/citizen-expert may be able to engage more actively with the context and concerns of the user, true participation demands that the process is two way that the user should have the opportunity to actively transform the knowledge of the architect. What is necessary is for the architect to acknowledge the potentially transformative status of the users' knowledge and to provide channels through which it might be articulated. The architect as citizen-expert needs to listen to, draw out and be transformed by the knowledge of the user as expert-citizen.This study emphasizes participation as inventor, developer and the propagator of loose space. Kuzguncuk Orchard ,with its position of being real polyphonic space, showed what can be done with the power of participation in public space. It is expected in this thesis to encourage people about handling with Yedikule Orchard and other similar cases.