critique by design: tackling urban renewal in the design

Original Article

Critique by design: Tackling urban renewal in the designstudio

Bülent Batuman* and Deniz Altay Baykan

Department of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, Bilkent University, Ankara, 06800, Turkey.E-mails: [email protected]; [email protected]

*Corresponding author.

Abstract The dominant mode of urbanization in our contemporary world is marked by large scale urbanrenewal projects, which are deployed with little or no consideration given to the social predicaments. The urbandesign studio can serve as a domain in which critical reflections on urban issues can be incorporated into designworks. In this article, we propose a methodology of ‘critique by design’, which does not seek to arrive at scientificknowledge but rather involves the development of urban design proposals critically engaging with the urbanissues they address through conceptual approaches. We discuss our methodology through the case of an experi-mental studio work conducted in Ankara, Turkey at Bilkent University, Department of Urban Design andLandscape Architecture in 2011.URBAN DESIGN International advance online publication, 8 January 2014; doi:10.1057/udi.2013.40

Keywords: urban design; built environment; design research; design education; critique by design

Today, the implementation of large scale urbanrenewal projects is still a globally valid strategy ofurbanization especially in the developing world,despite the negative effects of the economic reces-sion. While the political economy and the socialcosts of this strategy have been widely discussed(and harshly criticized) for more than two decades,the practice of urban design seems to have evadedsuch criticisms. This is not to say that the socialdimensions of – or the lack of addressing theseaspects by – urban design have not been ques-tioned. On the contrary, scholars have scrutinizedthe relation between urban design and the socialprocesses affected by it (Cuthbert, 2006; Inam,2011). It has been proposed to search for linksbetween the two, providing mutual improvementbetween urban design and urban life (Ellin, 2006;Sargın and Savaş, 2012). Nevertheless, the specifichistorical conditions of our contemporary worldrequire directly addressing the issue of urbanrenewal while discussing the practice of urbandesign, since the former is only possible throughthe operational use of the latter. As it has beenwidely discussed, the urban regime shaped under

the global influence of neoliberal economy is closelyrelated to the use of urban renewal as a tool ofcapital accumulation (Harvey, 1989; Brenner andTheodore, 2002; Hackworth, 2007). Within this con-text, a discussion on urban design has to address thecontemporary conditions of urbanization.

One way of addressing these conditions is toincorporate knowledge production into the veryprocess of urban design; and the realm of educa-tion provides suitable grounds for this enterprise.The role of research within its relation with designpractice is becoming a crucial component of thedisciplines of the built environment (Biggs andBüchler, 2008; Biggs and Karlsson, 2011). Thedesign studio is gradually becoming a space inwhich the students are not only trained via tack-ling sample problems but are also required tocritically reflect on the issues they address throughtheir works. Yet, urban design education often fallsshort in developing systematic approaches tobring together research and work-based learning(Savage, 2005; Çalışkan, 2012). In this study, wepropose a strategy of ‘critique by design’, whichdoes not claim to extract scientific knowledge in

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the traditional sense of research. Rather, this strat-egy involves the development of urban designproposals critically engaging with the urban issuesthey address through conceptual approaches.

Here, it is necessary to briefly explain what ismeant by critique by design. Typically, the term‘critique’ implies a formal negativity; a total rejec-tion of the object of critique. In this regard, acritique of urban renewal inevitably recalls anabsolute negation of the process. Obviously, it doesnot make sense to abandon urban renewal as ageneric operation of urban transformation andspeak of urban design. At this point, it is useful torefer to the distinction between ‘transcendentalcritique’ and ‘immanent critique’ as proposed byAdorno (1983) (see also, Antonio, 1981). Accord-ingly, whereas transcendental critique is a critiquefrom outside, immanent critique is critique fromwithin. Whereas the former operates on a generaland abstract level, the latter engages with theprocess it critiques in a heterodox way. In thisrespect, critique by design seeks to arrive at animmanent critique of urban renewal within andthrough the design process.

Background

This article discusses an experimental design stu-dio, which employed the methodology of ‘critiqueby design’. The studio was conducted in Ankara,Turkey at Bilkent University, Department ofUrban Design and Landscape Architecture in 2011.The department’s curriculum contains technicalcourses in landscape architecture (plant material,planting design, construction and so on) as well asurban design studios, and the students graduatewith the professional title of landscape architect.The urban design studios, following the first yearbasic design studio, are organized in three ‘verti-cal’ studios including students from second, thirdand fourth year. These three vertical studios, whicheach student has to attend twice throughout theireducation, are defined with the strategic emphasisthey put within the design process. Whereas the‘Context and Design’ Studio prioritizes the inputsof the urban context, the ‘Form and Design’ Studioexplores formal approaches to urban design. The‘Concept and Design’ Studio, where the projectunder discussion was pursued, deploys designstrategies based on conceptual investigationsrather than contextual data. Each semester ourstudio brings into question a particular conceptthat would become the major instrument for the

students to investigate, analyze and proposedesign schemes for the urban problem at hand.The intention is to expand the intellectual terrainwithin which the students work by freeing themfrom the constraints of the context only to addressthem in a later phase of the design process. Thestudio included 14 second year and 11 third yearstudents together with two instructors in the seme-ster under discussion.

The studio was designed in order to address thecurrent conditions of the city of Ankara, the capitalof Turkey, where numerous urban renewal pro-jects are under way at present. Ankara wasdeclared the capital in 1923 and the city experi-enced continuous growth afterwards (Tankut,1994; Cengizkan, 2004). While its growth wasrelatively controlled until the Second World War,the postwar era witnessed massive rural-to-urbanmigration and the emergence of squatter districtsaround the city (Keleş and Danielson, 1985; Öncü,1988; Şenyapılı, 2004). Hence, the majority of theongoing renewal projects are concerned with theregeneration of these areas (Güzey, 2009). Thecurrent approach to urban renewal in Turkey ischaracterized by the immense powers vested in themunicipalities and the lack of participation in thedecision-making processes (Ünsal and Kuyucu,2010; Batuman, 2013). While the squatters areforced to leave their environments, the gentrifica-tion of these areas is advertised by elegant housingprojects. Within this context, the instrumentaliza-tion of urban design becomes an ethical issue to beaddressed within urban design education.

In terms of urban morphology, the recent trendin urban renewal in Turkish cities results in thereproduction of the rigid patterns of conventionalblocks and lots with higher densities. Once clearedof slums, the old squatter neighborhoods aretreated as vacant areas to be filled with buildingsand become denser than ever. Departing from thispoint, this semester’s project was defined as rede-signing an urban valley that was cleared of slumsin the early 1990s, and the semester’s concept wasdesignated as VOID.

Methodology

The ‘critique by design’ methodology we havedeployed in the studio comprised different stagesas illustrated in Table 1. The incorporation of thismethodology into the studio process is also pre-sented with the diagram in Figure 1. Accordingly,the first stage included exercises aiming to put the

Batuman and Altay Baykan

2 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1357-5317 URBAN DESIGN International 1–16

concept of void to scrutiny in order to dig into themultitude of meanings and connotations it embo-died and to use it later as a means to developdesign strategies. The intention of the studioinstructors in this choice was to force students toface the tension between the (positive) implicationsof building/designing/developing and the (nega-tive) connotations of the term. In the second stage,the students visited the site of another urbanrenewal project, where the squatters have resisted– and continue to resist – evacuation. This experi-ence, which we defined as the drift à la Situationsts,allowed them to not only observe the social con-sequences of urban renewal but also further reflecton the concept of void as a social signifier as well asa physical one. Afterwards, the students wereasked to interpret the drift within a sculptureworkshop. Whereas the drift linked urban designto social space through bodily experience, theworkshop aimed at translating the critical experi-ence into design work. The third stage, ‘ObjectDesign’, was a small exercise toward further devel-oping the products of the sculpture workshop intoarchitectural objects, which would be a part of thefollowing stage of park design.

As mentioned above, the Concept and DesignStudio aims at providing grounds to discuss theissue at hand through a conceptual approach thatminimizes the role of the context. Therefore, at thefourth stage, the students were not given the actualsite but were required to work on an imaginaryterrain they would design. This was the beginningof the physical design process, where the studentsdesigned urban parks, using their object designs aspoint of departure. In the fifth and final stage, theywere informed about the actual site and wereasked to rework their proposals, this time to fitthe requirements of the context.

Below, we will discuss the critique by designmethodology following the sequences of the stu-dio. After the analysis of sample proposals illus-trating the strategic approaches that weredeveloped in the studio, the article will arrive atan assessment of the outcomes of the studio interms of our methodology. In our assessment, wewill relate the common points emphasized in thestudent projects to the debates in landscape urban-ism. Although landscape urbanism was notreferred to in the studio, the shared approach ofthe students prioritizing landscape against build-ing blocks as a critical design strategy matcheswith landscape urbanism’s proposal to replacearchitecture with landscape as the basis of urbandevelopment.T

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Critique by design

3© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1357-5317 URBAN DESIGN International 1–16

An important source we will use to assess theobjectives of critique by design methodology is theresults of a survey we have subsequently con-ducted with the students that participated in thestudio. The students’ responses to the surveyquestions allow us to consider the extent to whichthe studio objectives were achieved. The surveywas not realized as a part of the studio process. Itwas conducted 1 year later, in order to have thestudents reflect on their experience and its influ-ence on their way of thinking regarding urbandesign. As a result of the time lag, the studentsdid not respond with their immediate reactions tothe educational process, but rather contemplatedon how the studio experience affected theirapproach to urban design and urban renewal. Thesurvey included questions regarding three themes:the experience of the drift and its relation with theactual project site; the concept of void as a designtool; and the impact of the studio on the students’thinking on urban renewal.

The Concept

The choice of the concept of void relied first of allon the potentials of this concept in terms of critiqueby design methodology. The speculative logic ofcontemporary urbanism prioritizes the increase of

building density in the old squatter areas. Hence,the gentrification of urban areas leads to thechange of not only the user profiles but also thephysical patterns of urban texture. In this respect,the concept of void is a productive tool for bothcritiquing the current mode of urban renewal anddeveloping alternative design strategies. The con-stant promotion of verticality and the treatment ofold residential districts as voids to be filled couldbe countered by the deployment of void as positivespace; that is, horizontal surfaces as urban spaces.To strengthen this approach, the design problemfor the studio process was defined as the organiza-tion of an open space in the form of an urban park.Afterwards, the urban park was used as a gen-erator to develop landscape strategies towardregeneration of an area. By prioritizing landscape,it was intended to arrive at proposals that wouldavoid density and gentrification, and treat the siteas an urban void to be used as public space.

The concept of void has been used in severalarchitectural and urban design projects. Forinstance, Libeskind has used the concept in hisJewish Museum in Berlin (1992–1999). In his pro-ject, Libeskind created an empty axis along thefamous zigzag-shaped building, making this voidthe backbone of his design. His intention was touse the void as a means to represent the absence ofJews in Berlin (Libeskind, 1999). Similarly, Michael

Figure 1: Diagram showing the studio process.



Arad and Peter Walker’s ‘Reflecting Absence’,their proposal for the World Trade Center Memor-ial (that is under construction) proposed two poolswith cascading waterfalls located within the foot-prints of the twin towers of the WTC. For thedesigners, the two large voids among a field oftrees are open and visible reminders of absence(Arad, 2009). As illustrated by these examples,void is utilized to represent traumatic eventsdemanding the questioning of the very notion ofrepresentation and to give form to absence inorder to resist the naturalization of loss. In addi-tion to these examples, there are also architectsand urban designers interested in searching forthe potentials of existing urban voids as spaces ofpossibility and expectance (see for instance, Sola-Morales Rubio, 1995; Bru, 2001). In such cases, thevoid is not an entity created to negate the existingurban realm but almost an organic element con-tained within it. The void, in this respect, can bedealt with in terms of its geographical (topogra-phical fissures interrupting the urban texture),functional (vacant spaces ceased to be used) orphenomenological (the meanings stemming fromcontext or history attached to it) characteristics(Rojas, 2009; Hall, 2010).

As the first step of the studio, the students wereasked to reflect on the concept void and to derivenew concepts utilizing the method of mind-map.The mind-map allows the students to exploredistinct meanings embodied within the particularconcept within a two-dimensional structure andallows them to establish relations between thenewly arrived concepts (Buzan and Buzan, 2006).

As the students came up with numerous newconcepts derived from void, we rearranged themwithin a table that groups the main approaches tothe concept (Table 2). Whereas some of the con-cepts derived from void were literal types of voids,some of them explored the relational qualities ofvoid, that is, human experiences, feelings andemotions in relation to it. The concepts charted bythe students can be categorized under five head-ings: phenomenological, spatial, architectonic, tex-tual and emotional. Although it is possible topropose other categories, our classification refersto the approaches within the studio. Here, phe-nomenological void is defined with concepts suchas lack, absence, loss, desertedness and refers to theindividual’s psychological and affectual experi-ence in space (Bachelard, 1964). Although spatialvoid includes both geographical (pit, cavity andhole) and human-made (shaft) voids, there are alsogeographical formations that can be considered asboth spatial and phenomenological voids (canyonand abyss). The architectonic voids refer to thebehavior of empty space under certain physicalconditions (transparency and echo). Textual voidswere explored by the students to reveal the struc-tural gaps intrinsic to the use of language and itsrepresentational systems (rest, rhythm, line spa-cing and so on). Finally, a set of feelings andemotions triggered by void were put forward,which we listed under the category of emotionalvoids. It has to be noted that not all of thesecategories were addressed by the design projectsin the following stages of the studio. Nevertheless,they represent the vast cognitive terrain within

Table 2: Conceptual work: The concepts derived from VOID

Phenomenological Spatial Architectonic Textual Emotional

Death Hollow Gap Line space SerenityBirth Hole Transparency Crossword puzzle SilenceSilence Pit Empty Idle talk PessimistPessimism Cavity To void Empty talk TimelessnessTime Trench Suspense Hollow words MelancholyAvoidance Fosse Potential Rest (music) AvoidancePeace Stairwell Echo Rhythm PeaceLoneliness Shaft Saturate A-void LonelinessDesertedness Echo — — FearLack Cliff — — DespairAbsence Limit — — LossPotential Island — — IndifferentLoss Gulf — — DistressCanyon Canyon — — CuriosityAbyss Abyss — — Uncertainty

Pore — — AnxietyFissure — — Insecurity

Critique by design


which the students tackled the concept of void inrelation to urban design.

The Drift

Following this conceptual exercise, the studentswere invited to an excursion in the city to experi-ence an existing urban void, which embodiesphysical and social dimensions of the conceptsimultaneously. It was intended to link urbandesign to social space by making the bodily experi-ence in the city a component of the critical designprocess. In tune with the Situationists’ concept ofpshychogeography and their notion of dérive, theaim of the drift was to turn the practice of walkingin the city into social critique; an inventive strategyto experience unforeseen and unpredictableencounters and lead the walkers to a new aware-ness of the urban environment (Debord, 2009a[1955]; Debord, 2009b [1956]). The site chosen forthe drift was Dikmen Valley, one of the earliestregeneration sites, which runs 13 km, and is actu-ally very close to the actual project site of PortakalÇiçeği Valley (Figure 2). Dikmen Valley was pro-posed to be redeveloped in five phases and the firsttwo were finished peacefully in the 1990s. The

third phase, however, witnessed a drastic increasein building heights as well as floor areas of housingunits and this significantly changed user demo-graphics in the area. Meanwhile, the squatters inthe fourth and fifth phase areas were forced to signindividual contracts on very disadvantageousterms. The squatters began organizing in responseand established a ‘Right to Shelter Bureau’ to resistevacuation in 2006. Since then, the municipalityhas attempted to evacuate the squatters by forceseveral times and the tension prevails.

The Valley currently provides a significantrepertoire of distinct housing types, all of whichcan be observed in sequence through a walk alongthe Valley (Figure 3). The earliest housing blocks inthe first phase are still inhabited by the squattersand exist side by side with the upper class housesbuilt to compensate them. The park in the middleof these blocks is a public space used even bypeople coming from different parts of the city. Yet,as further one walks, the Valley gradually turnsinto a semi-gated community, where significantportions of the green areas are left to the privateuse of expensive housing complexes. After thesewell-designed buildings and elegant landscapes,one suddenly meets with concrete barriers signal-ing the limits of the completed project site. After

Figure 2: Dikmen Valley and the stages of the regeneration project. The area marked with the ellipse is the Portakal Çiçeği Valley.Source: Google Earth (Image © 2012 GeoEye).

Figure 3: Panorama of Dikmen Valley showing the changing physical and social environment.



the barriers lay a no-man’s land with the debris ofevacuated slums of the fourth phase, which arereoccupied by unsheltered people living on gar-bage collection. The contrast between the lavishlandscape and the piles of recyclable garbage onlya few hundred meters away from each other isstriking. And after this vacant area, there are thetraditional houses of the squatters who have beenliving in the Valley for more than three decades.The squatters are currently denied municipalservices and have to resolve their needs commun-ally. The students were welcomed by the squat-ters and were given a brief conference on theirliving conditions.

The survey responses illustrate the students’perception of the drift as a social encounter. Oneof the students put it as such: ‘My first observationwas [the site’s] spatial quality as a valley. How-ever, the deeper [sic] we went, I felt that this was adifferent type of void. It was [characterized by]disregard to the people living there … and the[response of] pretending they did not exist’.Another one emphasized that the drift allowedthem to observe the Valley as a social void, whichmeant the suppression of the existence of thesquatters and the general ignorance regarding theirhardships. The crucial point here is the students’frequent use of the term ‘social void’ in theirresponses, which represents their recollection ofthe drift as a social encounter. Moreover, a numberof the students described their observations withparticular attention to the spatial qualities of thedifferent sections of the Valley. They defined theregenerated areas as ‘alienated’ from the ‘actualnature of the valley’ and interpreted the social gapbetween the inhabitants of the different sections interms of environmental qualities. Accordingly, thedesigned spaces of the earlier stages were nega-tively evaluated as ‘alien’ and ‘artificial’, whereas,the prevailing squatter settlement was seen as‘genuine’ and ‘conforming to both the social orga-nization of squatters and the physical characteris-tics of the valley’. The representation of socialtension with reference to design quality is quitesubjective; the regenerated areas are not necessa-rily bad designed. This representation should beunderstood as an intuitive response to the ethicaldilemma faced by the students as designers.

Although the social encounter constituted animportant component of the students’ experiencein the drift, they also perceived the Valley as aphysical environment and experienced it with theirsenses. As one student put it, the drift triggeredcuriosity for their part and as a result their ‘senses

were heightened’ throughout the drift. The stu-dents felt that the Valley was ‘isolated’ from thecity and created a sense of ‘abandonment’. Thefeeling of desertedness despite the sequentialchange of landscape was interpreted as the resultof a negative enclosure created by the morphologyof the Valley, which triggered ‘anxiety’.

As the student responses demonstrate, the driftwas successful in making students develop asensual-experiential critique of urban renewal.Yet, the crucial point of critique by design metho-dology is translating critical insight into creativedesign work. For this, we devised a sculptureworkshop, where the students were asked torepresent their experience. The workshop wasaimed at extracting the psychogeographical out-comes of the drift; in other words, interpretingsocial critique into design work. It took place thenext day at the same place, in the courtyard of the‘Right to Shelter Bureau’. The students working ingroups were provided with clay to work with,although they were unfamiliar with the material.Nevertheless, the workshop allowed the studentsto represent their experience of the Valley as void:a geographical void that is always felt with the coolbreeze and the shade at the Valley bottom; a socialvoid, with voided (and reoccupied) sections, sec-tions intended to be evacuated, and sectionsrefilled after being emptied. Hence, Dikmen Valleyallowed the students to develop their own critiquenot through learned knowledge but through theirexperience in space using the concept of void. Atthe end of the drift, they were aware of a number ofissues: the relation of a morphological void witha dense urban texture; the social dimensionsof designing physical spaces; and the conflictbetween urban design and its instrumentalizationfor gentrification.

The products of the workshop were satisfying intheir inspiration; the survey responses also supportthis impression. Almost all of the participantspointed out that the sculpture workshop had beenvery effective in obtaining products juxtaposingtheir observations and perceptions. In the students’words, the workshop allowed them ‘to expressboth their feelings and thoughts’. One grouprepresented the Valley as ‘the hand of nature’, anopen hand with a crack stretching across the palm(Figure 4). Here, the gesture of the hand fits withthe location of the Valley sloping down toward thecity center. Hence, the counter expansion of thecity into the Valley and toward the last group ofsquatters takes the form of a crack signalingcatastrophe. Another group titled their work

Critique by design


‘cage’, playing into the multiple meanings of theword. As the form itself recalls a rib cage, itrefers to the geomorphological function of theValley as a wind tunnel clearing the city’s air.On the other hand, the elements of the cage arederived from the visual experience at the Valleybottom, with the high-rise buildings toweringover the walker. Hence, the Valley is also a cageimprisoning the individual once it is deepenedwith the buildings lined alongside.

The psychogeographical experience of the driftis a practical application of immanent critiquetoward urban renewal. The walkers literally tookplace inside the object of their scrutiny andobserved the very process in physical and socialterms. They inhabited portions of the Valley thatdemonstrated the before and after conditions ofrenewal as well as the destroyed sections lying inbetween the two. That is, as the survey responseswe have quoted above illustrate, the drift led thestudents to observe and experience the dialectics ofcreative destruction, which is characteristic ofurban renewal (Harvey, 2003, pp. 16–18).

The Design Process

After the drift, the students returned to the studioand at the third stage of the process (ObjectDesign) they were asked to provide an architec-tonic representation of void in the form of an objectto be implemented within their park designs. Theintention of this exercise was to channel theinspirational work of the sculpture workshop intopark design. The object design was the first step ofthe physical design process. At the fourth stage

(Site Design I), the problem was defined asdesigning an urban park to cover an area of40 000m2. The park was to be designed ina decontextual site, one to be also created by thestudents with its topographical and environmen-tal conditions. Whereas the second year studentswere responsible for only park design, the thirdyear students were also required to create anurban environment within which their designschemes would be implemented.

After a 3-week period that culminated in apreliminary jury, the students were informed thatthe actual site they would work was PortakalÇiçeği Valley and were asked to rework theirproposals accordingly at the fifth stage (SiteDesign II). Portakal Çiçeği Valley is located 400m to the east of Dikmen Valley and runs parallelto it, although it is much shorter (approximately1 km). The Valley was also a squatter area andwas subject to a renewal project in the early1990s.1 The most significant difference betweenthe renewal projects implemented in these twoareas was the relocation of the squatter popula-tion in Portakal Çiçeği Valley 20 km away.Whereas a few high-rise blocks for high-incomegroups and a shopping mall were constructed,the rest of the Valley was designed as greenspace. Currently, the southern half of the Valley,which is topographically higher, is a park and therest is still under construction (Figure 5).

Within this area, the second year students wererequired to rework their park proposals andimplement it to the southern half of the site (thesize of which was approximately equal to theirimaginary site). For these students, the majorchallenges were the topography of the Valley andthe integration of the park to the surroundingneighborhood. The third year students, on theother hand, were asked to develop strategies fora larger area covering the Valley and its immedi-ate surroundings. Here, the intention was to forcethe students to expand their design approachesderived from the concept of void into an urbandevelopment strategy generated by the use oflandscape. Before discussing the outcomes, it isnecessary to briefly discuss the produced designprojects. As it was mentioned, although a vastarray of new concepts was derived from void inthe initial stage of the studio, not all of thesecategories were addressed in the design propo-sals. Therefore, below, we will present and dis-cuss sample projects under a new grouping withthe categories of physical, functional and phe-nomenological voids.

Figure 4: Sculpture workshop after the drift along DikmenValley: ‘The Hand of Nature’. (Büşra Dok, Tuğçe Norman,Handan Çörekçi).



Physical voids

Most of the second year students approached theconcept with its physical potentials and searchedfor ways to create three-dimensional voids thatwould become the components of park design.Departing from concepts such as hole, pit andcavity, these projects had to be thoroughlyreworked in order to be applicable to the Valley.Although the holes and cavities were openedvertically in horizontal planes at the earlier stageof Site Design I, they had to be located carefully tofit with the amorphous surface of the Valley aswell as the street pattern of the surroundingneighborhood at the final stage. As expected, thethird year students approached the physical voidin a more complex manner. One of the studentstreated the urban fabric as ‘skin’ through abiological analogy and proposed ‘pores’ thatwould link the underground spaces with thesurface landscape (Figure 6). Another proposalwas to cover the Valley with fabric panels follow-ing the work of Christo in order to change theway of perceiving the Valley, revealing the voidby concealing it (Bourdon, 1972). The project alsoemphasized various scales superimposed withinthe area: the size of the fabric panels versus therepetitive neighborhood blocks, the apartmentbuildings within these blocks versus the newhigh-rise buildings that stick out in between thepanels, the contrast between the solid pattern ofthe city and the size of the covered void.

The projects focusing on physical voids havescrutinized the void within the practices in urban

everyday life. Examining the scales of voidsrequired for human activities as well as socialrelations and urban functions, these projects cre-ated voids of various scales ranging from smallniches for individual uses inside the park to thephysical definition of the whole Valley as an urbanvoid. In this respect, they questioned the existingpatterns of physical voids within the city (streets,lawns, schoolyards and so on) and attempted toincorporate the Valley within these patterns.

Functional voids

A number of students approached the void as thenecessary space for certain functions. Second yearstudents proposed parks with particular functionsthat would cover the whole surface designated asthe park area. One of these proposals was a bird-watching park, in which dense greenery served asfunctional for the birds to be protected from thetraffic and pollution. In addition, the plants lit-erally ‘filled’ the void and created a dialecticaltension between the neighborhood and the park:while the dense greenery cancels the void by fillingit, it at the same time marks the park as voidedfrom the urban activities occurring around.Another proposal was almost the inverse of this: askate park. This time, the park was devoid of softlandscape, and the fluid forms of ramps, pipes,pools and bowls turned the area into a nonvehicu-lar traffic hub for pedestrians, skaters and bicycleriders. Here, the three dimensional void of theValley was emphasized with the lack of vertical

Figure 5: Portakal Çiçeği Valley. The second year students were responsible for designing the green area within the smaller ellipseand the third year students tackled with the whole Valley.Source: Google Earth (Image © 2012 GeoEye).

Critique by design


elements and the park was easily perceived as asunken component of the continuous network ofvoids in the neighborhood.

Along with the park designs of the second years,there were also third year students who pursuedfunctional voids. Among these, one proposal wasinteresting in its consistent approach focusing on‘echo’. Analyzing the physical behavior of soundwaves and the sources of sound in the actualneighborhood, the student proposed buildings andlandscape elements designed as sound barriers toreflect or absorb sound. These elements werecarefully positioned to control the level of soundreaching different parts of the area (Figure 7).Another project was a proposal of ‘inverse archi-tecture’, designing architectural holes workingas ‘groundscrapers’. Rather than rising up assolid blocks, the spaces were organized aroundvertical voids, creating a stark contrast with –

and a critique of – the high-rise blocks locatedinside the Valley. These projects approachedthe void not in terms of scale but function. Thevoids proposed in these projects were integralcomponents of the urban realm not by theirmorphological qualities but by the functions theyundertook. They introduced urban functionsderived from the void by accentuating the role ofvoid as the generator of these functions.

Phenomenological voids

The last group included projects that scrutinizedthe feelings and emotions triggered by the experi-ence of void. In fact, cities contain such voids,spaces that are outside the urban realm of func-tionality, which Sola-Morales Rubio, 1995 hasdefined as terrain vague. Brownfield sites of vacantindustrial plants, no-man’s lands with no clearidentity at city edges and so on provoke sometimesuncanny feelings and inexplicable senses of threat,and sometimes a melancholic belonging triggeredby the corrosion of time. In addition, certaingeographical forms incite the human senses withan impression of extremity: the heights of a cliff ora canyon triggering vertigo, a crater or an abyssassociated with an anxiety of being lost withininfinity. Moreover, certain feelings are directlyexpressed by terms that are variations of void:lack, absence, melancholy and so on. It is not acoincidence that these terms are also frequentlyused in the field of psychology and especiallypsychoanalysis. The study of phenomenologicalvoids in urban space is closely related with thebodily experience of the city and its reflectionswithin human psyche (Vidler, 1994; Pile, 1996).

The park designs of the second year studentsexplored such spaces ranging from geographical

Figure 6: Physical void: ‘Pores’ – third year project, first phase (Gürkan Güney).



ones such as craters and canyons to biological onessuch as womb. While the geographical voids wereimitated in the parks, the womb was realized by anisland within a wide lake covering the whole park.In addition, some of the students searched forcertain affects of the void, such as isolation anddesertedness. In these projects landscape was uti-lized as a tool to shape human environment bypaying particular attention to the spaces created byplants (or their absence). The third year studentsdeployed similar approaches as urban develop-ment strategies. One student developed his propo-sal with reference to the concept of vertigo, where asunken surface was treated as an intersection pointfor public and private spheres. The vertigo effectrepresented the tension between these two spheresand the potential conflicts embodied in the inter-section of public and private realms. Pedestrianaxes emanating from this intersection areaexpanded the influence of the project outside theboundaries of the site. Similarly, another studentdeparted from an urban analysis establishing therole of the valleys in the city as green belts andproposed to subvert the treatment of landscape asa tool to domesticate nature in the form of parks.

To this end, the project interpreted void with theconcept of lack and introduced a scheme foundedon the idea of ‘lack of green’ (Figure 8). In thisproposal, the project site was redesigned with asense of desolateness accentuating the bits andpieces of landscaping across the conventionalurban texture outside the project site.

Assessment: Landscape Urbanism asCritique

The challenge of having both second and third yearstudents in the urban design studio requires diver-sifying studio objectives accordingly. Neverthe-less, within differentiated design criteria, both ofthe groups were required to critically engage withthe negative aspects of urban renewal processesfrom within. In this respect, even for the secondyear students, the urban park was understood not asmere recreation but as a programmatic framework toresist the normative process of urban expansion andthe speculative logic of urban renewal.

Since it would be beyond the reach of an under-graduate studio to integrate complex theoretical

Figure 7: Functional void: ‘Echo’, third year project (Ahmet Resul Öden).

Critique by design


discussions on urbanization and urban design, itwas chosen to introduce the problems and issuesrather than the theoretical responses to theseissues. The problem of urban renewal was notpresented as a theoretical subject to be addressedin terms of political economy, sociology and so on,but rather presented to the students through thedrift, which served as both a site trip and a socialexcursion. That is, the pedagogic strategydeployed in the studio did not rely on researchbut rested on the students’ experience in the designprocess, allowing them to develop immanent cri-tique. In this respect, the objective was to reconfi-gure the design process in the form of critique bydesign. Here, while the initial phase of conceptualinvestigation was an impersonal approach to theurban realm, the drift served as a key componentof the design process making the designers identifywith the users of space. Provided with multiplepoints of view regarding the process of urbanrenewal, the students were guided toward devel-oping their own critical responses in the form ofdesign proposals.

The physical similarity between the two sitesallowed for especially the second year students toobserve the topographical conditions of construc-tion within a valley. In addition, Dikmen Valleypresented them with the very process of transfor-mation that took place in Portakal Çiçeği Valleythree decades earlier. Both the physical pattern of

the squatter neighborhood and the social lifeinhabited in the former Valley were elements ofthe history of the latter one. In this regard, the drift– together with all the unforeseen encounters itembodied – presented the drifters with the histor-ical record of the absence of the relocated squattersin Portakal Çiçeği Valley and the renewal processthat took place in the site. In this respect, it is not acoincidence that the Valley, which is currentlydevoid of life it used to shelter, was treated by themajority of the students as a phenomenologicalvoid. In a sense, the interpretation of the Valley asa phenomenological void is a logical outcome ofthe design process beginning with the sculpturesrepresenting the drift as a bodily experience. Thestudents pursuing this approach linked their ownexperience in the drift with those of the dislocatedsquatters. An interesting example is a proposal thatdirectly evolved from the sculpture ‘the hand ofnature’ discussed above. The student proposed alinear park with a sunken platform that imitatedthe cracked form of the sculpture. This artificialValley ended within the interior of a colossal rock,a form that juxtaposed nature and architecture,and served as the gateway between the park andthe surrounding urban environment.

Although the critique by design methodologydoes not seek to arrive at theoretically valid find-ings regarding urbanization, it has led to theemergence of overarching points raised by the

Figure 8: Phenomenological void: ‘Lack of Green’, third year project (Ece Demircioğlu).



design proposals. A major element of this collec-tive critique was the conscious use of landscape asnegation of the conventional urban texture. It wasintended to search for alternatives to the dominantmode of urban renewal that replaced low-densitysquatter neighborhoods with high-rise residentialblocks and subordinated green areas to thesevertical masses. The prime method of creating suchalternatives was the treatment of voids as positivespaces. This choice was also reflected in the surveyresponses. The students differentiated between‘designing with void’ and ‘designing a void’;2

while the former referred to ‘voiding’ as a positivedesign approach, the latter was understood as anegative attitude toward ‘merely filling’ urbanvoids. Most of the students claimed that theirprojects prioritized ‘designing with void’, whichfor them represented a more ‘integrated’ approachtaking into consideration the urban totality. In thisrespect, the survey responses often referred to theneed for ‘open spaces for the city to breath’, whichwas achieved through ‘designing with void’. Thereversal of the primacy of the structural elementsof urban regeneration and the prioritization ofhorizontal surfaces against building blocks makesit possible to relate the studio work to the debatesin landscape urbanism (Mostafavi and Najle, 2003;Waldheim, 2006a).

Landscape urbanism suggests the use of land-scape as the major instrument of urban develop-ment since it contains the potentials to create‘conditions for radically decentralized urbaniza-tion’ (Waldheim, 2006b). This approach leads tothe production of urban environment through theorganization of horizontal surfaces rather than thedefinition of interiors and exteriors by verticalbuilding blocks. It is necessary to remember thatlandscape urbanism was a response to first of allthe need for the renewal of deindustrialized sites inNorthern America and Europe. Proposing toreplace architecture with landscape as ‘the basicbuilding block of contemporary urbanism’, land-scape urbanism simultaneously addresses the eco-logical problems raised by the brownfield sites andthe commodification of urban space. It is intendedto rehabilitate postindustrial sites and regeneratethem as structural elements to improve urbanecology (Corner, 2006). Moreover, landscapeurbanism was also strongly influenced by thecritiques toward postwar modernist architectureas well as the early cases of urban renewal projectsthat led to the gentrification of deindustrializedzones in European metropolises (Shannon, 2006).In this respect, it can be argued that landscape

urbanism itself is a critique of architecture andurban design as the conventional means of creatingurban form.

The works produced in our studio come close tothe defining principle of landscape urbanism, uti-lizing landscape not as a secondary element in anurban environment dominated by vertical archi-tecture but as the major apparatus in creating ahorizontal urbanization. Especially the third yearprojects, which were required to propose strategiesof urban development that were derived from theurban park designs of the first stage, came up withsuggestions that would expand beyond the projectsite. These proposals treated the Valley as a land-scape generator, transforming its surroundingsreversing the relations of solids and voids, that is,buildings and surfaces (Figure 9). New interiorsproduced in these schemes became subjected to theguidelines of landscape design and emerged asinflations within the horizontal landscape. It iscrucial to note that this strategic approach to urbanspace is not only concerned with producing void(s)as form, but it also uses void as verb. That is, theseschemes proposed to change the conventionalpatterns of social spaces in the city by voidingcertain areas. In this respect, the strategy to ‘lessenthe city’ emerged as an approach coherent withlandscape urbanism.

The students’ responses to the survey questionasking them to reflect on their approach to urbanrenewal in their projects reveal that they deployedstrategies prioritizing landscape as an antidote toprofit-oriented urban development. Especially thethird year students commented on their reaction tourban renewal and expressed that although theydid not ‘consciously’ develop ‘an overt criticalapproach to urban renewal’, their proposals dis-played an ‘ecologically-based rejection’ of the cur-rent mode of renewal. One student retrospectivelydefined this as an ‘unconsciously produced’ alter-native ‘to the uniform settlements of regenerationprojects in progress’. Another one described herapproach as one ‘critiquing urban renewal andbuilding masses’. Similarly, the student who hadproposed ‘groundscrapers’ defined her intentionas developing a socially responsible alternative to‘vertical growth’.

The benefit of conducting the survey 1 year afterthe studio experience was the prospect of deter-mining its influence on the students’ thinkingregarding urban renewal, which was not a topicof the studio but one necessarily addressed by thethird year students in the following year. One ofthe student responses illustrates how the studio

Critique by design


affected their critical thinking in the followingperiod of their education: ‘Following our drift inDikmen Valley, we did research on the squatters’struggle and urban renewal was a concept that wefrequently came across. This led us to develop awider perspective and to approach the topiccritically’.

Conclusion

The experimental studio conducted at Bilkent Uni-versity, Department of Urban Design and Land-scape Architecture aimed at developing themethodology of critique by design. This methodol-ogy targets the production of urban design projectsas the outcomes of a design process in which thestudents critically engage with the problem theyhandle. The drift serves as a key in this criticalengagement since it transforms the student into thesubject of urban renewal. Inhabiting the site ofrenewal as a walker, the student develops aware-ness regarding the social and physical environment.The awareness of the (passive) state of the inhabi-tants of renewal areas radically alters the position ofthe students as (active) designers. The students’responses to the survey that was conducted a year

after the studio work confirm the emergence of suchawareness regarding urban renewal.

Moreover, the definition of concepts as the majortoolkit to tackle the problem at hand challenges thestudents to invent new approaches beyond nostalgicproposals resettling the squatters in conventionalways. In other words, the dialectical tensionbetween the impersonal approach of conceptualdesign and the sensual experience of the drift servesas the initial dynamics of critique by design. In thisway, the students translate their critical assessmentsregarding the design problems into conceptualapproaches toward the use of landscape.

The most important outcome of the critique bydesign methodology is the awareness created inthe students, as reflected with the critical edge oftheir design works. Their responses to the surveydemonstrate how the design process became ameans for them to develop urban critique. Withinthe studio work defined for this semester, theapplication of our methodology with the conceptof void and the particular problem of urban parkdesign in Portakal Çiçeği Valley resulted in theproduction of proposals that are in tune withlandscape urbanism, which has endorsed the useof landscape as a model resisting normative pro-cesses of urban development. Nevertheless, it is

Figure 9: Landscape urbanism: landscape as generator of horizontal urban development, third year project (Gürkan Güney).



possible to adapt this methodology to differentdesign problems by the use of other relevant keyconcepts.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Güven Arif Sargınand Funda Baş Bütüner for their comments on theearlier drafts of the article. We also thank ourstudents Betil Bihter Artan, Ömer Berkay Berberoğlu,Duygu Demir, Meryem Elif Ekşi, Ece Höker, ArzuHürmüzlü, Tuğçe Hayriye Kalender, BahanurHatice Kaynak, Zeynep Özmen, Tuğçe Sıdar, SedaTokuroğlu, Nurceren Tomruk, Başak Yurtseven,Berkay Arıkan, Elif Cansu Çelikel, HandanÇörekçi, Ece Demircioğlu, Büşra Dok, HavvaGizem Güner, Gürkan Güney, Yeşim Hasbioğlu,Tuğçe Norman, Ahmet Resul Önen and MehmetHalil Özdemir for their contribution during andafter the studio semester.

Notes

1 For a comparative analysis of the renewal projects in Dikmenand Portakal Çiçeği Valley, see Uzun, 2005.

2 These two formulations came up in the studio discussionsalthough neither was particularly suggested as favorable bythe instructors. In the survey, the students were asked howthey would evaluate the difference between these twoattitudes.

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