Thesis Defense - Büşra Meriç (MSARCH)

Büşra Meriç - M.Sc. Architecture

Prof. Dr. Alper Ünlü – Advisor

Date: 10.09.2021

Time: 10:00

Location: This meeting will be held ONLINE. Please send an e-mail to gizem.bakir@ozyegin.edu.tr in order to participate in this defense.

A LOGICAL ARGUMENT ON APARTMENT TYPE DWELLINGS’ DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SPACE SYNTAX: A Case Study in Istanbul, Kadiköy, Feneryolu between 1950 – 2020

Thesis Committee:

Prof. Dr Alper Ünlü, Özyeğin University

Asst.Prof. Dr Nevşet Gül Çanakçıoğlu, Özyeğin University

Assoc. Prof. Dr Mehmet Emin Şalgamcıoğlu, Istanbul Technical University

Abstract:

The main purpose of the study is to read the breaking points such as political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological developments, and the new regulations in urban development through housing practices of Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey. However, while doing this reading, this thesis is intended to examine the diversity in the spatial configurations of apartment-type dwellings and the relationship between syntactic transformations and the historical breakpoints brought about by the aforementioned urbanisation.

After the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey, the traditional Turkish house form has experienced changes due to various factors, such as: the aspiration of socio-cultural modernisation, so-called Westernisation in the first period of Republican Turkey, and technological developments; industrialisation.

This study endeavours to demonstrate how the spatial arrangement in the modernised Turkish apartment-type dwelling has evolved. It is explicit that the transformation in residential interiors is linked to sociological transformations as well as external factors. Housing policies in Turkey, industrialisation, standardisation and transition to mass production in construction materials, apartmentisation, affordable housing, modernisation in domestic life, change in family structure and their impact on the interior space are all taken into significant consideration.

After exploring factors affecting the interior and apartmentisation in Turkey, the objective is to concretise the theoretical discussion on socio-spatial transformation and Space Syntax Theory by narrowing the scope of the research and examining it in a case study. The term Space Syntax is defined as the set of rules essential for the production of simple but fundamentally different spatial arrangements. As per this theory, there is a connection between spatial organisation and behaviour. In this thesis, where socio-spatial transformations are examined, syntactic data is calculated mathematically, and thus comparisons are carried out on mathematical data in the discussion phase.

As a case study, the transformations in the spatial configuration of Istanbul-Feneryolu residences from the 1950s to 2020 are examined. The reason of this is that Turkey entered a significant apartmentisation period in the 1970s, and still, an increase in urban density is observed in İstanbul. In addition, there are apartment buildings that were produced in different years between the 1950s and 2020 and still exist in the Feneryolu neighbourhood, which is the case area.

Considering the breaking points created by sociological factors, technological developments and laws, the apartment type dwellings are divided into periods and analysed. Each period and analysed apartment type dwelling are compared to each other through the graphs.

According to the results obtained from "mean isovist" and "mean radial data" analyses and synthesis; there has been a transformation in the spatial organisation and design of the apartment-type dwellings in the Feneryolu neighbourhood due to cases such as zoning decisions, production methods and technological developments.

Decision mechanisms and emerging spatial configurations at the design stage are factors that affect spatial behaviour. According to the syntactic values in the apartment-type dwellings examined in the Feneryolu case, the living area was separated from the whole house and specialised over time, while the housing scheme was operating as a whole.  Likewise, the circularity value in the living area fell below the service area, and even the bedroom area. With the corridorisation, a new configuration was created by lining up the units side by side, and these monotonous housing typologies were applied in the urban transformation and urban intensification process that took place in the Feneryolu neighbourhood.

Bio: 

Büşra Meriç obtained her B.Arch. from Dogus University, Department of Architecture in 2016. As a short break from the university, she worked as an architect. She started her master (M.Sc.) programme in Architecture at Ozyegin University under the supervision of Prof. Dr Alper Ünlü in 2018. She is studying the changes in Istanbul's apartments configurations through Space Syntax programme as her master thesis at present.