Between Disorder and Encounter

Project idea

A Structural Ground for Urban Encounters — where the city reveals its hidden rhythms through fragments, temporary structures and improvised boundaries. Disorder is not a flaw here — it becomes the ground where encounters unfold.

Project description

The project investigates the threshold between disorder and encounter in the urban context of Karaköy, Istanbul, focusing on the old city walls between the sea and the city that have been interrupted over time. The walls of Kurşunlu Han, like many hans in Karaköy, have an inviting effect, yet those who step inside find it difficult to find their way. Under the pressure of trade and intense urbanization, historical traces have been pushed into the background, and the growing population continues to bury the city's memory beneath the ground. The project proposes a structural framework where existing industrial fragments host new programs: storage turns into collective kitchens, loading docks become open studios, and machines are replaced by making, exchange, and gathering. The shore is treated as a threshold where the traces of today collide with the flow of the present, where memory dissolves in water and reshapes itself.

Technical information

The section operates through manual systems — folding bridges, movable walkways, flexible facades. Each mechanism reacts to human action, turning infrastructure into a tactile experience. The physical model explores how metal workshops, open docks, and public circulation routes intertwine. Each iteration investigates how the structure stretches towards the sea, balancing industrial production with public accessibility. Program includes common food activity, exchange main space, open workshop, food as interaction, collective lab, and exchange rooms. Cartographies of exchange define relationship studies emerging from observing collisions — points where circulation, gathering, and dwelling overlap.

Documentation

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