Micro-Networks of Istanbul's Streets, Turkey

The “Micro-Networks of Istanbul’s Streets” workshop will research and reveal the urban identity of Tophane, a dynamic neighborhood in Istanbul that includes the GSAPP’s Studio-X facility. The neighborhood—home to Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Roma and Muslim immigrants—has historically had a multiethnic composition. Embedded within this multicultural mix are street-based micro-scale economic networks essential to Tophane’s everyday life. These networks exist beneath the surface but are integral to the neighborhood’s everyday life and identity, from corner shops (bakkal) that sell goods to residents using buckets lowered from above to semi-clandestine urban recycling networks to the extensive community of food cart hawkers. The workshop will ask students to conduct “live research” of the micro-scale urban networks in Tophane through video interviews, research diagrams, and design drawings. Their research will generate proposals for design interventions in the micro-networks, which will be similarly small-scale and will imagine possible futures as Tophane transforms with the rest of the city. Both the research and design proposals will be exhibited in Studio-X Istanbul and will become part of a workshop publication.

Generously supported by Bilgili Holding.