Today, Istanbul’s urban spatial structure has been dominated by three phenomena: informal housing, uncoordinated and uncontrolled urban intensification, and mass housing projects. It stands out particularly in the case of Kayabaşı neighborhood located on Istanbul’s Western periphery. Rigid, orthogonal layout of each group of blocks gives a dose of abstraction to the spaces in between them. Disregarded, considered boring and unsightly, generic buildings of this type are now proliferating the whole country, taking on residential, industrial and commercial functions, trying to keep up with the fast pace of economic growth. The feature that links them, muteness, is defined by me as ‘a state of being unable or not willing to speak, express or represent in a particular context’ (does not equal emptiness).
Project investigates the alternative scenarios of the peripheral spaces of Istanbul and potentials of erasing visual pleasure and lack of communication between the building and an observer, through theoretical approach and in-depth analysis of the subjective observations.
The research conducted during my graduation along with the project resulting from it aims to challenge existing aesthetic categories and shed light on a topic which is neglected by contemporary architectural practice. Hopefully, it will contribute to appreciation or at least stronger focus on the mute and introverted built objects , as they are already very present not only in Turkey and start to cover more and more land areas.

Light, shadow and shade are at the foundation of our cartesian understanding of 3D space. Where light falls on matter the difference in shading allows us to see this space. However, light also breaks this understanding creating the potential for a phenomenological understanding instead. Which is seen with an extradimensionality in certain situations, where space does not make sense. In this moment, where matter falls on light, the very fabric of the world is distorted. This thesis investigates what happens in between these moments, the infinite movement within the finite moment. The spatial implications of the movement between states are echoed in the material approach, where the relation between figure and ground is investigated and reversed. The polished building and the resulting quarry become the polished quarry and the resulting built form. Creating a monolithic structure, suspended in different states, at once a careful balance between addition and subtraction and between matter and light as principal shaper of space.

Marseille as a port city that is in constant flux carries out a vast array of qualities and experiences that creates a dynamic collection in which heterogenous conventions, orders, and routines interrelate and collide. It is a complex urban network of places and fragments that come together in this context of ‘otherness’.
Analysing Marseille through a heterotopic lens in our collective preliminary research has led me to the exploration of additional characteristics of the city as forms of ‘other’. I do not consider heterotopias essentially as spaces of resistance - as has been interpreted by many scholars - but as sites that colligate and connect different logics and norms.
This thesis looks at the ‘Absurd’ as a form of ‘otherness’ that emerges out of non-conventional that challenges common relationships and orders.
In philosophical terms, the absurd refers to the constant conflict between the human tendency to find meaning and purpose in life and their inability to find
these certain values.
Absurd does not provide a resolution, even though it is not an anti-resolution. It essentially operates by consistently colliding and juxtaposing different orders, norms, and conventions to dismantle customary relationships. The absurd does not bring forward any point since it points to the pointlessness.

In the absurd, there is no greater question, no moral lesson, no essence, and no story. There might be the appearance of a tale… only the wait for
Godot; the story never consummates, but the space for it latently exists. As paradoxical as the absurd is, the setting produced out of absurdity is indeed
elusive.

This graduation research focuses on discovering new ways of housing the elderly that fits the changed elderly healthcare policy in the Netherlands. It explores ways how to embed them into a neighborhood in which they can rely on support from their neighbors in order to keep them longer at home independently. This has been done by creating a social and cohesive environment on one hand, and providing them with an adaptive building on the other that can react to changing healthcare demands.

Exhibition 1 October - 26 October 2018, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (Delft University of Technology), Corridor@en