Content uploaded by Pelin Dursun
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Pelin Dursun on Oct 14, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
DESIGNING FOR THE FUTURE OF THE CITY
Pelin Dursun Çebi1*, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu2
1: Department of Architecture
Faculty of Architecture
Istanbul Technical University
34437, Taksim, Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: dursunpe@itu.edu.tr, web: http://akademi.itu.edu.tr/dursunpe/
2: Department of Architecture
Faculty of Fine Arts and Design
Izmir University of Economics
Sakarya Caddesi, No:156, 35330 Balçova, Izmir, Turkey
e-mail: nilufer.kozikoglu@izmirekonomi.edu.tr, web: http://people.ieu.edu.tr/en/niluferkozikoglu
Keywords: Productive City, Smart City, Architectural Design
Abstract A rapid acceleration in urbanization has appeared as an important by-product
of the world's globalization process, with the result that cities have now become man's
primary habitat. This development is both forcing urban environments to embrace
increasing numbers of inhabitants, despite their often limited resources, and requiring
21st century architects and urban planners to quickly develop new ideas and new forms
on how to direct the futures of global cities. Faced as they are by the challenges of
sustainability, these architects and planners are exploring ways both to rehabilitate
existing urban centers and come up with new modes of space production. This study
concentrates on the concept of the smart city and explores these new approaches by
considering the findings achieved by the IAAC Global Summer School, which was
conducted at the ITU Faculty of Architecture in 2013. This summer school was conducted
as a means in the investigation of new strategies for urban development and city
production by focusing on such different aspects as the production of knowledge,
production of food, production of objects, and the production of energy. In order to
enhance the discussion of this development, this work looks at the method of exploration
utilized and the ideas set forth by the architectural student participants and considers
their suggestions for adaptive and reactive spatial infrastructures. The aim of this study is
to the enable architects to enhance their spatial awareness while generating new ideas for
the future of the city.
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
2
1. INTRODUCTION
Today, globalization is both stimulating the urbanization process and transforming our cities
into man's primary habitat. Between the years of 1900 and 2000, the global urban population
expanded from 225 million to 2.9 billion [1]. While 15% of the total world population of 1.5
billion resided in cities in 1900, by the year 2000, 47% of the total world population of 6.2
billion resided in cities. By 2030 global population is expected to rise by 60% with
approximately 4.9 billion people living in urban settings [2]. Such enormous and complex
congregations of people will cause new kinds of problems in mega cities, problems that will
include a scarcity of resources, issues relative to waste disposal, air pollution, inadequate
infrastructure, health concerns, etc. [3]. These developments, hand-in-hand with ever new
advanced technologies, are forcing architects and urban planners to generate new design ideas
for more sustainable, self-sufficient, livable, efficient, responsive, and in-formed architecture
of cities and buildings [4]. New technologies are encouraging designers to create new design
logics and new ways of designing and constructing for the future of the cities. “Smart city,"
“intelligent city," “digital city," “information city,” and/or “self-sufficient city” are emerging
concepts that describe this new 21st century urban phenomenon.
Most approaches dealing with the concept of the smart city focus on issues related to
technology. Washburn et al address the concept of the smart city by looking at the use of
smart computing technologies [5]. Harrison et al envision the smart city by listing three main
necessary characteristics: instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. “Instrumentation”
enables the capture and integration of real-time, real-world data from both physical and
virtual sensors. The combination of instrumented and interconnected systems effectively
connects the physical world to the virtual world. “Interconnected” means the integration of
those data into a computing platform and the communication of such information among the
various city services. “Intelligent” refers to the inclusion complex analytics, modeling,
optimization and visualization in the operational processes [6]. Besides these, other
approaches used to conceptualize the smart city also present a growing demand for more
efficient, sustainable and “livable” models for cities [7].
The concept of smartness in architecture cannot be understood merely as being an injection of
new technologies into old strategies. The term requires innovation both in design thinking,
making, and manufacturing. Here architectural approaches mostly consider new type of
infrastructures that effectuate the transport of data or information that allow cities to perform
as living organisms and influence behavior [4]. These approaches aim at ways of advancing
cities that are responsive to environmental or social data and user needs, and promoting the
participation of residents in the collection and sharing of neighborhood data. According to
Markopouou et al, we are moving towards different forms of habitats, forms in which we do
not simply inhabit our architecture but also integrate, interact and evolve with them. The
fundamental shift in paradigm is thus in understanding cities and architecture not as
efficiently designed machines, but as dynamic ever-changing ecosystems [4].
By utilizing information and communication technologies in spatial planning, these new
architectural forms aim to construct intelligent entities that continuously interact and
interchange resources with their environment, with the context, with the medium, with the
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
3
user, the citizen [8]. These informational, interactive and relational structures render
architectural space more sustainable, more sensitive, and more conducive to individual
involvement. Thus the trend becomes moving from old, static, definite and finished icons
towards more open, fluctuated, changing, and responsive spatial entities. Today cities are no
longer a collection of passive infrastructures, but active and complex environments able to
produce real-time feedback on our activities, to communicate, to generate innovation [9].
This study aims to explore the new modes of production under the effect of computational
advances. The discussion is developed by focusing on the following questions: Is the citizen
of the new era a consumer of architecture or is s/he its real constructor? Does this citizen
perform as a consumer of its information or is s/he its real creator? Do the enabling and
encouraging of citizens to perform as participating members of the community result in more
sustainable built environments? Can information technologies assist in providing real-time
data that can shape our urban environments?
These questions are explored by investigating the results of the IAAC (Institute for Advanced
Architecture of Catalonia) Global Summer School (GSS), which was conducted at the ITU
Faculty of Architecture in 2013. In the scope of the work a discussion of these concepts is
advanced by considering the ideas developed and presented by the participant architecture
students relative to the creation of adaptive and reactive spatial infrastructures. It is our hope
that this study will enable architects to enhance their spatial awareness and lead to the
generating of new ideas for the future of the city.
2. IAAC GLOBAL SUMMER SCHOOL: PRODUCTIVE CITY
The theme of the IAAC GSS ‘13 was defined as the “Productive City,” and had the
participation of institutes from Istanbul, Mumbai, New York, Mexico and Tehran. The aim of
these synchronized efforts was to investigate the current agenda on new urbanization by
concentrating on local responses, research and implementations. IAAC GSS also sought to
investigate multi-scale strategies that would lead to the (re)construction of our habitats. This
topic was selected in recognition of the fact that recent technological, social, political,
economical and cultural changes are influencing dramatic changes in space and its utilizations
and this, in turn, is forcing us to re-think the kinds of habitats humanity will live in the
coming decades. It was also recognized that the world's major interest in climate change
control, the incorporation of the green agenda in urban development, the local development of
energy production techniques, the incorporation of information technology to physical space
and other relevant situations, require a new vision regarding the development of the city and
architecture [10].
The concept of the Productive City addresses the production of energy, alimentation, and
other entities that are key to the establishment of self-sufficient habitats. The world's
population now largely resides in urban environments and is disconnected from the sites of
energy, alimentation, and object production and manufacture. One aim of the IAAC GSS ‘13
was to refer to this disconnect and to investigate the opportunities existing in urban
environments for the production of these key elements [10].
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
4
3. IAAC 2013 ISTANBUL SESSIONS
The agenda of the Istanbul sessions was based on the themes of “infrastructures” and
“networked city." These concepts concentrated on the notions of system and network on an
environmental/regional scale and on formal material systems on a tectonic scale [11]. In such
densely populated, dynamic, and growing cities like Istanbul, the idea of productivity
highlights the production of knowledge. In the production processes carried out in smart
cities, the dissemination and transmission of knowledge becomes essential. The project thus
aimed to create spatial-temporal urban installations that could interact with local
environmental conditions. Urban “smartness” was thus created through the multiplication of
different formations of these responsive installations in a specific region [11].
The method for the design process involves experimenting with materials and systems that are
artifacts of the urban. The smart city agenda for Istanbul sessions was formulated in a
synthetic manner: take the technological (escalators, pistons) biological and chemical (moss,
plants, minerals), electronic (processors, sensors), industrial products (hoses, plywood,
clamps) as ingredients of the equation and approach them as the cavemen treat the woods,
media to explore and make. Today advent of the personal computer with the immensity of the
industrial production is a derivative resource for the urban dweller to handle, and reshape, to
make and personalize the goods, turn the role of the consumer to an individual maker. Smart
city therefore is translated into the individual, the group and the network of groups into the
production and sharing of goods, knowledge and energy and (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Material and System Research
The project site corresponds to the network emphasis of the local brief. The main campus of
the Istanbul Technical University, Ayazaga, was thus duly selected as a research area. Five
campuses of the Istanbul Technical University both form a spatial network and also constitute
important components of the social and educational infrastructures of the city. Of these five
campuses, Ayazaga Campus, located in a major commercial zone of the city, is the largest,
most diverse campus in ecological, topographical, administrative, and climatic aspects.
Preliminary workshops aimed for data collection and preparation for digital and physical
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
5
toolsets. Arduino sensor boxes placed at the campus served to map micro-climatic data.
Analyses on the pedestrian flow and movement patterns in the existing spatial layout helped
to decode the key features of the spatial network. So that design proposals could be formed
with the use of real time data. To this end, site specificity denoted that design ideas
incorporating new interfaces could be shaped by the exploration of the interactions between
space and body.
In this case, space syntax was used to explore, understand, and evaluate architectural space.
This constitutes a kind of mapping in which the built environment is accepted as a spatial and
social network and one that aims to depict the living culture by focusing on organization of
spaces, movement patterns and their social meanings.
Figure 2. Spatial Analysis of the Ayazaga Campus (Workshop Team: M. Gencer, I. Kalkan, A. Inal, E. Yetim)
A workshop team first identified eleven key points on the campus and observed the pedestrian
movement flow, while recording the data at specific time periods including the main
pedestrian entrance gates and the surrounding key spaces that link the campus to the city
(Figure 2). Also included were those zones along the main axis of the campus where the
social, cultural and educational buildings are located. Then, spatial configuration of the
campus was analyzed by the help of space syntax software. Here, the most integrated spaces
of the spatial complex were depicted with the color red, and the degree of relative integration
was represented by the density of tone ranging from red to blue, with dark blue indicating the
most segregated areas. The most integrated spaces produce the highest levels of movement
flow and represent the key spaces for social encounters as they host the campus' main
activities. The most segregated spaces produce the lowest movement flow and tend to be
separated from the rest. The analysis demonstrated that this spatial mapping correlates well
with the observational records.
4. DESIGN PROPOSALS AT IAAC 2013 ISTANBUL SESSIONS
Two design proposals, titled Mutua-supra and Act-in, were developed in the course of the
workshop studies. These were designed as responsive and intelligent infrastructural
installations linked to bicycle paths in the campus.
The first design proposal, Mutua-supra, was established in a way that it could create a
reciprocal relationship between the infrastructure and the superstructure [11]. Its aim was to
catalyze use of underused or wasted space areas on the campus by introducing a bicycle
utilization system and a green superstructure that promotes environmental awareness. The aim
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
6
here was to develop this mutual relationship that would transform these inactive and
underused areas into active spaces that could be utilized for a variety of social activities
(Figure 3).
Figure 3. Mutua-supra (Design Team: I. Kalkan, S. Josceline with B. Biçer, M. Kokkinos, C.K. Bingöl)
This proposal includes an in-campus bicycle sharing that will provide an alternative for the
primarily automobile-based existing transport infrastructure. Thus the eco-friendly network of
cycling routes would both lessen fossil fuel driven vehicles and increase accessibility. When
interfaced with the web, this transportation system could also be transformed into a social
network in which users can interact and play active roles. The proposed smart system also
includes a solar energy collection component that would charge bicycle batteries, thus
lowering user energy footprints.
Mutua-supra project is based on pervasive algae farms that would establish a self-sufficient
spatial system. The design scenario called for the feeding of algae farms by the users. These
farms would also benefit from the existing energy resources of the campus recycling process.
The idea was to use these farms as bicycle sharing stations with the assistance of four main
system supplements: electricity, water, carbon dioxide, and bioluminescence algae.
According to the proposal, waste carbon dioxide and water would be collected from the
ventilation systems of extant buildings then used to feed the bioluminescence algae. By
creating a connection to the existing system of electricity, the energy provided from smart
phone applications was also fed back to the system so that H2O, CO2 and algae move.
The proposal suggests that users could change the shape and pattern of algae farms via pistons
used as urban furniture for different activities such as sitting, resting, playing etc. At night, the
resultant bioluminescence algae provides light for the campus spaces for social activities.
The second design proposal, Act-in aims to create interactive meeting points in the campus
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
7
[11]. Rather than imposing specific functions to particular spaces on the campus, it explores
more flexible and adaptable spaces that would be shaped by the contribution of their users.
The idea was that the relation between body and space would define the needs and the
function of the area; that would lead more open, incomplete and dynamic spatial systems
(Figure 4).
The design proposal attempts to generate a multi-centric spatial network in the campus. Each
center allows intercommunication by a digital interface. This allows the system to act as a
knowledge transmitter. The centers allocated for such diverse functions as riding, meeting,
waiting, eating, playing, and reading, etc. would both motivate the user to be active and would
be open for alternative functions.
The current location of each center affects the behavior of others. In the scope of the project,
this physical interaction was complimented by digital interaction. The proposed mobile
application allows its users to participate in the space and share their experiences creating new
spaces for social interaction.
Figure 4. Act-in (Design Team: M. Gencer, K. Kallavi, B. O. Turan with G. Gündüz, D. Tümerdem, C.K. Bingöl)
The location of the each center was defined by the help of syntactic analysis of the existing
spatial layout of the campus and the observed pedestrian movement flow. By implementing
integrated digital sensors, the outer facades of the each center were designed as mechanical,
smart surfaces that can be responsive to such environmental factors as rain, sun or wind.
Flexible architectonic systems were investigated in order to create these interactive surfaces
as living organisms.
Installations that represented the ideas explored during the summer school with sensors,
pistons, algae and woven industrial materials were exhibited at the Architectural Biennale in
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
8
Antalya, as Post-productions.
Figure 5. Post Productions of IAAC Summer School
5. CONCLUSIONS
Design is an experimental process that includes both exploration and discovery. The architect
learns by doing and experimenting [12]. Today architectural design education crosses borders
of design studios and expands and moves into cities, and then even beyond cities and
individual countries.
The IAAC GSS is a rewarding educational program that provides opportunities for
architecture students to work, think, and learn together in an international platform. By
focusing on the theme of the “Productive City," the GSS ‘13 revealed an informative process
that enhances our spatial awareness by presenting alternative ways of engaging with the
theme, and the possible ways that they can be transformed into different design proposals in a
networked environment.
The city is transformed from being only a form and becomes a rather complex system of
relationships and events that are engaged in a process in which simultaneous processes of
action and reaction are triggered [8]. According to Gausa, the city of the new era is defined
and redefined dynamically, continuously, and relationally by combining diverse and
simultaneous layers of information and infrastructural networks of exchange. The city thus
becomes characterized by information that can be classified as topographic, biological,
economic, cultural, environmental, socio-political, etc. On the other hand, the city is
organized by such infrastructural networks as transport, energy, diffusion, communication and
by relative demographic and financial movements [8]. Here, it must be noted that today each
city produces its own informational structure, which it exhibits both spatially and
architecturally. This information structure generates responsive environments, configured by
the interaction of people, objects, spaces, boundaries, networks, interfaces and content [13].
Design proposals developed during Istanbul sessions were aimed at creating social and spatial
networks on the Ayazaga Campus. The nodes of these networked structures that host diverse
activities were shaped by the interaction of their users. These units have been organized in a
way that promotes strong interrelationships that form and transform each other. Here inactive,
static forms of space give way to more dynamic, organic, flexible and active forms that have
the capabilities of communicating with its users and responding to environmental conditions.
Experimenting with electronic, biological and material systems with hands on and synthetic
manner, the projects evolved with a systemic and multilayered composition. It allowed the
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
9
projects to be focused on effects, processes and interaction, rather than a fixed outcome; they
served a temporal approach that included behaviors, phases, versions and loops (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Experiments with Electronic, Biological and Material Systems
Site specificity and responsiveness are achieved by utilization of sensors and mapping. Real-
time data provides substantial feed-back for the architects to both utilize in the design process
and as means in developing and evaluating their proposals. Sustainability is acquired by the
efficient use of campus resources and reducing consumption. In both proposals bicycle
sharing system creates an eco-friendly alternative to existing transportation system in the
campus by minimizing air pollution and fuel consumption. The on-campus underused or
wasted resources are activated and incorporated in the designed scenarios as a means of
generating new spaces and promoting new social interaction. These proposals inject new lives
and functions into existing campus spaces and stimulate their utilization, as well as providing
alternative solutions such as the use of waste carbon dioxide and water to feed green
infrastructure.
Smart spaces are shaped with real time data, feedback, and information technologies. The
proposed ideas are remarkable in terms of their fabrication techniques, selection and use of
materials, tectonic characteristics. Designed spaces appear as algae farms, smart surfaces,
canopies, shells, and/or urban furniture emerging socializing catalysts.
The process is an indicator that ITU Ayazaga Campus has significant potential to model for a
smart campus in Istanbul. Proposed design ideas demonstrate GSS ‘13 program serve as an
important architectural research tool relative to the production of spatial knowledge and
architectural space. Efficient use of existing energy resources becomes recognized as a way to
create self-sufficient and sustainable architectural space, while the project also underscores
that the contribution of information and communication technologies in the process of design
techniques and the novel experiential characteristics of these new architectural spaces.
The primary result of the process demonstrates designed spaces that are unfixed, organic, self-
sufficient and sustainable in terms of their tectonic characteristics and materials, information
Pelin Dursun Çebi, Nilüfer Kozikoğlu
10
technologies and living scenarios exhibited. The projects reveal a new design culture that
stimulates production, action and interaction. The users of these new spaces are no longer
simply passive consumers, but are now active procedural participants who assist in the
creation, construction, and development of an architectural space or spaces.
REFERENCES
[1] H. Girardet, Cities People Planet: Liveable Cities for a Sustainable World, Wiley-
Academy Press, England, 2004.
[2] P. Hayes, “The Crowded City: People on the Move”, in The Lure of the City, from
Slums to Suburbs, edited by Austin Williams and Alastair Donald, Pluto Press, 2011.
[3] H. Chourabi, T. Nam, S. Walker, J.R. Gil-Garcia, S. Mellouli, K. Nahon, T. A. Pardo,
H.J. Scholl, “Understanding Smart Cities: An Integrative Framework”, 45th Hawaii
International Conference on System Science, 2012,
http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/journals/hicss_2012_smartcities/hicss_2012_smartcities.
pdf.
[4] A. Markopoulou, R., Rubio, J. Laarman, S. Jokic, P. Novikov, T. D. Ladera,
“In(form)ation Smart Living Architecture”, SAJ (Serbian Architectural Journal,
pp.132-159, 2013.
[5] D. Washburn, U. Sindhu, Helping CIOs Understand Smart City, Initiatives,
Cambridge, MA: Forrester Research, Inc, 2010,
http://c3328005.r5.cf0.rackcdn.com/73efa931-0fac-4e28-ae77-8e58ebf74aa6.pdf.
[6] C. Harrison, B. Eckman, R. Hamilton, P. Hartswick, J. Kalagnanam, J. Paraszczak,
P. Williams, “Foundations for Smarter Cities”, IBM Journal of Research and
Development, 54 (4), 2010.
[7] D. Toppeta, The Smart City Vision: How Innovation and ICT Can Build Smart,
Livable, Sustainable Cities, The Innovation Knowledge Foundation, 2010,
http://www.inta-
aivn.org/images/cc/Urbanism/background%20documents/Toppeta_Report_005_2010.pdf.
[8] M. Gausa, “City Sense: Territorializing Information”, in City Sense, Shaping our
Environment with Real-Time Data, edited by IAAC, Barcelona, 2012.
[9] R. Rubio, “Data Sensing” in City Sense, Shaping our Environment with Real-Time
Data, edited by IAAC, Barcelona, 2012.
[10] IAAC, Brief, IAAC 2013 Global Summer School: Productive Cities, 2012.
[11] N. Kozikoglu, “Productive City Istanbul 2013”, Journal of XXI, vol.127, pp. 10-12,
March 2014.
[12] D.A. Schön, Educating the Reflective Practitioner, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, A
Wiley Imprint, 1987.
[13] S. Cros, The Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture: City, Technology and
Society in the Information Age, Actar, pp.345, 2003.
