In the urban and coastal region surrounding the Marmara Sea, a detachment between human life and the ocean is emerging that seems primarily caused by the consequences of post-industrial anthropogenic processes. The effects are seen in the form of a mucilage plague in the waters, posing a threat to marine life, and thereby emphasizing the urgent need for intervention. This project, strives to unveil the interplay between the natural dynamics of the Sea of Marmara and our human relationship with this vital, pulsating ecosystem.

At its core, the architectural intervention proposes a symbiotic architecture, positioning itself as a mediator that is bridging the widening gap between humanity and nature: An eco-centric approach that dissolves the conventional demarcation lines between land and water. By showcasing the various activities occurring in our oceans, the project seeks to enhance the visible connection and experience, developing a strengthened collective awareness of the ecological body we are part of. A carefully curated journey through an architectural landscape aims to create a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness and cyclical rhythms inherent to the surrounding landscape. Drawing from the insights of J. Bloomer, who challenges the conventional notion of coastlines as mere edges, the project embraces the concept of interrelational edge zones. Here, the terrain is seen not as a binary transition but as a dynamic and continuous process.

In essence, the project aspires to not only address the immediate ecological concerns surrounding the Marmara Sea but also to spark a shift in our collective consciousness. By connecting architectural innovation with ecological principles, it strives to establish a harmonious co-existence between humans and the natural world, fostering a deep ecological awareness that transcends traditional boundaries.

This project explores the ways of thinking about hinterlands – territories of production supporting urbanisation processes. It analyses the area of West Macedonia, Greece, which today exists as an energetic landscape. Profit-oriented schemes of capitalism through subordination and functionalization has led to the marginalization of hinterlands and, in the end, will eventually lead to exhaustion.

After 66 years of lignite extraction, the industry is planning to phase out coal combustion. With the economy highly dominated by mining, this decision has had an extensive impact on the region. To understand it, as well as the events that have led to the current state of transition, the essay examines it through temporalities – interwoven timeframes.

The design proposal cuts through various scales, indicating a new direction for the region with a collection of three interventions of different temporalities, scales, and materials, relating back to the context of the place, ecology, socio-economic forces, and the people.
It states that the hinterland should remain in the state of flux, but in a more balanced, and less profit-oriented manner. It embraces the process of the transition, that naturally affects both the environment, as well as the architectural interventions. It focuses on identifying points of intensification, integrating the necessary steps into existing conditions, as well as looking into what change it would bring over a long period of time.
Proposed interventions highlight certain aspects, their influence is acupunctural, highlighting certain moments as points of intensification. By doing this the project touches a particular place at a specific moment, becoming a point of ignition. However, this is the first step. In contrast to the paradigm of speed of the technological acceleration, the effects of future transformation will be slow and subtle, requiring the active and sustained engagement of long-term partnerships between the inhabitants, and public sectors, with much greater attention to various visible and non-visible layers. Therefore, the project is a small gesture that suggests the direction in which the ongoing continuum of the hinterland should evolve.

The scientific approach of collective mapping, defined as the large-scale mappings and the study of operational systems in the city, is limiting for me. In such approach, only the basic relationships among different organizations and places are being constructed, meaning that this top-down study could not truly reflect ones’ potential experience in the city. To go beyond this limitation, I seek for an approach that aims to construct a sensational understanding of the city from an outsider’s point of view, which is an outsider of the city as well as a strange outsider from the typical outsiders that study through scientific approaches. Through the sensational understanding, what could happen in the city and what the city could be like could be defined. I studied Thessaloniki through Archaeology of Nostalgia. Nostalgia refers to a process of recalling a sensational experience of an individual, which defines ones’ intimate relation between objects and experiences beyond the logical relation of functionality. Archaeology, on the other hand, refers to the study of material culture, like of mementos, to reveal the potential experience associated with different objects. Based on the series of Archaeological speculations, it reveals different potential experiences that are bound to the objects in Thessaloniki, in particular the various situations, interactions, tensions, and visions, hence defining a sensational interpretation besides scientific interpretation. The research starts with speculating the postcards, suggesting the idea of an imaginary reality of the city, which provides the basic ground to study the city away from the limitations of reality such as the location and time. Also, it leads to the understanding that each object suggests multiple experiences that one may have, such as one could see a fountain as a ruin, a public facility, religious object, etc. In order to generate a more comprehensive interpretation of the city, additional objects from the reality are introduced in each phase of archaeological speculations by association, like a segregated situation could associate the segregated old train station. Furthermore, the additional objects also suggest multiple experiences, which allow more possibilities for speculation. From the above concepts, I further developed the main drawings and the Modi Operandi models based on intuition, which resulted in an unpredictable combination of objects and the deconstruction of reality. Through a sequence of speculation, interplays of the different experiences that are embedded in various objects, potential situations, interactions, tensions, and visions have been revealed in the drawings. An imaginary reality of what could have happened in Thessaloniki emerged as a sensational interpretation of the city. This exercise could be a medium to rethink reality in terms of urbanism, usages of space, and architecture, etc. It also questions the approach in understanding the complexity of a city, and the archetype of Thessaloniki and different objects in what they should be.

A wall is both a barrier and an opportunity. The ancient walls of Thessaloniki stand as a monument to this. Since their establishment in the 4th century their status and significance in the city has only grown. Thessaloniki was a trading town strategically placed on a hill overlooking the bay below. As it grew, so did the walls with them eventually spanning from the old town down to the bay. The significance of these walls may seem obvious; they protected against military attacks, but this was a rare exception. The true significance of the walls was more related to micro-control; regulating ingress and egress. In its modern context Thessaloniki is no longer a walled city yet walls have and still play a significant role in the spatial development of the city. In this investigation, the dynamic spectrum of spatial outcomes surrounding the city’s boundary conditions are explored revealing the changing cultural dynamics of the city.

In western modern cities there are these spots that still possesses objects of events that where once before. These objects are alienated objects within the modern city, they can take the observer to a place former to them. The topic of the terrain vague got my interest as the leftover of the industrial, within most industrial areas certain parts are redundant due to progression and have been left there to be taken over by nature. Terrain vague, a Term introduced in Anyplaces by Ignasi de Sola-Morales Rubio. (Davidson, 1995). Ignasi de Sola-Morales talks about these spaces as not being colonized by architecture. They are left over spaces or literary translated by its Latin words; vacant terrains. Is this western European term still viable within the context of a condition within the city of Yekaterinburg? What is the Russian terrain vague? How can the understanding of the Russian culture help to redefine the term in a way that it applies to cities where more places have the nature of the vacant place than the one of colonized architecture? Morales explained the terrain vague as a place to escape the city. Can the terrain vague be a place to escape the pressure of the city in a mental space, a space of seclusion? The state of the city resembles the nature of the Russians, an melancholic almost depressing state. But where does this come from and how can this search for the Russian emotion help to better define the Russian terrain vague? Looking at linguistics, the Russian emotion comes much more from the soul. Russian see the emotion much more as a state of the soul someone is in. Can this metal terrain vague express the soul state of the Russians? This depressing nature of the Russian leads to another understanding of the term terrain vague. It is much more within Russian context about a place which can take you away from a bad place. This turns around its premise of something that was un-colonised by capitalism towards a place where there are these archipelagos of freedom from the depression. Which then within Russian context are these capitalist non-places, creating a paradox which result back to the terrain vague that was mentioned by Ignasi de Sola-Morales?

A project located near to the city of Yekaterinburg in Russia. The design is diving centre in a former talc factory that was in the heart of a industrial town. It builds upon the theory of the liminal transition that also occurs in the sea, where it is called the thermocline. This natural rapid shift in temperature created an in-between state which I explored further as a liminal period. With the design, this liminal experience is physicalized into a diving centre within an old factory on the threshold between a transgressive industrial town and a deserted, now flooded, talc quarry, with the intention to let people learn how to scuba dive before they can experience all the relics on the bottom of the quarry. With the use of materials found on-site, algae that form within the filtration systems of the pools and the structure of the existing factory, the design creates an experience with a mix between artificial and natural and is rather a passing through station then a end destination, therefore staying on the limen, or, treshold.

Borders affect both spatial properties and human behaviors. The way people experience spaces determines the thickness of borders, and the thickness is the space of threshold. This architectural concept is inspired by the architectural elements – door which involves a character of connection and separation. The duality of interface challenges the usages and the status of surroundings at different moments. Thus, the research is about how do the thresholds as an architectural concept mediate the spatial properties and people’s movement?

In contemporary cities, there is a way that the constructed buildings allow possibilities to renovate and re-use instead of building a new one in an empty plot. The courtyards are surrounded by the standard apartments which were the results of economic-oriented policy in Russia. They represent self-built lifestyles in the center of the blocks. However, the city is bound to face the issue of demolition because of planning. The site of the project is one of the common blocks in Yekaterinburg which is a grid city with some generic spatial types. The pedestrian streets and the driveways follow the regular grids and affect the way of movement of people.

The manifesto of the city is called The Door City, it conveys the future city will be a city with some small territories which are closer to the living and walking dimension. The project aims to use a topological way, providing a relation of transformation which can be applied to the grids, the courtyards, and the apartments, in Yekaterinburg. Based on the relation, the small territories can be explored into various spatial programs. Thus, the walking routes are generated by the links of the distributed territories, and all involve the ambiance of a dual property. These spaces of the levels of publicness promote diversity, displaying the behaviors without a clear boundary; also function as a blank for the inhabitants to arrange their courtyard. The project concludes with a reflection and a new insight, giving the city another walking culture and transformation on the community scale.

The researched thematic concerns the phenomenon of cross-border smuggling at the mountainous desert region of Balochistan situated in Pakistan. Balochistan is the most precarious province of the country, bordering both with Iran - at the West - and Afghanistan - on the North. The region has been the homeland of the Balochi people, whose territory has once been divided by the Iran-Pakistan frontier. Balochs have been engaged in cross-border smuggling for years, as a result of the province’s economic negligence, lack of developed job market and investments, as well as an effect of massive resource extraction, led by the Pakistani state and China that pursues their New Silk Road. Despite being an extremely dangerous activity, smuggling has become one of few ways to survive in the economic misery of this desertic land and effectively, has created the region’s standalone economy. The Balochs smuggle oil and diesel food, building materials, drugs, and people mainly using their tuned blue pick-ups. However, the most characteristic commodity smuggled in Balochistan that maintains a core of the local economy is oil and diesel.

The research positions itself in a multi-disciplinary scope, deriving not only from spatial domains such as architecture or urbanism but also, even more importantly, from various social sciences such as ethnography, sociology, anthropology, and politics. Hence, the used sources comprise trans-disciplinary works, often operating on the edge of the above disciplines as well as include diverse media types such as books, official reports, online articles, Instagram posts, or YouTube videos.

The crucial part of the research constituted analyzing the physical aspects of the existing Iran-Pakistan border. Having traced the course of the border on satellite images, several places where the border fortifications are disrupted were observed. Most of these disruptions were naturally created by the periodic penetrating the border fortifications. Eventually, the collection of the areas around the border gaps has become a starting set of sites for the design concept. Basing on the locations around the gaps in the border fortifications, the concept envisions model spatial premises, that would enable smugglers to maintain their occupation and reside in their independent cross-border settlements built along the riverbeds. Adapting to the changing perimeter of the periodic river, the design maintains constant self-transformation. Most importantly, however, the complex, labyrinthic structure of these premises, thanks to its quality of obscurity and confusion, is expected to help smugglers avoiding law enforcement forces pursuits, that currently deter them from trading. The project, therefore, spatializes the condition of the ‘hide and seek’ game that is being repeatedly played out by smugglers from both sides of the border and law enforcement forces. The design takes advantage of a great variety of resources available locally - such as mining minerals, bamboo, or clay, mixed with reused left-overs of smuggled commodities such as car particles, solar panels, or oil barrels. Eventually, to accommodate the spatial strategy to the site-specific conditions, the grasshopper script generating instances of labyrinths adapted to the specific gap indicated in the course of the border was created.

At present, there are two common ways to understand the impact of industries on the environment. One of them is to abstract statistics from the real industrial pollution scene and base the understanding and decision making on those statistics. The other is to regard the images of industrial landscape as a certain type of aesthetics. Neither of these two perspectives can give us a real insight of what is actually happening around Yekaterinburg, one of the cities in the world most polluted by heavy industry, what the causes are and how they have reshaped the local life. Instead, we need a ‘transcorporeal’ perspective - a term developed by Astrida Neimanis and Rachel Loewen Walker. Being transcorporeal, in her essay, means to go beyond the bifurcations of nature-culture or human-weather opposition, and instead to feel the process of ‘weathering’ where human body interacts intimately with the change of temperature, humidity, sunlight resonating in our skin, veins and nerves, for a better understanding and reaction to climate change. This essay applies and adapts Neimanis’ inspiring theory of transcorporeality to the realm of industrial impacts, because climate change and industrial impacts are similar to each other, in the sense that they can both be seen as the disturbance or damage to the natural environment, where human activity has played the main role combined with the feedbacks from the ecosystem, and in return has influenced the living conditions of people. With this ‘transcorporeal’ perspective, we might truly internalize the industrial impact on the environment, and even help us be critical about our moves towards the industrial impacts.