A project about the loss of Georgia's bathing culture in the shift from East to West. Resulting in a new typology for a underground bathhouse in the mountain region near Tbilisi; using stone and metal.

This essay examines political-geographical liminality as a theoretical concept and its influence on the built environment. I will argue that liminality is strongly context-dependent and dynamic, highlighting how border regions often oscillate between ideological paradigms. The main research question of this essay will be: ‘How do liminality and oscillation between ideological paradigms influence the built environment?’ The essay will show that the effect of liminality takes form in a constant reshaping of a country's narrative. To fit the imagined identity, the built environment can become subject to alteration, as architecture and urban design can serve as physical manifestations of political agendas, cultural ideologies and historical memory. Shifts in geopolitical power and identity aspirations frequently leave their mark on cities, reshaping landscapes to align with dominant narratives and rejecting elements that contradict them. By exploring the connection between the large geopolitical scale and the smaller urban scale, the essay underscores how global and regional dynamics are inscribed into the local environment.

The concept of liminality, stemming from anthropological studies of rites of passage by Arnold van Gennep and later reinterpreted by Victor Turner captures the essence of ‘in-betweenness’ and will be explained more in-depth in the first chapter, Defining Liminality. The concept is characterised by ambiguity and has been interpreted in multiple ways, in the realm of political-geographical liminality, there is more consensus about what the concept entails and will, therefore, define the rest of this essay. The concept of liminality is very much spatially-bound and therefore chapter two, On the Periphery, will be about marginal spaces. Political-geographical liminality not only describes an in-between state but also underscores the tension between forces that shape identity, autonomy and spatial development, in chapter three, Trauma and the Built Environment, the attention will be drawn to the effect of liminality of a city’s built environment.

The vast area that has become available with the closure of Atatürk Havalimanı has turned into a void in the metropolis. Although it is deeply ingrained in the fabric of the city and its infrastructure, the area is completely closed off and inaccessible to the public. This raises the question: How can architecture transform enclosed urban areas and engender their transformation into public space?

Especially in Istanbul, where the number of enclosed areas has steadily increased, it is relevant to research how architecture can address enclosure. Specifically, the areas abandoned due to the departure and closure of an airport need to be considered because they are deeply integrated into the fabric of the city and its infrastructure. The transformation of the former Atatürk Havalimanı will explore the relationships between the city, the void, and its exclusionary perimeter.

The project aims to establish an approach to the transformation of existing infrastructure. It encompasses various disciplines within the faculty and, therefore, serves as an interesting exercise in transferability. With the practice of architecture becoming an increasingly interdisciplinary field, these types of projects offer valuable insights into the boundaries of the field and how methods traditionally associated with architecture can be applied on larger and smaller scales. The fence-like structure is based on design principles derived from my urban analysis, theoretical research, and the local conditions. Therefore, the design is specific to its site, but the methods discovered throughout the process and the conceptual approach are transferable. For instance, the research and subsequent design consider the thresholds between different identities as spaces with a certain depth. This approach can be valuable in enhancing spaces and reflecting on the spatial conditions that shape them.

Filtering and differentiation at borders shape the composition and multiplicity of living labor, as well as the formation of often exploitative labor regimes. The relation between migration and the garments and textile Industry in the area of Istanbul, the center of textile and garments production and simultaneously a destination and hub for migration is exemplary of this condition. Transnational economic, labor and migration policies are reflected in the spatial manifestation of the textile and garments sector in the area of Istanbul. This leads to a heterogeneity of practices in the organization of the production system with main suppliers, subcontractors, retailers, home based worker’s networks and logistics, creating dense industry clusters extending deep into residential areas converting them into assembly lines, turning neighborhoods into machines. While technology is advancing rapidly labor conditions have remained problematic and outdated production models account for overproduction and waste.
Architecture can address these socio political and economic issues and these in turn shape architecture therefore it is worth it to make an experiment and let the systems networks and methods of garment production contaminate architecture: How is architecture transformed by using and reshuffling networks and production processes of the garment industry? What does a hybridization of these production processes and systems uncover about them? Which parameters can be manipulated for architecture to act as an agent in improving labor conditions and production processes?
This context sets the frame for discussing issues such as transitions in labor and production models, genericness, mass customization, flexibility, high-tech versus low-tech sparking a debate on how we fabricate architecture.

Integrating shipyards with the surrounding context and unveiling the strong relation between this historic industry and Istanbul. As mentioned in the problematization section, the industry shapes leftover spaces which are not currently used. The project will aim to utilize these spaces in the shipyards by creating a series of interventions without interfering with the industry’s processes while trying to invite people outside of this context. The result will be a number of different structures, varying in uses and functions, referred to as magnets. The organization of the structures and their program will be carefully structured. Each point will have a carefully selected purpose, acting both as an individual mechanism but also as an integral part of the holistic experience of the route that is created from linking all the different points. The route will transition from land to water to carefully frame and portray all the different perspectives the shipyard can be viewed from.

The purpose of those structures is going to address the technical aspect of the yards (architecture as a machine) where the ships become a source of materials that can be treated with different strategies to result to a variety of potential outcomes. Repurposing part of them while hosting new program or even fully disassembling them to create a material library for the construction of the new built fabric. The project will act as a demonstration of the endless possibilities of reusing and recycling parts and materials from retired ships.

The programmatic use of the interventions will aim to frame the shipyard, so that the visitor can understand the complex operations of the industry. Multiple viewing points are integrated to allow this to happen but also resting areas and temporary housing accommodations allow the visitor to slowly approach the complex spatial conditions that are present on site.
1. Reception and Changing rooms
2. Temporary Houses
3. Resting Space / Cafe
4. Observatory

'Transitional territories: architecture of (post)-extraction in the Ağaçlı coal fields, Istanbul' revolves around the interaction between soil, extraction and architecture. The project addresses the ephemerality of extractive landscapes, imagining new ways of relating to the earth. Seeing soil not as a static being, but as a dynamic vehicle of becoming, a medium constantly in transition.
Throughout the history of Istanbul, the city has used different forms of energy supply for heating and electricity. The Ağaçli coal fields have been extracted for coal to supply the energy to Istanbul during a large part of the twentieth century. Although the rate and volume of extraction have since then reduced, the landscape is still a a testimony to the changing grounds. The history
of extraction still remains clearly visible in the topography, which is formed by different types of extraction sites. The project considers architectural modes of extraction, changing the logic to incorporate and legitimate the soil in a way that constructs new spatial relations and forms. The project questions the standard reclamation narrative by positioning itself on the frontiers of cultivated and wild land, between past and present.

The focus of this thesis is on the phenomenon of the informal settlement and its
informal economy. The location of the graduation project called Tarlabası is an informal settlement in the middle of the city centre of Istanbul. The neighbourhood has been a shelter for the poor, refugees and minorities for generations. The district functions as its own hidden and self-regulating world.
This has created an informal economy that is inextricably linked to the rest of Istanbul, such as the waste/recycling industry. It cannot exist without the informal branch of waste pickers, who are responsible for 80% of recycling in Turkey. The unique district of Tarlabası is seen as bad and criminal by
the authoritarian neoliberal city planners. Therefore, the neighbourhood has already been hit by gentrification processes, ignoring the unique characteristics and social roots of this neighbourhood. Urban renewal or gentrification or however you want to name it, is seen as a necessary tool to erase certain parts of social and physical identities created in the last 50 years via programs of demolition and resettlement. Residents are evicted or given unfair compensation to leave their homes or workplaces. As a result, the gentrification processes result in a displacement of the poor, driving them away from the city centre and their informal work. In 2009, at least one million residents in Istanbul were under threat of forced eviction due to the Urban Transformation Project. The unique characteristics, such as creativity, flexibility, intrinsic value and self-regulation are ignored by the top-down view of modernization, leading to generic neighbourhoods without economic flexibility and with social segregation, but also resulting in a further decline of informal settlements. This thesis aims to take a critical look at the current neoliberalist modernization processes of
urban areas around the world through the case of Istanbul. Urban informality is receiving more and more attention in the literature, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about how we can deal with this phenomenon in urban design and architecture.

This graduation addresses the need to improve living conditions in informal settlements, while also preserving the cultural and social identity of the communities living there. The question of how to improve the living conditions in these settlements while also respecting the cultural and social identity of the residents is a complex one. It requires a holistic approach that takes into account not only physical infrastructure and services, but also the social, economic, and cultural context of the community.
Addressing this research question could have a significant impact on the lives of people living in informal settlements, by improving their living conditions and promoting sustainable development. It could also serve as a model for addressing similar challenges in other cities and countries. Furthermore, it also requires a delicate balance between the preservation of cultural heritage and the need for modernization and improvement of living conditions.

The Earth has been used as a shelter in ancient times as one of humankind’s first inhabitation methods, as these natural cavities are known for their safety and climate stability. Today, beneath the modern cities, under the buildings and streets, a complex network of spaces, pipes, tunnels, and pillars hold the cities together while keeping them alive. While our modern cities above the ground keep evolving, the underground cities become more complex and denser. Unfortunately, the underground spaces belonging to the first and second world wars, like bunkers and air-raid shelters, are mostly neglected and forgotten from further development, which excludes the underground cities and spaces in particular out of the perception and thus the memory of the inhabitants. This paper will first create a general understanding of perception and create an individual memory in the underground spaces. Then it will investigate the collective memory as a fundamental part of the underground structures. Finally, a theoretical framework will be developed and discussed to establish a new collective memory by creating a counter-memory through spatial architectural experience.

Mashhad has been geopolitically an important city in the region and a trade and connection hub to Central and East Asian countries. It is also the second-largest Muslim pilgrimage city after Mecca. It is a global city for which religion shaped the identity and influenced the spatial configuration of the city.

Religion, politics and economics are the main forces which run the city and have not only affected the growth and development of the whole city but are involved in the shift toward a large-scale infrastructure, which has become a dominant idea of city planning during the last few centuries.

Overlapping the flows and its agencies reveals that district six is the logistic hub and the entrance to the city, it encounters both scales regional and local, therefore it is the site of intervention.

Mapping the different flows, spaces and everyday life reveals that the big infrastructure is informed, and has strong connectivity with its surrounding region however it creates discontinuous relationships on the local scale, the local scale is neglected. moreover, its main spaces are economic driving, and the marginal settlement, are result of this spaces.
People are vulnerable society, they have access only to groundwater due to technical problems associated with expansion of the system in marginal areas, groundwater is highly contaminated.

The project aims to bridge not only physically but also socially culturally and environmentally. It is located within the infrastructure node (Ghadir square) transferring its space into Hybrid spaces which have multifunctional use, inhabiting the infrastructure space and transforming its spaces into places. Its atmosphere encounters both natural and urban, regional and local.
The main emphasis is on the water, driving from the research, the project is an assemblage of different function water filtration system, metro, market, educational centre, parking and communal spaces, each function with its own individual character has its border and territorial scale but all are connected to the central park and water tank.

Creating neighbourhood identities based on their distinctive interrelationship with water.

The city of Trieste has been filled with ageing urban fabrics and abandoned industrial buildings due to obsolescence. Witnessing the decay of the city excusably provoked the pessimism of the locals as it made them conscious of the fact that their life and pride are degrading. The negative labels associated with decay inevitably seized the general definition and cognition. However, deterioration can only be understood as one of the superficial readings of the phenomenon of decay. As depicted in many arts and literature, decay does have its only poetics, aesthetics and intrinsic values that embellish and complement the urban environment and memories. Meanwhile, the degeneration of architecture with symbolic values, be it an intentional or inadvertent incident, would implicate significant political messages and ideas to the society. In the case of Trieste, the meanings of this natural (and occasionally artificial) process are still to be explored and discussed. Is there a possibility that decay could be considered a constructive phenomenon that can sublime as a form of regeneration for the ageing city? The project would then be an experiment that attempts to embrace the material processes, aesthetics and the spatial and programmatic potentials informed by the phenomenon of decay. It searches for alternative answers to the preestablished architectural typologies, meanings and purposes through rethinking on the current preservation approaches and alternative possibilities in dealing with ruins and abandoned buildings in Trieste. As a result of the quick and efficiency-oriented manufacture in the industrial past, architectural obsolescence brought in new artificial materiality and ways of decomposition to the discourse of decay, which are unprecedented in the pre-industrial time. The expansion of the definition of decay implies the misfit of conventional treatments on modern ruins in the post-industrial era. Delving into the phenomenon of decay may introduce a different set of aesthetic/tectonic languages and spatial qualities to the decaying waterfront of Trieste.

A fascination with obsolescence as an inherent landscape condition lies at the core of a project that thematically focuses on fundamental scientific inquiry in reference to the Big Science. It stems from the preconceived tensions between the notions of progress versus obsolescence and progress versus accident.

The former is a result of the latent dependency of economic progress on the perpetual obsolescence of space, as is argued in the theory paper entitled Territories in Obsolescence. And the latter is a controversion that scientific progress and technocentric accident are two sides of the same coin, as the philosopher Paul Virilio argued in his University of Disaster. The theory provides a critical understanding of the scientific experiment and introduces the counter notions of accident and disaster.

The project is centred on the need to contain scientific progress architecturally inside micro-regions of concentrated knowledge production and satisfy the territorial concerns of the Big Science that—more often than not—take on an infrastructural scale. It addresses these themes in Trieste—a territory of contested history and sovereignty once envisioned as the city of science and knowledge.

The project concerns the conception and the design of Anatoli Bugorski Independent Research Institute for Scientific Failures which inhabits a post-industrial landscape of the former cement quarries that allow for sustaining such an institution. That is both materially and conceptually by providing the underground territory for experimentation and the primary structural material. The project speculates reversing re-naturalisation processes and excavating the underground spaces by employing the room and pillar dogmatic mining method superimposed upon the critically unstable conditions of the Karstic terrain. Here, the notions of accident and disaster materialise within the post-industrial landscape.

This project focuses on the hinterland of Trieste, the Classic Karst plateau. It tries to rethink landscape maintenance approaches, seeking alternatives to aforestation that appreciate the three millennia long landscape identity of the karst as consisting of semi-natural dry grasslands. With advanced technological developments traditional techniques are revisited and improved, to alter and revitalise the territory, resulting in a more sustainable karst environment.

Exploration on the peri-urban transition zone between Trieste and its hinterland Karst through housing, recreation and transportation infrastructure. The design proposal consists of system of small interventions that take into account the land management problems of the peri-urban hills.

This project embraces the latent tensions and conflicts within the mysterious Taklamakan Desert, where cultural history is being rewritten within the contemporary paradigm of surveillance capitalism. By binding the national demand for data centers with the archaeological excavation of destroyed heritage sites, the material and cultural memory of the people remains with a translation to the digital realm, and the forbidden rituals facilitated in a subdued manner to avoid conflict with the larger national agenda.