Istanbul's Queer(ed) Space
a process of collective building and celebration
M. van Rhijn (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S. Milinović – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / U)
R.R. van den Ban – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
Y. Söylev – Mentor (TU Delft - Building Knowledge)
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Abstract
‘Queer’ can be both an adjective and a verb: beyond identity, it is a force in motion dismantling systems of exclusion and challenging normativity. This thesis investigates how the queering of the architectural process can transform it from a site of oppression into one of empowerment. This is applied in the context of Istanbul, where urban renewal often serves as a tool of erasure, pushing marginalized communities to the edges of the city.
Accordingly, the project proposes an architecture that listens, brings together and resists fixity. Collaboration is engrained all throughout the project; during research, knowledge is not extracted from ‘subjects’ but constructed collectively: a process that’s messy, embodied and always in flux. By breaking down traditional research and design hierarchies, it shifts authority away from the architect and toward shared authorship, embracing transdisciplinarity and intersectionality as vital conditions, centralizing care and hospitality.
This approach unfolds through shared drawings, communal dinner nights, collective dreams and finally, a 1:1 scale spatial exploration in a queer nightclub in Istanbul. A space scavenged, assembled and transformed through improvisation and shared labor. The storyline reveals key anchor points for queering the architectural process: to value process over product, to embrace temporality, to reintroduce craft - through working hands-on, playfulness and solutions beyond cognition are invited. Very much an unfinished product, this is an inquiry of gathering and holding space, an act of resistance and care - architecture seen as part of a larger celebration.