istanbul: impacts of immigration on a contemporary city

POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Scuola di Architettura e Società
Master of Science in Architecture
ISTANBUL: IMPACTS OF IMMIGRATION ON A CONTEMPORARY CITY
Supervisor: Prof. Massimo BRICOCOLI
Author: Ahmet OZENC 762726
2012/2013
I would like to thank to everyone
who helped and supported me
with
their contribution and made
I
this work possible.
2
CONTENTS
FOREWORD…………………………………………………….……………….……….......2
CONTENTS………………………………………..……………….………………………...3
LIST OF FIGURES..................................................................................................................................5
LIST OF TABLES....................................................................................................................................7
LIST OF MAPS........................................................................................................................................7
ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................................8
1. NOTION OF MIGRATION.................................................................................................14
1.1 Migration........................................................................................................................15
1.2 The Phenomenon of Internal Migration and Urbanization.....................16
1.3 Internal Migration in Turkey...................................................................................18
1.4 Internal Migration in Istanbul................................................................................22
1.5 Istanbul as a Focal Point for Immigrants: Reasons Behind...................25
2. ‘GECEKONDU’ DEVELOPMENTS............................................................................28
2.1 Definitional Framework of Gecekondu........................................................30
2.2 The Emergence of First Gecekondus in Istanbul......................................31
2.3 First Gecekondus on the European Side of Istanbul..............................32
2.4 First Gecekondus on the Anatolian Side of Istanbul...............................35
2.5 Present Situation of Illegal Building Formations in Istanbul...................36
2.6 Insufficient Land Generation inside the City................................................39
2.7 Unjustified Benefits from Lands in the City..................................................39
3. CASE STUDIES.....................................................................................................................41
3.1 Three DifferentGecekondu Neighbourhoods...........................................42
3.2 Gecekondus of Kocatas in Sariyer Municipality.......................................43
3.3 Gecekondus of Karadolap in Alibeykoy – Eyup Municipality ...........46
3.4 Gecekondus of Yavuzturk in Uskudar Municipality................................48
3.5 Heartbeats from Gecekondu............................................................................50
3.6 An Afternoon in a Public Space........................................................................68
3
4. THE OUTCOMES OF THE FIELD SURVEY...........................................................70
4.1 Aims of the Survey....................................................................................................71
4.2 How Many Years in Gecekondu?...................................................................72
4.3 Ownership..................................................................................................................73
4.4 Who builts Gecekondus?....................................................................................74
4.5 How Many Rooms?...............................................................................................76
4.6 Previous and Other Properties of Gecekondu Inhabitants..................77
4.7 Reason for locating in a specific Gecekondu.............................................78
4.8 In case you could, where would you like to move?................................80
4.9 Vehicle Ownership.................................................................................................82
5. TOKI and TOKI-ZATION............................................................................................................84
5.1 What is TOKI?.............................................................................................................85
5.2 Duties of TOKI...........................................................................................................85
5.3 Copy and Paste? Critical Issues on Neighbourhood and Housing
Development.............................................................................................................89
5.4 “TOKI-zation” as a Pattern of New Housing Developments ..............93
6. A PROPOSAL........................................................................................................................97
6.1 An
Alternative
Proposal
Aimed
at
Discussing
the
TOKI
Approach ....................................................................................................................98
6.2 A
Selected
Site
for
Testing
the
Proposal:
Ispartakule
Neighbourhood.......................................................................................................103
6.3 A Profile of the Old and New Inhabitants...................................................106
6.3.1 Gecekondu Inhabitants..............................................................................109
6.3.2 New Immigrants..............................................................................................113
6.3.3 New Nomads....................................................................................................117
6.3.4 Middle Income..................................................................................................121
6.4 Designing for Coexistence...............................................................................125
6.5 Mahalle Concept...................................................................................................129
6.6 Neighbourhood Scale..........................................................................................131
4
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................138
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Cover of the Movie called ‘Ekümenopolis’..........................................................27
Fıgure 2: Illustration of Gecekondu Development Process...........................................36
Figure 3: Sample of the Land Register Allocation Certificate........................................37
Figure 4: Translation of the ‘Sample of the Land Register Allocation Certificate’.38
Figure 5: View from a Street of Kocatas Neighbourhood..............................................45
Figure 6: View from a Street in Karadolap Neighbourhood...........................................47
Figure 7: View from a Street in Yavuzturk Neighbourhood............................................49
Figure 8: Profile 1 – Floor Plan (Day Time)................................................................................54
Figure 9: Profile 1 – Floor Plan (Night Time).............................................................................55
Figure 10: Profile 2 – Floor Plan (Day Time).............................................................................57
Figure 11: Profile 2 – Floor Plan (Night Time)...........................................................................58
Figure 12: Profile 2 – Floor Plan (Night Time)..........................................................................58
Figure 13: Profile 3 – Photo of the Entrance-Facade.........................................................60
Figure 14: Profile 3 – Interior Photo from Gecekondu.......................................................60
Figure 15: Profile 3 – Floor Plan (Daytime-Nighttime)..........................................................61
Figure 16: Profile 4 – Children of the Family with their Mother Baking Bread.........63
Figure 17: Profile 4 – Floor Plan (Day Time).............................................................................64
Figure 18: Profile 4 – Floor Plan (Night Time)..........................................................................65
Figure 19: Profile 5 – Floor Plan.....................................................................................................67
Figure 20: Photo from a public park in Buyukdere Neighbourhood..........................68
Figure 21: KiralıkGecekondu: Gecekondu for Rent............................................................73
Figure 22: TOKI Istanbul Kayasehir Project............................................................................87
5
Figure 23: Floor Plan of TOKI Istanbul Halkalı Project........................................................89
Figure 24: Floor Plan of TOKI Bitlis Rahva Project...............................................................90
Figure 25: Floor Plan of TOKI Ankara Yapracık Project.....................................................91
Figure 26: Representation of the Conceptual Plan Typologies..................................107
Figure 27: Gecekondu Inhabitants’ Plan Typology without Walls............................109
Figure 28: Gecekondu Inhabitants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open)...110
Figure 29: Gecekondu Inhabitants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed).111
Figure 30: New Immigrants’ Plan Typology without Walls.............................................113
Figure 31: New Immigrants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open)...................114
Figure 32: New Immigrants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed)...............115
Figure 33: New Nomads’ Plan Typology without Walls...................................................117
Figure 34: New Nomads’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open).......................118
Figure 35: New Nomads’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed)....................119
Figure 36: Middle Income’s Plan Typology without Walls..............................................121
Figure 37: Middle Income’s Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open)..................122
Figure 38: Middle Income’s Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed)...............123
Figure 39: Shuffling for Coexistence......................................................................................125
Figure 40: First Floor Plan of the Apartment........................................................................127
Figure 41: Neighbourhood Site Plan Zoom In.......................................................................131
Figure 42: Neighbourhood Ground Floor Plan....................................................................131
Figure 43: Foreseen Programs on Ground Floor Plan...................................................132
Figure 44: Neighbourhood Site Section................................................................................132
Figure 45: Neighbourhood Partial Section...........................................................................133
Figure 46: Street Life......................................................................................................................134
Figure 47: Residential Pedestrian Road.................................................................................134
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Figure 48: Public Spaces.............................................................................................................135
Figure 49: Neighbourhood..........................................................................................................135
Figure 50: Elevated Street Level on First Floor...................................................................136
Figure 51: Roof Gardens – Roof Usage.................................................................................136
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Migrated population by places of residence in Turkey, 1975-2000…..…19
Table 2:Urban and Rural Population according to age and gender……….......... 20
Table 3: Percentages of migration and income according to the regions of
Turkey, 1985-2000………………………………………………………………...………21
Table 4: Population Growth in Istanbul and Turkey………………………......………23
Table 5: Comparison between TOKI and ‘An Alternative Against TOKI’….......…..98
Table 6: Enrichment of Neighbourhood Scale...................................................................129
LIST OF MAPS
Map 1: Regions of Turkey...............................................................................................................22
Map 2: Gecekondu Settlements in Istanbul..........................................................................33
Map 3: The Selected Three Different Gecekondu neighbourhoods in Istanbul..42
Map 4: Map of Kocatas Neighbourhood...............................................................................44
Map 5: Map of Karadolap Neighbourhood...........................................................................46
Map 6: Map of Yavuzturk Neighbourhood............................................................................48
Map 7: Location of Ispartakule Neighbourhood in City Scale.....................................102
Map 8: Location of Ispartakule Neighbourhood in Closer Scale...............................103
Map 9: Location of the Selected Site in Ispartakule Neighbourhood......................103
Map 10: Neighbourhood Site Plan...........................................................................................130
7
ABSTRACT
The aim of this research is to understand how a global-contemporary city deals
with a great number of immigrants and how the city overcomes the issue of
immigration at various different scales.
Migration is a subject that has already existed in century, the mobility of human
beings from the very early beginning has been developing along with the
development of transportation systems and vehicles. People were always used
to go from one place to another although in a primitive way. Especially after the
development of modern transportation systems, migration as a topic started
becoming more and more important, relevant, fast and intensive.
There are wide ranges of reasons why people change their living spaces,
permanently or temporarily, but in this research, the focus will be more on the
effects that immigration produces on a contemporary city. Moreover, the aim is
to find an answer to the main questions of “How does a contemporary city
respond to the huge number of immigrants?” and “How does the city adapt
itself?” rather than focusing deeply on why or how people migrate. Also following
the first research question, some other questions will be formed to identify the
issues such as “What kind of strategies or rules should be defined for the
expanding city?”
and the aim will be finding most suitable answers to the
existing problems.
On the way to deal with the topic of immigration and the transformation of a city
under the effect of immigration, the case study should be a city where the
transformations and effects can be easily observed and analyzed. This is the
reason of choosing Istanbul as a case study to refer.
Istanbul already faced three big phases of change during the history and
according to several researches and interpretations; Istanbul was a Byzantine
capital that turned into an Ottoman capital in 15th Century and is currently under
intense transformation into a European metropolis as a western global city (Celik,
1986). With these aspects of social, cultural, political changes on the city, it is
inevitable to talk about the immigration and expansion of the city regarding the
immigration issue.
8
The research of the case study will be starting with the basic analysis of the
historical background of the city from an architectural and urban planning
perspective.
This
is
important
in
order
to
understand
the
previous
transformations and the situation of the case study. After that, more focus will be
put on the nowadays-contemporary Istanbul, between 20th and 21st century.
In case of Istanbul, internal immigration is the main subject in terms of migration,
and the movement from rural to urban environments with the aspects of cultural
and social differences and their effects on the urban space will be identified and
discussed. Although the spoken language is the same between the immigrants
and native population, the differentiation of culture, traditions, kitchen, clothing,
etc. can change the face of the city, and juxtaposition of cultures can be
identified. Also the impacts of the passage from “rural-agricultural-traditional” to
“urban-industrial-modern” city will be analyzed with culture-space interactions in
different urban scales.
At that point, the urban growth in Istanbul will be analyzed with its specific
formations such as the city expansion in an irregular way and the informal
housing formations along with the government's approach to the city's existing
situation and policies with the municipalities. When the subject comes to
illegal/informal housing, gecekondu with the exact definition 'landed on night'
referring to the meaning ‘built in one night’, is the main case study to deal with.
Their specific formation inside and on the peripheries of the city will be analyzed
with the aim of understanding how they evolve during the last decades starting
from 1950s as they can be categorized gecekondus, post-gecekondus and
apartment-kondus.
With references to this kind of informal developments, the role of TOKI (Toplu
Konut idaresi - Housing Development Administration) formation and its
interventions to the city, the new housing stereotypes will be analyzed. Both from
an architectural and urban planning point of view, the solutions provided by TOKI
should be discussed and while they are deeply affecting and changing the face
of the city in a negative way, it is essential to discuss about this existing problem.
9
Furthermore, a project will be developed as a better solution against TOKI
buildings and masterplan at three different scales consists of a) apartment layout, b) clustering and c) neighbourhood scale. Apartment layout will be based on
contemporary, shifting family composition, immigration, cultural issues and
density, and clustering will be the apartment units together with the sense of
urban space with good public life. Whereas the in the neighbourhood level will be
concentrated on public services, leisure and commercial infrastructure. The
development of this project at different scale is meant to be as a future proposal
for the city and meeting its residents’ expectations for better living conditions
though maintaining the same density per hectare and same budget that TOKI
proposes and builds.
10
ABSTRACT
Lo scopo di questa ricerca è esplorare gli effetti del cambiamento demografico
indotto dall’immigrazione in una città globale contemporanea e I modi in cui si
sviluppano risposte alla forte pressione abitativa.
La migrazione è un tema certo antico, la mobilità degli esseri umani ha
cominciato a svilupparsi molto presto: dai primi popoli nomadi alle forme di
migrazione poi facilitate dallo sviluppo dei sistemi di trasporto. Dopo lo sviluppo
dei sistemi di trasporto moderni, la migrazione in quanto questione ha iniziato a
diventare sempre più importante, rilevante, veloce e intense con effetti
importanti sullo sviluppo e l’evoluzione dei sistemi urbani.
C’è un’ampia gamma di ragioni per cui le persone cambiano i loro spazi di vita,
stabilmente o temporaneamente, ma in questa ricerca l'attenzione sarà
concentrata più sugli effetti che l'immigrazione produce su una città
contemporanea. Inoltre, l'obiettivo è quello di trovare una risposta alle domande
principali "come fa una città contemporanea a rispondere al gran numero di
immigrati?" e "come si adatta la città?". Anche seguendo la prima domanda di
ricerca, altre domande si profileranno per mettere a fuoco problemi come "Che
tipo di strategie o regole possono essere adotatte al livello delle politiche e dei
progetti per rispondere alla domanda abitativa che gli immigrati esprimono?" e
l'obiettivo sarà trovare risposte più adeguate ai problemi esistenti.
Nell’ambito della trattazione del tema dell'immigrazione e della trasformazione di
una città per effetto dell’ immigrazione, il caso di studio è quello di una città in cui
le trasformazioni e gli effetti possono essere facilmente osservati e analizzati.
Questa è la ragione della scelta di Istanbul come caso di studio a cui fare
riferimento.
Istanbul ha già affrontato grandi fasi di cambiamento nel corso della storia e in
base a diverse ricerche e interpretazioni; Istanbul era una capitale bizantina che
si trasformò in capitale ottomana nel 15 ° secolo ed è attualmente in fase di
intensa trasformazione in metropoli europea come una città globale occidentale
(Celik , 1986). Con questi aspetti di trasformazione sociale, culturale, politica in
corso nella città, è inevitabile parlare di immigrazione e di espansione della città.
11
La ricerca sul caso-studio è sviluppata a partire da un inquadramento storico
della città dal punto di vista dello sviluppo urbano. Dopo di che, si porrà maggiore
enfasi sulla Istanbul contemporanea.
Nel caso di Istanbul, l'immigrazione interna è la questione principale in termini di
migrazione e il movimento dalle aree rurali ad ambienti urbani con aspetti di
differenze culturali e sociali e dei loro effetti sullo spazio urbano sarà specificato e
discusso. Anche se la lingua parlata è la stessa tra gli immigrati e la popolazione
nativa, la diversità di cultura, tradizioni, cucina, abbigliamento, ecc può cambiare il
volto della città, e si può individuare anche la giustapposizione di cultur.Si
analizzerà anche l'impatto del passaggio da "rurale-agricolo-tradizionale" alla
città "urbana-industriale-moderna" in base alle interazioni spaziali e culturali a
diverse scale urbane.
La crescita urbana di Istanbul in relazione ai suoi specifici connotati come
l’espansione irregolare e in buona misura consistente di sviluppi informali insieme
alle politiche e alle misure che le istituzioni di governo hanno sviluppato per
governare il fenomeno, sono oggetto central del lavoro di ricerca sul campo..In
particolare l’oggetto principale di ricerca sono gli insediamenti di edilizia abusiva /
informale, cosidetti gecekondu che letteralmente significano 'atterrato nella
notte di' in riferimento al 'costruito in una notte',. La loro specifica formazione
all'interno e nelle periferie della città è analizzata con l'obiettivo di capire come si
sono evoluti nel corso degli ultimi decenni a partire dal 1950 .
Rispetto a questi sviluppi informali, è stato analizzato il ruolo dell’agenzia di
governo che è stata costituita per la progettazione di interventi in material TOKI
(Toplu Konut idaresi - Housing Development Administration) e i caratteri degli
interventi realizzati in città. Sia dal punto di vista della progettazione architettonica
che dell’urbanistica, le soluzioni fornite da TOKI sonoc ertamente da sottoporre
ad un’analisi critica mentre stanno influenzando profondamente e cambiando il
volto della città.
Una proposta orientate alla definizione di progetti alternative di intervento è
sviluppata nella parte conlusiva della tesi con la considerazione di tre diverse
scale di progetto a) progetto dell’ alloggio, b) dell’insediamento e c)
12
riorganizzazione del quartiere. Lo sviluppo di questo progetto a scala diversa
vuole rappresentare una proposta futura per la città e soddisfare le aspettative
dei propri residenti per migliori condizioni di vita pur mantenendo la stessa
densità per ettaro e il bilancio stesso che TOKI propone e costruisce.
13
1. NOTION OF MIGRATION
14
1.1 Migration
Migration is a subject that has already existed in century, the mobility of human
beings from the very early beginning has been developing along with the
development of transportation systems and vehicles. People were always used
to go from one place to another although in a primitive way. Especially after the
development of modern transportation systems, migration as a topic started
becoming more and more important, relevant, fast and intensive.
There are many definitions of migration according to different point of views.
Akkayan defines migration as “the changing geographical position of human
beings from one place to another with the fact of changing their entire life or part
of it for temporarily or permanently” (Akkayan, 1979).These location changes can
be voluntarily or forced due to some specific reasons that we can classify as
pulled and pushed migration.
The issue of migration is not a subject of interest of one specific field but instead
many theoreticians from different fields are interested in the issue such as
sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, statisticians,
urban planners, etc. That is the reason of taking advantage of and collaborating
with various fields during this research such as Taylan Akkayan as an
anthropologist, Georg Simmel and Zlatko Skrbis as sociologists, U.N. reports and
TUIK
(Turkish
Statistical
Institute)
for
the
demographic
and
statistical
informations.
Migrations are directly affecting the demographic structure of a country or a city
as the way of increasing or decreasing population of society. These
demographic changes are following each other oppositely according to the
places that send emigrants or receive immigrants, relatively their population
decreases and on the other case the population increases in an uncontrolled
way.
15
Migration can be from one country to another or also can be inside a country
with moving from one city to another, from a village to a city or the other way
around. The phenomenon of migration from rural to urban environments is one
of the categorizations under the headline of internal migration, which will be the
focal point in the following parts of this research with its consequences in city
scale and solution seeking.
1.2 The Phenomenon of Internal Migration and Urbanization
Internal migration can be identified as the migration inside the boundaries of a
country. With other words, the population movement is between villages, towns,
cities and regions of a country (Saglam, 2006). It is one of the most common
migration types in the world and commonly internal migrations occur from rural
to urban areas in the developing countries. Developing countries, of course,
have a much higher rate of rural-urban migration than developed ones
(Weintraub, 1974). The reasons behind this can be explained as the attractive
opportunities of the cities such as job opportunities, life standards, economic
reasons, industries, etc. In addition, there can be the repulsive reasons of the
rural areas that trigger people to migrate. In both cases, it is the fact that the
immigrants that came to the cities increase the population of the cities and cities
start to expand due to the immigrants.
It is inevitable to say, that together with natural demographic trends related to
birth and death rates, urbanization is one of the most important consequences
of rural to urban migration. If we look at urbanization processes from an historical
point of view, it is closely related with industrialization. Herrick emphasized the
view about the desirability of internal migration when he asserted, "in the
absence of any movement, when rural fertility exceeds urban fertility, the
agricultural labour force will grow faster than industrial employment. Movement
from the country to the towns, which is necessary if strictly balanced growth of
the two parts of the labour force is to occur, becomes even more important if an
increase in the industrial sector is among the goals of the developing economy"
(Herrick, 1965).
Starting with the industrialization in Europe in 16th and 17th
16
Century, the labour force gave its place to machinery, cities started to become
the most important points for the industries to locate their factories. At that point,
factories were the magnets to attract workers, especially from the rural areas to
move to the cities and work. This kind of a movement can be seen in most of the
industrialized and developing cities even if it is not in the same dimensions of
urbanization. In “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844”, Friedrich
Engels described backstreet sections of Manchester and other mill towns
where people lived in crude shanties and shacks, some not being completely
enclosed, some with dirt floors. These shantytowns had narrow walkways
between irregularly shaped lots and dwellings. Sanitary facilities were
nonexistent. These slum areas had extremely high population densities. It was
common for groups of unrelated mill workers to share rooms in very low quality
housing where eight to ten people may occupy a single room, which often had
no furniture, with the occupants sleeping on a pile of straw or sawdust (Engels
1892). So briefly, it is not just the matter of population movements but beyond
that, it is the expansion of the cities by the increase of number of the cities with
parallel to the industrialization and economical development.
Urbanization causes many structural changes in cities with expanding
population and density. There are economic, demographic, political, cultural,
technological, and social changes that can be listed as the impacts of
urbanization. Rapid urbanization is generally combined with socio-economical
and political change processes.
Especially after the industrial revolution on 19th century, this characteristic of
urbanization is proved with the urbanization in the European countries and also
the expansion processes of the other cities.
As Geoffrey K. Payne mentioned in his book called ‘Urban Housing in the Third
World’, after the period continuing the II. World War, stagnation in the urban areas
started to change. International commercial dynamics changed the internal
formations of the national economies and at the same time, cities were
becoming crucial focal points for the refugees and migrants. Some of them
were settling in the central areas with renting places whereas some others were
17
waiting to be employed during their stay in the temporary accommodations in
the urban peripheries. The constraint on the housing reserve was increased with
the increasing population, it is started to build sheds in the un-used lands, which
are untouched by the modern developments (Payne, 1977).
Before Second World War, internal and external migration rates were somehow
in balance in Europe. After 1945, internal migration rates increased significantly.
Even that an entirely empty land could became a suburb in a short time period
(Kerem, 1993). In the years of 1950’s, internal migration contributed the
population growth with the rate of 60% in the big cities of Third World countries.
This amount was expected to decrease to 42% by the 1980’s but still it is in high
level. The mass migration gave rise to existence of slums, squatter settlements
and accommodation problems (Misra, Tri Dung, 1983). After rise of the problem
of accommodation with the migration to the cities, initial basis of urban squatters
started to appear.
1.3 Internal Migration in Turkey
Turkey as a Eurasian country located in the Western Asia and South-eastern
Europe has always been an attraction point for many nations during the history
because of its strategic and geopolitical position. However, when we look at the
migration types it is seen that in the last century internal migration in Turkey is
more common than the external migration in terms of the newcomers to the
cities of Turkey.The big cities of Turkey such as Istanbul have been facing a
considerable amount of internal migration starting from the 20th Century.
Because of this reason, it is important to understand the basic facts about
internal immigration in Turkey and population dynamics before passing through
the Istanbul case study.
18
When we look at the information received from the statistical information of
population censuses that were done between 1975 and 2000 we can have an
idea about the migrated population in Turkey by places of residence and the
movement between them.
Places of residence
1975-1980
1980-1985
1985-1990
1995-2000
Total
3 584 421
3 819 910
5 402 690
6 692 263
%
Fromcitytocity
%
Fromvillagetocity
%
Fromcitytovillage
%
Fromvillagetovillage
%
100
100
100
100
1 752 817
2 146 110
3 359 357
3 867 979
48,90
56,18
62,18
57,80
610 067
860 438
969 871
1 168 285
17,02
22,53
17,95
17,46
692 828
490 653
680 527
1 342 518
19,33
12,84
12,60
20,06
528 709
322 709
392 935
313 481
14,75
8,45
7,27
4,68
Table1: Migratedpopulationbyplaces of residence in Turkey, 1975-2000
Source: PopulationCensus, 1975-2000
In general, the entire population of Turkey increased with a ratio of 46% from
1975 to 2000. Immigration from city to city is the highest amount in all the time
intervals mentioned in the table.However, it is necessary to realize the
differentiation of these cities that are facing emigration and the ones that are
facing immigration. The information is the result of the population censuses but
the ‘cities’ that are in the list are not in the same conditions. Generally, even if
migration is from one city to another, the data shows that in general it is from
small cities to big cities. Some of these cities are the cities that can be defined as
‘rural cities’ that are determined as cities but the life that goes on there has no
difference than villages in terms of population and the all kinds of variables that
forms a city. So taking into consideration that fact it is possible to say again that
from rural to urban migration is the most common type of migration in Turkey.
19
Beside the rapid population growth, the census reveals that more than 70% of
the entire population lives in urban areas. Urban population that lives in the cities
are 49.747.859 and rural population are 20.838.397 that is registered with the
last population census (TUIK, 2007).
TOTAL
URBAN
RURAL
Age
Total
Interval
Male
Female
Total
Male
Female
Total
Male
Female
Total
70586256
3537633
3520923
4974759
2492885
2481874
2083897
1044748
1039049
0-4
5793906
2978972
2814934
4000576
2057752
1942824
1793330
921220
872110
5-9
6436827
3303329
3133498
4392285
2254762
2137523
2044542
1048567
995975
10-14
6411658
3288472
3123186
4370199
2243595
2126604
2041459
1044877
996582
15-19
6157033
3159723
2997310
4270762
2194317
2076445
1886271
965406
920865
20-24
6240573
3181804
3058769
4570985
2339220
2231765
1669588
842584
827004
25-29
6512838
3295102
3217736
4832720
2427176
2405544
1680118
867926
812192
30-34
5727699
2885151
2842548
4274753
2148544
2126209
1452946
736607
716339
35-39
5072441
2565112
2507329
3751411
1891578
1859833
1321030
673534
647496
40-44
4725800
2379314
2346486
3449529
1731749
1717780
1276271
647565
628706
45-49
4085065
2057626
2027439
2971192
1498145
1473047
1113873
559481
554392
50-54
3565669
1781029
1784640
2533921
1274289
1259632
1031748
506740
525008
55-59
2788858
1369618
1419240
1907299
944881
962418
881559
424737
456822
60-64
2067714
981178
1086536
1348996
643532
705464
718718
337646
381072
65-69
1698583
781165
917418
1052014
479224
572790
646569
301941
344628
70-74
1373077
629241
743836
828888
367773
461115
544189
261468
282721
75-79
1069961
441289
628672
639464
251022
388442
430497
190267
240230
80-84
578879
212383
366496
362036
125510
236526
216843
86873
129970
85-89
182188
58552
123636
120950
36765
84185
61238
21787
39451
90+
97487
27473
70014
69879
19151
50728
27608
8322
19286
Table 2:Urban and Rural Population according to age and gender(31.12.2007,TÜİK)
In Turkey, there are differences between different regions and provinces, in
terms of economical development. Mainly, the regions in the Eastern part of
Turkey are more underdeveloped when it is compared to the Western regions.
This causes the migration flow to continue more from East to West because of
the attractiveness of better job opportunities and due to better economical
conditions in the Western regions.
20
The table below is given in order to show clearly the net migration percentages
of the regions in Turkey with the related income rates (Celik, 2007).
1985
REGIONS
1990
Migration
Income
2000
Migration
Income
Migration
Marmara
3,9
36,5
7,1
36,5
3,5
Aegean
1,4
15,8
2,7
15,1
2,2
Mediterranean
1,6
12
2,1
12,3
0,04
16,9
0,01
Central Anatolia
-0,6
16,6
-1,7
Black Sea
-2,9
9,7
-5,8
9,8
-4,2
Eastern Anatolia
-4,9
4,1
-9,2
4,3
-3,9
Southeastern Anatolia
-1,9
5,3
-2,7
5,1
-3,8
Table 3: Percentages of migration and income according to the regions of Turkey, 1985-2000
From the table above it is a fact that Marmara is the region that has the
maximum rate of immigration with its positive values of net migration and highest
income rates in all the years that taken into account.
According to the table, Aegean and Mediterranean regions having positive
amount of net migration and it is increasing between 1985 and 1990. In spite of
that, a considerable decrease can be seen at 2000. Another fact is that Central
Anatolia, which was facing emigration, started receiving immigrants starting
from 2000.
21
Map 1: Regions of Turkey
1.4 Internal Migration in Istanbul
Istanbul as a city with a crucial strategic importance has been always facing
immigration issue in its history. After the establishment of the Republic regime,
first big mass migration was seen between the years of 1950-1955 because of
the social movements and the image of a modern city in minds. However,
between 1955 -1965, the migration rate decreased slightly and then the second
major flow happened between the years of 1965-1975. This movement
continued to increase rapidly in 1980’s and especially after 1985 (Gulersoy,
1999).
Despite the fact that Istanbul occupies less than 1% of the total surface area of
Turkey, the city is accommodates 18,23% percent of the country’s population
according to the last population census on 2011. Until the 1950s, this ratio was
around 5% and after 1975, this ratio increased up to 10% with incoming
migration. The increasing population rates in Istanbul and Turkey were in the
similar amounts until 1955 but this has been changed after 1955. The main
22
reason behind that change is the urban migration from rural to urban areas as
the issue of urbanization in Turkey related with urban migration.
Years
Turkey
Istanbul Istanbul/Turkey
Increasing Ratio to the Previous
Ratio
Period
Turkey
Istanbul
1927
13,648,270
806.863
5,91
-
-
1935
16,158,018
883,599
5,47
18,39
9,51
1940
17,820,950
991,237
5,56
10,29
12,18
1945
18,790,174
1,078,399
5,74
5,44
8,79
1950
20,947,188
1,166,477
5,57
11,48
8,17
1955
24,064,763
1,533,822
6,37
14,88
11,49
1960
27,854,720
1,882,092
6,78
15,33
32,71
1965
31,391,421
2,293,823
7,31
13,10
21,88
1970
35,605,176
3,019,032
8,48
13,42
31,62
1975
40,347,719
3,904,318
9,68
13,32
29,32
1980
44,736,957
4,471,890
10,60
10,88
21,45
1985
50,664,458
5,842,985
11,53
13,25
23,22
1990
56,473,035
7,309,190
12,94
11,46
25,09
1997
62,865,574
9,198,809
14,63
11,31
25,85
Table 4: Population Growth in Istanbul and Turkey (Gulersoy ed.)
23
24
DOT DENSITY MAP OF ISTANBUL
1.5 Istanbul as a Focal Point for Immigrants: Reasons Behind
The strategic position of Istanbul makes it special and gives the reasons to
become a metropolitan area. There are many reasons behind the fact that
Istanbul became a metropolis and the focal destination for many of the
immigrants coming from the rural areas. Prof.Dr. Nazim Ekren lists these reasons
as:
-
Istanbul is a metropolitan city that is located in the area that are formed by
Turkey and the countries that are connected to Turkey’s economy.
-
Istanbul is a global city because of its location, its characteristics inherited
from history and the current contemporary functions.
-
Istanbul is playing an important role as an international centre with Turkey’s
wide hinterland. This is because of; many of the domestic and foreign
financial institutions and organizations are located in Istanbul.
-
Istanbul with all regions of Turkey and settlements has the most intense
and effective potential to use for Turkey to be an opening gate through
overseas.
-
Istanbul has an image of a city of education – teaching, research –
development, public relations, communication, local, global economic,
social
and
cultural
organizations’
activities
come
together,
and
management centres exist.
-
Istanbul’s demographic structure has wide elite and high-income group
with economical deposits and multicultural layout.
25
The fact that Istanbul is a part of international economical organizations and
plays a role of a keystone in some of them increased its importance significantly.
Day after day Istanbul is becoming a regional power both in the area and in the
global scale with its economical and social structure (Ekren, 1999).
Reasons for emigration as determined by Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO)
are:
-
Unemployment in the rural areas caused by the poorness of the land
-
Failure of gaining economic balance between different regions
-
Economic factors such as higher probability of finding a job in the
metropolitan areas
-
Social life of metropolitan areas and attractiveness of educational level
-
Social pressure in the rural areas and will of running away from
conventional pressures such as blood revenge
-
Presence of citizenship and kinship as physiologic and social reasons
-
Encouragement of people who came to the metropolitan areas and
settled before, in order to generate a political power
-
Political issues such as running away from terrorism
-
Not being able to respond residents requests because various
inadequacies of the local authorities (ITO, 2001).
26
Some of the main reasons listed above for Istanbul to become a focal point for
immigrants. As it can be realized, there are several different reasons such as
economical, social, cultural, political reasons behind the immigration, especially
internal immigration through Istanbul. Also local authorities are somehow
encouraging immigration from villages or small cities to the big cities for the
reasons listed above.
Beside these various reasons of immigration in Istanbul, it is to be highlighted that
the flow of immigration is highly impressive and somehow the city is expanding
every single day along with immigration flows and density is increasing day by
day. New city typology is being made as individual proposals or by some
authorities but it can be said that the city is not under control against this serious
growth.
Figure 1: Cover of the Movie called ‘EKÜMENOPOLİS’
27
2. ‘GECEKONDU’ DEVELOPMENTS
28
In the first part of the research, migration, internal migration, immigration and
urbanization subjects were dealt with from a general perspective through the
particular of these issues in Turkey and Istanbul. Moreover, observation of urban
development and urban change processes induced by immigration is going to
be mentioned in this following chapter with the major fact of informal
developments. Informal developments are one of the most important issues to
deal with in this research because of the accommodation of immigrants.
There are many useful references regarding the issue of informal developments
in Istanbul for a better understanding and providing an insight that are cited and
referenced in the related points. Furthermore, I would like to reference a
documentary called “Ekumenopolis” by the director Imre Azem, which helped
me a lot to provide more information and showed up the realities that are not in
sight. The trailer of the documentary was published through the internet while I
was working on my research and when it was streaming in Istanbul;
unfortunately, I was not there at that time. I sent an e-mail to the producers of the
documentary and as far as the DVDs were distributed, I found the chance to
watch it. A brief summary about Ekumenopolis is expressed as:
In Istanbul, which already lacked a tradition of principled planning, the administrators
of the city blindly adopted the neoliberal approach that put financial gain ahead of
people’s needs; everyone fought to get a piece of the loot; and the result is a
megashantytown of 15 million struggling with mesh of life-threatening problems.
Especially in the past 10 years, as the World Bank foresaw in its reports, Istanbul has
been changing from an industrial city to a finance and service-centered city,
competing with other world cities for investment. Making Istanbul attractive for
investors requires not only the abolishment of legal controls that look out for the
public good, but also a parallel transformation of the users of the city. This means that
the working class who actually built the city as an industrial center no longer have a
place in the new consumption-centered finance and service city. So what is planned
for these people? (Ekumenoplis, 2011)
29
2.1 A Framework to investigate the ‘Gecekondu’
In this part of the research, the aim is to give the necessary explanation and
information about the definition of the gecekondu phenomenon in terms of
informal housing.
After the periods following the Second World War, stagnation in the cities started
to change. While international commerce changes are affecting the national
economies, cities started to become focal points for most of the refugees and
migrants (Payne, 1977). Mainly, informal housing is developing as a response to
accommodate the number of newcomers and immigrants. When the number
of inhabitants of a city increases more than the city can welcome with its
facilities, accommodation becomes a major problem and urban sprawl occurs
consequently as can be seen in Istanbul.
Gecekondu as a Turkish word that comes from the meaning of ‘landed on night’
or can be understood as ‘built in one night’. The reference is to squatter houses
mentioned to be built in one night because of the fact of willing to achieve quick
constructions in order to have a shelter at first out of any legal permission.
Informal settlements are to be seen in major cities all over the world with different
names. In Mexico, they are referred as jakale, in Panama rancho, in Brazil favela
and Argentina villa, in Tunisia gourbeville, in Algeria casbah, in Morocco bidonville,
in India it is called bustee. In the cities of these countries, squatter housing and
informal settlements accommodate between 20% - 70% of the population
(Keles, 2004).
30
2.2 The Emergence of First Gecekondus in Istanbul
In this section, the gecekondu formation in Istanbul, from the beginning to now,
will be analyzed with their spatial transition and also the facts that triggered the
rise of gecekondus will be focused in the study area of Istanbul.
In Istanbul, according to industrialization and the migration dynamics, first
gecekondus developed in the Kazlicesme – Zeytinburnu area in 1946. It is
determined by a research in 1949 that there were approximately 5000
gecekondus in Istanbul. 3218 of them were in Zeytinburnu, 200 of them were in
Mecidiyekoy, 200 of them were in Yildiz and other 100 of them were in Sisli area
with the other ones the total amount was crucial (Tekeli 1994 a). It is know that
the first attempts to build gecekondu settlements were closely related with the
industrial zones and the families migrating from rural areas were building them
for their own necessity of shelter.
Another important issue that accelerated the construction of gecekondus was
“the amnesty legislations” that made gecekondus legal. The first amnesty that
was in 1949 that was applied in Istanbul, gave right to all of the gecekondus that
were built until that day to become legal by law. Other amnesty legislations in
1953 and in 1963 followed the first amnesty and gave right to gecekondu
owners to legalize their gecekondus. These amnesties promoted and triggered
the construction of new gecekondus; the number of gecekondus in Istanbul
started to increase rapidly. The number of 5000 gecekondus in 1949 raised to
8239 in 1950; 61.400 in 1959; 120.000 in 1963. In 1963, it was determined that
35% of the city’s population was living in gecekondu settlements (Tekeli, 1994 b).
Following the first amnesty in 1949, others were announced in 1953, 1963,
1966,1976,1983,1984 and 1986 for the legalisation of gecekondus. The aim of
these legislations and the aim of the changes in the laws were legitimisation of
the gecekondus built until that day, while prohibiting the development of new
gecekondus to be built. However, the facts show that these amnesties were in
31
fact provocative for the new ones to be built. Every amnesty was a kind of sign
and the indicator of the new amnesty that was expected by the people and it
happened so. Against the programmes that were aiming the ‘prohibition’,
‘elimination’, and ‘rehabilitation’ of the gecekondus, the number of them were
increased rapidly.
2.3 First Gecekondus on the European Side of Istanbul
First gecekondu settlements started around the close periphery of industrial
zones in the European side of Istanbul. The first gecekondus developed around
the leather working and textile industries in Zeytinburnu-Kazlıcesme area and
also around textile and rubber industries in the Ayvansaray–Eyup area.
Mecidiyekoy and Sisli were the other areas with also industries based on textile,
chocolate and beer industry triggered the formation of gecekondu settlements
in the area.
The second largest gecekondu development in Istanbul was in 1950s with the
Taslıtarla neighbourhood. The settlement in this area was started with the
organization of immigrant neighbourhood by the government for the immigrants
coming from Bulgaria between 1950 and 1951. After 1954 also Yugoslavian
immigrants were settled in the area. The formation of the neighbourhood
strengthened the connection between the area and the city centre and
proximity of the industrial areas in Eyup and Topkapı encouraged the gecekondu
development
in
the
neighbourhood.
The
rapid
development
of
the
neighbourhood caused it to become a township in 1958 and became a district
called Gaziosmanpasa in 1963. In 1970, the population of Gaziosmanpasa raised
up to 70.000 (Tumertekin, 1995). According to the latest population censuses,
the district gained the title of ‘Most Crowded District in Turkey’ with 1,013,048 in
2007 but after the separation of two new districts from Gaziosmanpasa, this
number decreased to 461,230 in 2009 officially.
32
The third biggest gecekondu development was after 1955, close to Veliefendi
Hippodrome, a district called Osmaniye. The workers from the Industries in
Bakırkoy were coming and settling in the area. While gecekondus were being
erected inside the municipality borders, some other gecekondu areas were
being formed in the areas, which were outside of the municipality borders.In
1965 it was determined that 69.000 people were living in Sagmagcılar, 11.000 in
Esenler and 9.000 in Gungoren districts (Gulersoy, 1999). The map given below
illustrates different phases of gecekondu developments in Istanbul with the
specific locations and it is based on the work of Ergun where she interprets the
process (Ergun, 1990).
Map 2: Gecekondu Settlements in Istanbul
33
34
MAIN DISTRICTS OF ISTANBUL WITH GECEKONDU SETTLEMENTS
2.4 First Gecekondus on the Anatolian Side of Istanbul
The first gecekondu settlement in the Anatolian side of Istanbul was Fikirtepe,
which emerged after 1957 in the district of Kadıkoy. After this settlement, another
gecekondu area developed in Sahrayıcedit. But it is mainly after the construction
of the Istanbul-Ankara highway in the 1960s, that new gecekondu settlements
were formed around the highway between Istanbul and Gebze (Gulersoy, 1999).
There were many other gecekondu settlements formed in that period between
1960 and 1965. Some of them were listed as; OrumcekBayırı, Maltepe, Topselvi,
Yesilbaglar, Gocmen, Taslıbayır and Kaynarca.
First gecekondus in Uskudar district were seen in 1947 in Tabaklar
neighbourhood on the foundation land and on the municipality’s land in Selamsız
neighbourhood. The most important ones were listed as Cengelkoy, Tasocakları,
Bahcelievler, Sineklitepe, Camlıca, Cakaldagı and Selamsız (Gulersoy, 1999).
The current Umraniye Municipality (with 631.603 inhabitants and 219.093
residential units according to the 2012 Municipality Inventory) was originally a
village called Umraniye Koyu and gecekondu settlements were started in the
area after 1955 and because of the rapid growth, it became a municipality in
1963. Nowadays Umraniye is a huge municipality with spacious avenues and
shopping malls but still the gecekondu settlements can be seen around these
areas.
On the Anatolian side of the Bosphorus, first gecekondus developed inside the
borders of Beykoz district. This was due to the growth of industrial areas in the
district such as Sumerbank Leather and Shoe Factory, Pasabahce Bottle-Glass
industry with Tekel factory. Gecekondu settlements were positioning around
these industries because the workers were trying to settle down nearby their
working space. This proximity is the main reason related to the location of the
gecekondus around the industrial areas (Gulersoy, 1999).
35
2.5 Present Situation of Illegal Building Formations in Istanbul
The researches that I conducted in Istanbul during the last months made it
possible to verify that, after 2000 none of the formal institutions has accurate
information about the number of the gecekondus, number of the unlicensed
buildings, number of buildings without occupancy permit, number of buildings
that are irrelevant of their license. Besides that, numbers of buildings that are
appropriate according to their building licence are also not known precisely.
According to the counting of two different institutions, there is a huge difference
between the results of the number of the buildings in Istanbul in 2000. The
Turkish Republic Prime Ministry State Statistic Institute determined these
numbers as 886,078 whereas Istanbul district municipalities determined as
1,070,808 (ITO, 2001). When the districts are examined one by one separately,
the differences in between the two researches are very significant.
Unfortunately almost none of the municipalities in Istanbul have the accurate
data of the number of the buildings correctly and this shows that local authorities
and public institutions are weak in terms of archive systems.
While talking with the referents at the municipality, even they admit that they do
not have the exact numbers but the data they have is somehow predicted and
approximate values. It is also learned that even most of the public buildings are
illegal according to the building permissions. It can be said that, legal and ordered
building formations (according to the building legislation) are exceptional
whereas the illegal building formations are ordinary and kind of a rule in Istanbul.
Figure 2: Illustratio of Gecekondu Development Process
36
Figure 3: Sample of the Land Register Allocation Certificate
37
REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
CERTIFICATE OF LAND REGISTER ALLOCATION
(Edited according to 2981 Legislation 24.2.1984)
PROPERTY THAT GECEKONDU PLACED ON
1)
DistrictVillage/NeighbourhoodSectionIslandParcelAreaDateRegistry No
2) Landlord: ..........................................................................................................................
CONDITIONS OF GECEKONDU
3) Street/RoadDoor No.Occupied Area m² Type of PropertyOther Features
BENEFICIARY OF GECEKONDU
Birth Certifate’s
4) NameSurnameFather’s NameBirth Place/DatePlaceVolumePageDigit
CERTIFICATES RELATED TO GECEKONDU
5) Issuing AuthorityIssued ForDate / Number
6) The property that is mentioned above with the island and parcel number is allocated to
the beneficiary on the date of............................... with the number of.....................................
Authorized: TitleName SurnameSignature, Seal, Date
7) It is confirmed in the register declaration section in the date of..................with the wage
of.................................. that the property that is mentioned above with the island and parcel
number is allocated to the beneficiary.
(This certificate of Land Register Allocation is equal
to the land register that will be given after the development plan.)
......./......../........
Director of Land Registration
Signature, Seal
Figure 4: Translation of the ‘Sample of the Land Register Allocation Certificate’
38
2.6 Insufficient Land Generation inside the City
Istanbul as a growing city requires more space and surface area in order to grow
physically. Without questioning the way of growing, it is a fact that there is
insufficient land availability (with a legal manner) inside the city borders. There
should be a distribution for the lands to give possibility to form dwellings (with
complete infrastructure, complete parcellation and ready to build inside) for the
residents or the construction companies according to the purchasing power. If
the authorities will not provide these, in spite of the development plan, illegal
formations will be inevitable and the problem of illegal formations and
gecekondus will gradually increase.
According to the field researches, it is determined that the main reason pushes
people to build illegal formations is economic deficiencies and impossibilities with
the ratio of 76.9 % of the immigrants built illegal housings (ITO, 2001).
If the insufficient legal land generation continues on, its effect will continue, as
illegal parcel divisions will occur. It is the current situation in Istanbul as it was
described. People are buying the lands, which are not open to development plan
and without infrastructures, below the market values. Also looting can be seen
that public lands are looted by people or with political pressures; these lands are
opened to developments.
2.7 Unjustified Benefits from Lands in the City
The rapid growth, huge increase in population and the concentration of
economic facilities in Istanbul caused an increase of demand for land of Istanbul
and increased land values. Beside the requirement of the housing for the
residents, there is a demand from the industries and commercial establishments
in the city. Naturally, according to demand and the zone, the prices show
differences. Another fact is real estate is seen as a tool of investment and this
triggers the increase of land values with the high demand. In some districts, land
39
values are always higher than the normal increases in price and provided extra
profits to the owners.
In 1960s and 1970s, formation of areas with wide population around Istanbul,
which are called ‘varosha’, caused the problem of dwellings. As it was
mentioned, this problem is tried to be solved with the formation of gecekondus in
order to provide a shelter. However, today it is different from those days, that
often the matter is not to provide a shelter but to provide unjustified benefits in an
illegal way (ITO, 2001).
In Istanbul, the most important factor that affects the cost of a building is the land
value. According to the interviews with the people deal with construction, it is
determined that especially in the central areas of Istanbul, land has value up to a
portion of 80% of construction cost.
There is a high amount of unjustified benefits gained from the public lands in
Istanbul. People who occupy these lands are doing the parcellation by
themselves and selling these lands with monetary bills without facing and any
prevention. These unjustified benefits are being shared between the occupants
and the authorities. This situation encourages the occupation of public lands and
causes big problems such as unsystematic and illegal share of the money
coming from the land values. In addition, problems of infrastructure and
transportation are getting more serious, gecekondu settlements are expanding.
This is becoming a never-ending cycle of illegal developments in the city. If this
benefits from the real estate could be transferred to the public administrations
and government in a legal way, there would be a possibility for a solution for the
economic problems of public administrations. However, until now, no legal
arrangement done for this problem and it is highly recommended by TMMOB
Chamber of Architects in Istanbul.
40
3. CASE STUDIES
41
3.1 Three DifferentGecekondu Neighbourhoods
In order to provide a better insight for the gecekondu settlements and to
understand the life conditions in this kind of living environments, three different
neighbourhoods were selected in Istanbul, which two of them are in the
European side and one in the Anatolian side, to continue the on field research.
It is important to broaden the research with the number of case studies and they
shed light on various different perspectives and a better research. Both
qualitative and quantitative research techniques were used to work on these
neighbourhoods where it was started with qualitative research to show the
entire picture from these areas with the real-life stories and individual in-depth
interviews that are described with the selected narratives in the ‘Heartbeats
from Gecekondu’ part. The complete, detailed description and the information
gathered in this phase and it continued with the quantitative research
techniques to give statistical information gathered from the on field surveys in
these three different areas.
Map 3: The Selected Three Different Gecekondu neighbourhoods in Istanbul
42
First two neighbourhoods are the Kocatas Neighbourhood in Sariyer District and
Karadolap Neighbourhood in Alibeykoy District both located in the European
part. The other one is located in the Anatolian side and called Yavuzturk
Neighbourhood in Uskudar District. These three gecekondu neighbourhoods
have some very familiar characteristics and differentiations among each other.
The selection is based on these specific characteristics of each neighbourhood
and for locations in the map of Istanbul according to the expansion if the city. As it
can be seen by Map 3, the three neighbourhoods are situated in a triangular
form in the map of Istanbul when they pointed one by one each neighbourhood
compose edges of an invisible triangle that has the Bosphorus and two bridges
that connects Europe and Asia.
3.2 Gecekondus of Kocatas in Sariyer Municipality
Kocatas is a neighbourhood connected to Sarıyerdistrict, which is placed along
the Bosphorus in the European side of Istanbul. The neighbourhood is started
with the formation of independent gecekondus in different years starting from
1960s. During the period between 1965 and 1970, there were only few
gecekondus in the area. After this period, mainly in 1970s, there was a
construction boom of gecekondus in the area. The number of gecekondus
increased rapidly and this caused a formation of a new settlement connected to
Buyukdere neighbourhood. Its name is coming from the Kocatas mountain
chain that the settlement placed on and because of the reason that this area
uses the Kocatas spring water coming from the mountain.
In 1987, the borders of the Kocatas neighbourhood were determined for the first
time and it was bordered between Sarıyer, Buyukdere and KazımKarabekirPasa
neighbourhoods. According to a new regulation in 1987, the new ‘Muhtarlık’ is
founded under the name of Kocatas neighbourhood and the first election for the
reeve was made. Muhtars’organization is an institutional structure since the
Ottoman state. Muhtar is the basic sub-unit of the local government, which has
direct contact with the people.Muhtars are responsible for all issues concerning
the neighbourhood, whether they are specified in the law or not. However, the
43
level of perception for detecting the problems of the neighbourhood and of
solving them is different for each muhtar (Bal, 2012).
Map 4: Map of Kocatas Neighbourhood
The map above shows the area ofKocatas Neighbourhood where the on field
survey and the interviews were done. In this neighbourhood, there were no
public spaces until the end of 2012 but recently the construction of a public park
with a public multifunctional single storey building inside is finished. This was one
of the best news that was announced to the residents of the neighbourhood but
the political issues were about to stop the construction between the municipality
and the government party. Finally with the determination and the cooperation of
the residents and municipality, this one and only public space is completed.
There is one primary school in the borders of the neighbourhood and there is
another one in the adjacent neighbourhood, which is within a walking distance
again.
The neighbourhood is settled on the hills of the mountain as it was mentioned
above. The topography is playing an important role in the formation of the urban
pattern with the roads. There is a high-level difference between one street and
another, which are parallel to the coastline. The urban pattern follows the
conditions of the roads formed by the topography in due time.
44
It can be said that northern forests of Istanbul is defining borders of the
neighbourhood on the north without any constructions and it is untouched. On
the other hand, the neighbourhood has such kind of a position that the view of
the Bosphorus is very valuable and according to the real estate market, if the
lands wanted to be sold in this area, the prices would be very high. Even it is a
fact that some of the gecekondus can be realized as private villas because of
the development process of the building structures (Figure 5). In course of time,
some gecekondu inhabitants put one brick on top of another and developed
their gecekondus.
Figure 5: View from a Street of Kocatas Neighbourhood
According to the interviews, it was understood that most of the residents are
against the government party and most of them are supporting the opposition
party. Even this factor was one of the distinctive features of the neighbourhood
that there was an appreciable hospitality instead of a nervousness or prejudice
to the work done in the neighbourhood.
45
3.3 Gecekondus of Karadolap in Alibeykoy – Eyup Municipality
Karadolap is a neighbourhood inside Alibeykoy neighbourhood connected to
Eyup district in the European side of Istanbul. Alibeykoy neighbourhood is one of
the first gecekondu settlements in Istanbul started because of the industries in
Eyup district. As far as Alibeykoy is a big neighbourhood, Karadolap
neighbourhood can be identified as a sub-neighbourhood that is somehow
dependent to Alibeykoy. The residents living here calls the area as SayaYolu
Neighbourhood and this name comes from the Saya Road that passes by near
the neighbourhood and forms a kind of boundary with Cırcır neighbourhood.
Even if there is no rule in the development of the neighbourhood and the way of
organization as a proper master plan, an alternative organic way of distribution of
gecekondus added to each other during the years. As it can be seen from the
map above, there is core in this circular way of formation and the primary school
fills this core and it opens to a public park with a football pitch in the middle. On
the outer periphery of the neighbourhood, there is a new shopping mall, which is
opened in 2011. In addition, there are some new apartment blocks, which can be
said luxurious when they are compared to the existing neighbourhood.
Map 5: Map of Karadolap Neighbourhood
46
The neighbourhood is surrounded with all these new developments around and
it is one of the reasons that the residents have fear of losing their homes. Another
reason is the urban regeneration project that is an issue, which is discussed a lot
recently. The proposal of an urban regeneration project includes the demolition
of most of the gecekondus in the area and there will be a highway passing
through these neighbourhoods but still there is no exact project for the
relocation and the rearrangement of the inhabitants who will lose their living
spaces.
According to the interviews done in the neighbourhood, it was determined that
the education level of the inhabitants is very low in the area. Some of the
inhabitants who attended the survey have never gone to school in their lives or
either some of them finished primary school but did not continue for the
secondary school or high school. Another observation for the common features
of the residents is their hometowns and the political views. Most of the
inhabitants were coming from the Eastern Anatolia Region, especially from
Erzurum and Mus and most of them are supporting the government party. The
reason behind the same hometowns can be explained with solidarity of the
immigrants coming to Istanbul. It is the matter identity that today even the people
lives in Istanbul for more than 30 years or even the ones who were born in
Istanbul can say that they are not Istanbulites. It is the same for this
neighbourhood and they want to stay close to their fellow citizens.
Figure 6: View from a Street in Karadolap Neighbourhood
47
3.4 Gecekondus of Yavuzturk in Uskudar Municipality
Yavuzturk is a neighbourhood in the borders of Uskudar district on the Anatolian
side of Istanbul. Officially, the neighbourhood is connected to Uskudar
Municipality, however because of the proximity to the Umraniye district it is
counted as a gecekondu settlement of Umraniye. As there is no official data
about the history of the area, the oldest inhabitants told the story of the
neighbourhood that first gecekondus in the area were started to be built
between 1950 and 1960. In these years, there were approximately not more
than twenty gecekondus and they were all simple, single storey buildings.
Nowadays the situation is a bit different from those years, by the time passes
they were started to build the upper storeys of their gecekondus and some of
them became apartment-kondus. In addition, the conditions of these buildings
are getting better as they do renovations and some alterations on the facade
and in the interior spaces.
Map 6: Map of Yavuzturk Neighbourhood
48
Map 6 shows the map of the selected area of Yavuzturk neighbourhood that the
fieldwork was made. This is also a neighbourhood similar to Kocatas
neighbourhood in the way of formation following the topography. There is a
high-level difference through the North West –South East axis and in the North
East-South West axis. The roads are formed according to the topography in a
natural way, by the time gecekondu formations supported these roads, and
municipality brought infrastructure and built the proper roads with pavements.
Some of the building structures in the neighbourhood are in good condition
whereas some of them can be counted hazardous in an earthquake disaster.
Figure 7: View from a Street in Yavuzturk Neighbourhood
This neighbourhood is somehow different from the two other selected
neighbourhoods in terms of education level and the political views. Even the
majority of the residents are graduated from primary school there is a young
generation going to high school and some of them to the university. Also the
political view of the residents shows variety as nearly half of the interviewees are
supporting the government party and the other half the opposition party and
other parties.
49
3.5 Heartbeats from ‘Gecekondu’
In this part of the research, the aim is to provide a deeper understanding of the
lives in gecekondu settlements and to describe briefly some inhabitant profiles of
gecekondus that are selected from the on field survey. It is important to
understand how these people form and set up their living space themselves and
the conditions that they live in. Therefore, different plan typologies of their living
spaces and the brief stories will be given for an insight.
The profiles will be given with their nicknames instead of giving the real names of
the inhabitants for privacy reasons. When it is compared to the surveys that
were done in the selected areas, it was much more difficult to convince people
to tell their life stories and open their doors to you to get in their private zones
where they live. Most of them were asking many times, ‘why are these questions
for?’ and ‘who are you working for?’ although it was already explained that it was
a research for the university which has no relation with the political or
governmental bodies. This was because of the suspicion of the inhabitants of
gecekondus mainly from the fear of the demolition of their living environment
and being homeless.
My field survey started on 5th of September 2012 and lasted approximately for
one month, with several visits to the selected gecekondu neighbourhoods in
Istanbul. The visits were done in different times and to the different
neighbourhoods during this period. The survey questions are starting with the
general demographic data of the family lives in gecekondu, continue with the
questions about the specifications of the building, and supported with the
socioeconomic conditions of their lives. These questions were formed upon the
aim of understanding the life-style in gecekondu settlements and to understand
the positive and negative aspects of it in a perspective of architectural, urban
planning and also sociologic point of view.
To be honest, being an Istanbulite helped very much about the development of
the work because of knowing where to go, how to act, how to talk with people
50
or what should not be done during the survey in order not to disturb people in
their living environment. Also because of people’s prejudice, regarding the
privacy issues was a kind of barrier got over with the people known before going
to the neighbourhoods. Even if you don’t know the exact people lives in a
gecekondu, it is much easier to go there with someone close to them and talk
with them and see their living spaces if they accept to show you. Some
inhabitants living in these neighbourhoods were quite suspicious and nervous
about the interviews, whereas some of them were showing ‘Turkish Hospitality’
with offering Turkish tea or coffee and treating with ultimate respect. It was a bit
surprising to be treated like that in a gecekondu settlement because of the social
issues that was mentioned before. After several visits to the selected
neighbourhoods, people were also getting to know me and treat me as
someone from the neighbourhood or from the family.
Beside the survey questions that were helpful for a first analysis with the
questions asked to the inhabitants, it was important to see the real life going on in
these neighbourhoods and moreover in the gecekondus. The main questions in
the mind were; ‘How they live in their homes?’ and ‘How they form and organize
their living spaces?’ As far as these people living in gecekondu settlements are
not in a high level of economic standards, economic point of view is also
important in order to realize how they manage to spend their lives. Accordingly,
income and expenses are compared with the representation of cash flows.
Some inhabitants were living in the gecekondus that they rented from the
owners and the money that they spend for the rents were quite high when it is
taken into account that UN declared that rent of a house should not be more
than the 25% of monthly income of a family.
Another significant finding from the observation of gecekondus and from the
lives going on inside is the use of the spaces and the transformation of the
places. The necessities that have to be satisfied for the primary living standards
sometimes do not match with the existing possibilities. In those cases, people as
a course of their nature try to find alternative solutions to fulfil these necessities.
51
Inhabitants of gecekondus find some kind of solutions to use their living spaces
in most convenient and suitable way to continue their lives for the functions and
programmes in the existing situations.
In some gecekondus, the number of the inhabitants living inside is more than the
capacity of the building structure and the living spaces for the day and night time.
In those cases, the solution is the superimposition of programmes on the
spaces. For example, a room, which is functioning as a living room, can be a
bedroom during the night, or a bedroom during the night can be children’s
studying or playing room during the daytime. This solution reminds the
architectural discourse of crossprogramming somehow. In this architectural
thinking, activities must be able to overlap and building must be able to adapt to
different programmes (Tschumi, 1996). In case of gecekondus these kind of
movement can be seen easily without an architectural awareness but coming
from necessity as it was mentioned above. To use the spaces in most effective
and appropriate way, they change the functions during the day and night if it is
needed. Those day and night changes will be exemplified with the plan
representations with the explanations of selected user profiles.
The survey was applied on 54 inhabitants of gecekondu settlements in the three
neighbourhoods. Mainly the interviews were made with one of the inhabitants
form each gecekondu. In this part, rather than showing all the interviews and
user profiles, I selected some distinctive ones with their life stories and the plan
schemes of their gecekondu.
Moreover, reportages with photos, detailed
analysis of the interior spaces with daytime and nighttime usages are
represented. All the information and data collected upon their narratives and all
rights reserved.
52
Profile 1
Name:Hacer
Age: 58
Gender: Female
Job:Retired
Ownership: Tenant
Neighbourhood:Karadolap – Alibeykoy
Income : 1600 TL / 686 €
300
RENT
1300
“Around 20 years it was announced by the government that if we pay the
requested amount of money...”
“I was born in 1954 in Trabzon, Karadeniz Region. I got married in my hometown
when I was 17 and moved to Istanbul with my husband. First we were staying in
one of our relative’s house then we built our own gecekondu in Eyup region. I
was divorced from my husband because of his gambling addiction and
violence. I got married with my recent husband and started living in the same
gecekondu also with my children. My son was quite angry about this situation,
tried to stab me once, and managed to do that later on. After that, I decided to
rent that gecekondu and move to another place with my husband and other
two children.
We have been renting this house for 2 years. It has two rooms and as far as I
know, it was built in 1960s. We rented it from someone that we know and we are
53
paying 300 TL per month. Monthly income of our family is approximately 1600
TL. I am retired from the municipality and I am not working recently.”
“There are no renovations or alterations that were done by us and it is in the
same size with the time that it was built. We are fine with this house but if I ever
had the chance to move to another place I would really like to move to my own
gecekondu in Eyup.”
“Around 20 years it was announced by the government that if we pay the
requested amount of money to the given bank account we would gain right to
have a land registry. We paid 50 TL at that date but still we could not get any
documents regarding the land registry.”
This family of four people is living in a small gecekondu in Karadolap
neighbourhood in Alibeykoy. As it can be seen from the floor plan, there are two
main rooms, bathroom and kitchen in their gecekondu.
Figure 8: Profile 1 – Floor Plan (Day Time)
54
The master bedroom that parents are using is functioning as a bedroom both
during the day and night time. This room has the wardrobes for the clothes of
the parents and children. Different from the master bedroom, the second room
has more than one function. This room is functioning as a living room for the
family and for the guests during the day for sitting, watching TV, eating, etc. This
room is the main gathering space for the family during the daytime, and most of
the activities are held in this room. There is a small portable table used for the
breakfast, lunch and dinner that is used without chairs but instead they sit on the
ground around this table. After the dinner, they close the table and put it in the
kitchen to gain more space and generally, they watch TV before going to their
beds. During the night, the room is functioning as a bedroom for the children of
the family. The sofa is used as one bed for the son of the family and another bed
is prepared on the floor from a mattress for the daughter. In the toilet, there is no
bathtub or shower cabinet, a drainage holemakes it possible to take a shower.
Figure 9: Profile 1 – Floor Plan (Night Time)
55
Profile 2
Name:Suna
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Job:Housewife
Ownership: Tenant
Neighbourhood:Kocatas - Sarıyer
Income: 940 TL / 403 €
300
RENT
640
“My origins are from Erzurum but I was born in Istanbul and grew up in this city.
Also my husband was born in Istanbul but our families knew each other from our
village in Erzurum. We got married 12 years ago and we have two children with
the ages of 8 and 10. We rented this gecekondu 3 years ago from a relative and
we pay 300 TL monthly fees for the rent. They said it was built in 1965 and it was
in the same size as it is now. However, there are some alterations and
renovations in some parts of the building such as painting the walls and
reparation of the roof structure.
I am not working in somewhere but I am dealing with the house works, taking
care of children, and spending most of my time in the house or with my
neighbours in the neighbourhood during the day. My husband is working as a
worker in private sector with a minimum wage of 940 TL.”
“This is a banal neighbourhood without any new interventions. We need a
new school for our children and healthcare facilities close to our homes. It
takes a lot of time to reach the closest hospital.”
56
This family consist of parents and two children that live in the gecekondu with
two rooms, kitchen, bathroom and an entrance hall.
Figure 10: Profile 2 – Floor Plan (Day Time)
The master bedroom is the bedroom for the parents for both during the day and
night time, which is a private room for usage of the parents. The second room is
functioning as a living room and the housewife is spending most of her time here
with her neighbours and with her daughter while the bigger child is at school or
playing with his friends outside in the neighbourhood. They have a portable table
with chairs for the meals in this room, generally, they use it for the dinner, and
then they close it again to gain more space.
During the nighttime, the master bedroom is functioning as it is as a bedroom but
the second room turns into a sleeping place for the children. There are no proper
beds existing in the bedroom all the time. The sofa is turning into a bed for the
children.
57
Figure 11: Profile 2 – Floor Plan (Night Time)
Figure 12: Profile 2 – Photo of the Family
58
Profile 3
Name:Ayse
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Job:Retired
Ownership: Owner
Neighbourhood:Karadolap - Alibeykoy
“My husband built this house with help of his father 39 years ago, in 1973. For few
years, he was living with his family in this house before we got married. After we
got married, they moved to another house and left this house to us. We had two
children and we were living here as a family of four members. My daughter was
married and moved away and 3 years ago, my husband died. Recently I am
living here with my son who does not have a permanent job. We are trying to
manage the money, 450 TL / 193 €, which I receive as a retiree from social
security.
Kitchen and the entrance hall are the additional parts that we built up after 10
years. Also during that time, we made some necessary renovations. The roof is
an important problem for us during the harsh winter conditions. It is becoming
very cold and sometimes leaks water from the roof. The main reason that we
chose this place is the proximity to our family and relatives. Too many people
from Erzurum are living in the neighbourhood. As far as I am retired and have no
husband, I am spending most of my time with my neighbours.”
59
“I feel comfortable with the public functions and the infrastructure in general
but if I ever had the chance to move somewhere else, I would really like to
move back to my hometown and live there.”
Figure 13: Profile 3 – Photo of the Enterance-Facade
Figure 14: Profile 3 – Interior Photo from Gecekondu
Despite the years and the small interventions that the house owner mentioned,
the general situation of the gecekondu is not good condition especially when the
climate is taken into account. The facade, as it can be seen from the picture
above, is made up from bricks without any mortar, paint or insulation but just
washed with lime. In addition, the ceiling is covered with sticky wallpapers as a
temporary solution but the leak is visible.
60
This gecekondu is consisting of an entrance hall with a toilet, two main rooms
and a kitchen. The entrance hall is not used a lot recently, there are some
furnishings to store little things there and the toilet is accessible from this space.
In the toilet, there is a drainage hole on the floor to give possibility of taking a
shower there. The space left for the kitchen is ‘more than enough for two
people’ with their phrase and there is a kitchen table for having their meals there.
Figure 15: Profile 3 – Floor Plan (Daytime-Nighttime)
One of the rooms is used as a bedroom by the mother and there is a single bed
and wardrobes. This room is used as a bedroom both during the day and night
time and it is only accessible from the kitchen space. The second room is used
as a living room during the day and the woman of the house is spending most of
her time here by watching TV, chatting with neighbours, knitting, etc. This room is
used as a bedroom by the son during the night. One of the couches is a pull out
couch and he is using it as a bed during the night.
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Profile 4
Name:Nagehan
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Job:Housewife
Ownership: Tenant
Neighbourhood:Karadolap – Alibeykoy
Income: 600 TL / 257 €
300
300
RENT
“We came to Istanbul 22 years ago from Erzurum. I was never working in
somewhere whereas my husband tried too many different jobs to earn money.
Recently he is a driver beside someone working as an employee and earns
600 TL / 257 € per month. We have 9 children and we must manage our money
according to that in order to look after our family. As you can see now, I am
baking the bread at home to feed my children and hopefully we are getting little
amount of support from the municipality for the heating and food. That is how we
manage to survive as a family of 11 people.
We rented the house 3 years ago and recently we are paying 300 TL per month.
I think the building is around 35 years old. Previously we were living in the same
neighbourhood but we moved here because our family expanded with our
children and previous one was too small for us. During the day I am using the
living room and kitchen and when the weather conditions are good I spent most
of time in our front yard.”
62
Figure 16: Profile 4 – Children of the Family with their Mother Baking Bread
“...working as an employee and earns 600 TL per month. We have 9
children and we must manage our money...”
When I saw the lady in front of a gecekondu and walked through her to ask if she
can make an interview, there were too many kids running around the
gecekondu and shouting, playing in the street who were supposed to be
children of the neighbourhood. When I asked the woman about her children she
told me that she has nine children and showed me the children that I was
thinking they were children from the neighbourhood. The most surprising story
that she told was their income as a family and the fee of the rent that they pay
from this income. The father is the only one in the family who earns money (600
TL) and they pay 300 TL for the rent. When it is thought that they also have to
look after nine children with this money in Istanbul, it sounds like impossible to do.
They are also getting some fuel help for heating and food help from their
municipality.
63
When we look at the floor plan of this gecekondu, it can be understood that the
outline of the plan is not very suitable for a family of 11 people with nine children.
There is an entrance hall, which is not used very often, but there is a wardrobe
and a cupboard for the storage. From here there is an access to one of the
rooms which is used as a living room during the day, and it is also used as a
room to welcome the guests and when children wants to play inside the house
or to study, they also use this room. In addition, a traditional eastern table is
placed in the middle of the room during the meals. This room is functioning as a
bedroom for four of the children during the night but there are no permanent
standard beds in the room. When the time comes to go to beds, they arrange
kind of mattresses from blankets and quilts as beds and the children sleep there
together.
Figure 17: Profile 4 – Floor Plan (Day Time)
When it is passed from the entrance hall, it is reached to more private spaces of
the gecekondu on the back side. There is a room on the right hand side, which is
used as a free space for the family for different functions. Children use this room
for playing and studying during the day, housewife uses the room for ironing and
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for house works, etc. The same room is used as a bedroom for the rest of the
children during the night, in the same way of the other room that children sleep
during the night. Four or five of the children sleep in this room during the night,
because one sometimes the very little ones sleep with their parents or they fit in
this room. As it can be seen from the nighttime plan of these rooms that turns
into bedrooms during the night, all the space is occupied by the beds on the floor
and there can be nothing more than sleeping in this room when the beds are
placed.
There is another room at the back of the house and it is used as a bedroom by
the parents. It is reached from the corridor and it is only used during the
nighttime, because of its small size and the double bed inside, there is no space
for other functions during the day. In between two rooms, there is toilet and
kitchen as wet volumes. The toilet is also place for taking shower with the
drainage hole on the ground, the kitchen is also too small, and it is the place for
only cooking.
Figure 18: Profile 4 – Floor Plan (Night Time)
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Profile 5
Name: Mehmet
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Job:Self-employment
Ownership: Owner
Neighbourhood:Yavuzturk – Uskudar
“I was born in Istanbul 32 years ago and until now I was living here. My father built
this house 35 years ago before I was born and at that time, it was just a single
storey gecekondu with 3 rooms. When our family expanded, we built the upper
floor as another independent house. Now my parents are living on upstairs with
my little brother and I am living here with my wife and two children. After some
years, we also did some renovations such as renovation of windows, doors and
repainting. We have another gecekondu in Uskudar district and currently it is on
hire. I am the only one working in my family and approximately, I earn 1500 TL /
643 € per month. It is not a lot but we can manage.’’
“There are some deficiencies of the neighbourhood that I can say. We do not
have a primary or school in the area, our children should go to the centre of the
district for the school and there are no any public parks for the children to play.
Also transportation is a kind of problem for us that we have to walk a lot to go to
the closest station and the bus lines are not very frequent.’’
66
This floor plan is a plan of gecekondu, which is under an apartment-kondu, and it
is separated from the upper floors. The entrance is opening to a corridor that
distributes you to the rooms and the wet volumes of the gecekondu. As far as
there are four people living in this gecekondu and there are three rooms, all the
functions of the spaces are same during the day and night. There is one master
bedroom used by the parents and another one used by two children of the
family. The living room, which is the most used room in the house, is the
common space for the inhabitants during the day and night. Most of the
activities take place in this room.
Figure 19: Profile 5 – Floor Plan
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3.6 An Afternoon in a Public Space
Sariyer // Buyukdere Neighbourhood // Public Park // 16:30 // 11.09.2012
It was a calm and sunny afternoon in the one and only public space in the
neighbourhood. Children of the neighbourhood were riding their bicycles with
endless tours around the park without getting tired. Their average age was
around 9 or 10 but the game that they were playing was quite surprising
according to their age. They were stopping with bicycles in some points to buy
imaginary cigarettes from the other kids, desire of imitating adults.
Men, in the ages of 50s were sitting on the benches and talking about politics
and daily life situations whereas some other were pacing around the park with
regular steps and talking about similar things. In addition, it was an interesting
observation that during that half an hour in that park, there were three different
men talking (one of them with his mobile phone) about property market and
buying-selling. Therefore, it can be understood that still real estate market
continues and there is purchasing power.
Figure 20: Photo from a public park in Buyukdere Neighbourhood
68
There is a tea garden in the edge of the park, where it could be seen that many
of the people sitting there were women in the ages of 50-60 and most probably,
they were housewives or retired. The common objective is the same, going out
from the house and spending some time in an open space while sipping their
teas from traditional Turkish tea glasses with thin-waist.
There were cars, buses and a minibus passing from both sides of the park, and it
was like an island in between these roads. In the main street, almost in every
corner there was a cafe, restaurant, kebab house, etc. As it is known in general,
one of the most specific characteristics of Turkish people is being interested in
food and cuisine.
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4.
THE OUTCOMES OF THE FIELD SURVEY
70
4.1 Aims of the Survey
In this part of the research, I will summarize and represent some major
outcomes upon the survey questions prepared before entering the gecekondu
neighbourhoods in Istanbul.
In the one month of an on field research in three different neighbourhoods in
Istanbul, the survey was applied on 54 inhabitants of gecekondu settlements in
these three neighbourhoods as 5 selected ones were represented before.
Upon the results of the questions, input data was analyzed in digital context and
the outcome will be given with the graphics and the detailed explanations. This
data will provide an insight for the topic and the impacts of immigration in such a
metropolitan city as Istanbul. All the surveyed inhabitants living in gecekondus
were immigrants coming to Istanbul from other cities or villages in Turkey. Even if
some minority of them were born in Istanbul, their parents had come from other
cities or villages. This was situation was something wanted before the survey, to
find the immigrant people to do the survey, but it became an improvisation and
all the inhabitants were already immigrants.
Some main categories of the interview questions that are used in the interviews
and for the outcome with the graphics and the detailed explanations are listed as
below;
- How Many Years in Gecekondu?
- Ownership
- Who builts Gecekondus?
- How Many Rooms?
- Previous and Other Properties of Gecekondu Inhabitants
- Reason for locating in a specific Gecekondu
- In case you could, where would you like to move?
- Vehicle Ownership
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4.2 How many years in Gecekondu?
It is important to know the approximate years that inhabitants of gecekondus
were living in their gecekondus even if they are the landowners of tenants.
According to that, some specific years were categorized as; less than 5 year, 5
to 9, 10 to 14, 15 to 19, 20 to 24, 25 to 30 and more than 30 years. Results of the
survey show that 48% of the gecekondu inhabitants were living in their
gecekondus for more than 30 years, which is a considerable value, almost half
of the inhabitants took place in the survey.
YEARS
15%
0%
<5
15%
48%
5 to 9
10 to 14
7%
11%
4%
15 to 19
20 to 24
25 to 30
>30
Second biggest ratio is shared between less than 5 years and 10 to 14
categories with 15% of the gecekondu inhabitants. It is an interesting output that
between these two categories, there is no one living in gecekondus from 5 to 10
years. The inhabitants living in gecekondu from 25 to 30 years are 11% and 15 to
19 and 20 to 24 years categories are 7% and 4% respectively. Another point that
was analyzed from the outputs that these 48% of the inhabitants that they live
more than 30 years are the landowners and they own the gecekondus whereas
15% of the inhabitants that live there less than 5 years are all the tenants and they
rented their gecekondus from someone else. The average of the years that has
been living in gecekondu is determined as 32 years.
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4.3 Ownership
Ownership is another important issue to highlight in gecekondu settlements
because of the current situation of real estate market in Istanbul. Gecekondus
were started to build by immigrants in order to provide a temporary shelter but
they became to be permanent by time and also the purpose of gecekondus
changed from shelters to gates of income in some cases. This can be also
understood from the gecekondus that are for rent. (Fig.10)
From the outputs of the survey, it
was determined that 70% of the
inhabitants in the neighbourhoods
are the landowners. This ratio is
continues with 22% of the tenants
that are living in the gecekondus
that they rent. This fact tells us the
distinction
between
the
economical differences of user
profiles
even
in
gecekondu
settlements, because the people
who rent their gecekondus to the
tenants
have
gecekondus
neighbourhood
in
or
their
own
the
same
somewhere
else in Istanbul. Also from this
situation, it can be understood that
there is a competition in the real
estate market of gecekondus. It
was different in the first periods of
Figure 21: Kiralık Gecekondu: Gecekondufor Rent
gecekondu developments from
nowadays. Those people were finding empty lands that belong the public and
building gecekondus with the materials that they found from here and there. At
least media showed the picture for many years. However, the reality nowadays
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is different from that picture, whereas gecekondu owners are paying serious
amount of money to each other for the lands of gecekondus. Also there is so
called ‘Mafia of Gecekondu’ that are parcelling the state properties and selling
them to the people.
OWNERSHIP
Landowner
7%
Tenant
22%
With Family
70%
The last slice of the pie chart shows the inhabitants live with their parents or
family, which is 7% of the inhabitants. These are the people mainly did not get
married or even if they got married they did not separate their living spaces from
their families and continues living together as a big family.
4.4 Who builts Gecekondus?
As it is obvious, gecekondus are not the residential buildings that are designed
by architects nor controlled by civil engineers. It is still questionable that how
strong are they and the earthquake resistance. Istanbul as a first-degree
earthquake zone has this threat. That is why it was asked to the inhabitants who
built and how they built their homes. The results show that 63% of the inhabitants
built their homes by themselves. This was possible by finding the necessary and
primitive building materials according to their budget without any luxury or high
quality materials.
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The plan typologies are also based on the necessity according to the number of
the family members or the possible expansions of families. People whodid not
built their homes by themselves are the 37% of the inhabitants in the on field
survey. This categorization of people who are mentioned as ‘other’ in the pie
chart bought or rented their gecekondus from someone else. In this case, it can
be determined that all the people who built their gecekondus themselves are the
landowners. Even if they did not build the gecekondu by themselves, the person
who was living there before built it or it was built by the help of the relatives or
neighbours.
BUILT BY
37%
63%
Themselves
Other
In addition, as it was mentioned above in the ‘Ownership’ topic, there are kind of
mafias that are earning money from the existence of gecekondus starting from
the land process and this continues in the construction process. These people
are providing the necessary construction materials and helps to the people who
wants to build gecekondu, in return of money. Of course people were not
mentioning and trying to skip those kinds of questions during the survey
because of privacy issues but it was known that some of the people listed as
‘other’ in the pie chart, built their gecekondus with the help of mafia.
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4.5How many rooms?
In this part of the research, it was asked to the inhabitants and observed how
many rooms they have in their gecekondus? As it was mentioned, the necessity
was the main factor to decide how many rooms they had to build or to find a
gecekondu to fit in. When we look at the outputs, it shows that 67% of the
gecekondus have tworooms as majority. This continues with 30% of the
gecekondus with three rooms and finally 4% of them have just one room except
the toilet and kitchen.
ROOMS
0%
4%
30%
1
2
67%
3
4
As it can be seen from the pie chart, gecekondus with 4 rooms has the ratio of
0% in the survey. There are some reasons of not having any gecekondus with 4
rooms, despite the fact that in some families there are more than 10 people living
in one gecekondu. Main reason can be specified as the economical situation of
families because building more rooms means more space to build and necessity
of bigger lands. This is something not wanted by the gecekondu inhabitants.
Another reason can be determined based on the life styles of the inhabitants
where they are used to live in a together and share the common spaces both
during the daytime and during nighttime.
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4.6 Previous and Other Properties of Gecekondu Inhabitants
The reason of questioning the previous properties, which gecekondu
inhabitants lived, is to understand where they come from and how were their
previous living standards in terms of living spaces. The results show that 67% of
the gecekondu inhabitants that attended the survey were living in another
gecekondu before. When they came from another city or from villages, they
started to live in another gecekondus and then moved to their current
gecekondus.
The ratio of the inhabitants moved from apartment kind of dwellings to
gecekondus is 22%.
Inhabitants came directly from their villages and started living gecekondus in
Istanbul are 11% of them who attended the survey.
PREVIOUS PROPERTY
11%
22%
Gecekondu
67%
Apartment
Village
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Inhabitants who have also other properties in Istanbul or in other cities are 7%
and their other properties are in rent. Whereas 93% of them have, only their
homes that they live in or they do not have any properties at all and lives in rental
gecekondus or with their families.
OTHER PROPERTIES
7%
Have no other
Have other
93%
4.7 Reason for locating in a specific Gecekondu
There are some specific reasons of choosing the specific neighbourhoods by
the gecekondu inhabitants. These reasons are listed as in the pie chart below;
being close to the family or relatives, gecekondus owned by family, proximity to
the work, low-cost of living, proximity to their children’s school are the main
factors of choosing their neighbourhoods to live in. In some cases, there can be
more than one specific reason for inhabitants to choose the neighbourhood or
there can be individual reasons according to the families that cannot be
categorized specifically but instead listed as other reasons in the survey.
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The most common factor of choosing the neighbourhood is proximity to their
family or relatives with 33% of the inhabitants. These people chose their
neighbourhood because some of their relatives or family members settled in the
same neighbourhood before them and they started live in close distance. This
can be exemplified with the inhabitants coming from the same villages or cities in
Turkey and live in same neighbourhood, sometimes even in the same streets.
The reason behind this can be determined as solidarity of the immigrants
coming from same places and start living in an unfamiliar place. When they live
together in a neighbourhood, they continue their own traditions that they bring
from their hometowns and help each other in necessary conditions. On the
other hand, this situation brings the question mark to the minds about
segregation/integration. If they migrated from their hometowns and start living in
a metropolitan city such as Istanbul, why they were living together? Are they
segregating themselves consciously?
REASON OF CHOICE
4%
15%
33%
Family/Relatives
Owned by Family
Work
26%
11%
11%
Low-Cost
School
Other
The second main reason behind the choice is determined as low-cost with the
ratio of 26% of the inhabitants living in the selected neighbourhoods. Low cost
means the cost of the construction of the gecekondu and the expenditures
when it is compared with buying a real estate in Istanbul.
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Inhabitants that they chose their neighbourhoods according to proximity of
working places share the ratio of 11% with the ones that chose the
neighbourhood because their family owns a gecekondu in the neighbourhood. It
is an important issue for the immigrants to settle down close to their working
places when they first came to the city. In addition, if they already had their family
in the city, they can share the same gecekondu with their families.
Only 4% of the inhabitants in the survey mentioned that they chose the
neighbourhood because of the close distance to their children’s school.
According to the survey and the interviews, it is understood that school and
education is not the primary issue to consider for the gecekondu immigrants. In
some cases, they complain about the schools and there is a demand for better
schools but they do not choose neighbourhood according to the schools in
general.
As it was mentioned, there are some reasons behind the choice of
neighbourhood and these factors occupy the 15% of the pie chart. These other
reasons are the ones that are individual reasons belong to the gecekondu
owners.
4.8 In case you could, where would you like to move?
This part of the survey with the question of ‘Where would you like to move’ is
providing an idea about the expectations, desires, complaints and contentment
about their living spaces. It is important to understand what gecekondu
inhabitants think about living conditions and what they want in order to
compromise with the government if there will be a future solution in the context
of the urban regeneration in Istanbul because it will not be appropriate just to
demolish gecekondus and do not care about their future. These people are
used to some kind of way of life in gecekondu settlements and the most suitable
way of living should be provided for them if we have to talk about the urban
regeneration.
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In general, if you ask someone in Istanbul; ‘What do you think about the people
living in gecekondus?’ the answer would be ‘poor people living in bad
conditions’. However, the result of the survey shows that 41% of the inhabitants
attended the survey does not want to move from their gecekondus. They are
satisfied with their conditions and they do not want to leave their gecekondus
because they see them as a guarantee for living even if they do not have land
register.
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO MOVE?
15%
Same Zone/ New House
41%
30%
11%
New Zone
Apartment
Hometown
4%
No
The inhabitants who would like to move to a new zone, new neighbourhood are
30%. The reason of willing to live in another zone is coming from the complaints
about the neighbourhood because of the transportation, infrastructure or
municipal problems of inhabitants.
Whereas the inhabitants who would like to live in the same neighbourhood but in
a new house are 15%. These people have no complaints about the
neighbourhood or problems with their municipality but they are not happy with
their living space/living conditions regarding their gecekondus. They would like
to live in a newer house in the same neighbourhood that they are used to.
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The inhabitants who would not like to live anymore in gecekondu nor Istanbul but
would like to turn back to their hometown are 11% of the inhabitants in the
survey. These inhabitants are the ones who were living in Istanbul and in their
gecekondus more than 25 years. Istanbul as a developing metropolis, which
increases by size and density day by day, makes people coming from rural areas
tired as all the other people who are living in Istanbul for a long time. This is the
reason behind the will of moving back to their hometowns.
It is not a surprising result of the survey, where only 4% of the inhabitants would
like to live in apartment type dwellings. There are some conditions that they are
used to live in gecekondus and they believe that in the apartments of Istanbul
they cannot continue this life style anymore. The inhabitants who would like to
live in apartment kind of buildings if they move are the ones that are already living
in apartment-kondus. All the rest are living in detached houses, separated from
the other building blocks and most of them have their own garden. Even if they
do not have a garden, they live separately not like in an apartment and they open
their own doors without entering an apartment and without sharing common
spaces of apartments. They know that their gecekondu is their own territory and
they can live however, they want there. After getting used to these kinds of lives,
it is difficult to live in standard apartments in Istanbul.
4.9 Vehicle Ownership
It was asked to the gecekondu inhabitants if they own a vehicle or not. Vehicle
ownership is also another important issue in terms of growth in metropolitan
Istanbul.
According to the statistics of TUIK, the number of vehicles in was 8,320,449 in
2000 and this number increased to 15,892,396 in 2011. In this statistics, Istanbul
has the 2,906,367 of the vehicles in Turkey, which is 18% of the total number.
1,893,088 of these vehicles are automobiles and it is a remarkable value for
Istanbul (TUIK, 2011). Therefore, it is important to understand the private vehicle
usage in Istanbul in terms of traffic and transportation problems.
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The 70% of the inhabitants who attended the survey answered that they do not
own any vehicles and they use public transportation to reach somewhere in
Istanbul.
VEHICLES
30%
Yes
70%
No
The 30% of the inhabitants in this survey have their own vehicles. The interviews
show that even if they own their private vehicles, they do not use them always to
go somewhere. They also use public transportation because of the high prices
of fuel oil in Turkey.
83
5. TOKI AND TOKI-ZATION
84
5.1 What is TOKI?
TOKI as an acronym word stands for ‘Toplu Konutİdaresi’ in Turkish, which
means ‘Mass Housing Administration’. This institution was established as ‘Mass
Housing and Public Partnership Administration’ in 1984. The aim was to find a
solution to dwelling and urbanization problems and accelerating production to
decrease unemployment caused by rapid population increase and rapid
urbanization in Turkey.
The aims of TOKI were determined to promote and encourage housing
developments in Turkey in order to provide a well-programmed answer to the
increasing housing demand. In 1990, the formation of TOKI changed in a way of
organizational structure as it is divided in two different units of Mass Housing
Administration Presidency and Public Partnership Administration Presidency.
The authorities mention that because of the limited funds and resources, TOKI
could not support many housing developments and the number of the
developments started to decrease gradually after 1993. Because of these facts,
they could not provide sufficient number of housing developments to fulfil
housing demands for low and middle-income people. In 2001, mass housing
funds that were given to TOKI were cancelled with the legislation and after that
TOKI revenue generations based on real estate sales / rents, return of loans,
interest yields and transfers from the budget.
5.2 Duties of TOKI
Duties of TOKI were determined with the Mass Housing Law when it was
established. These duties are listed as:
-
Providing all kinds of financial securities with governmental guarantee;
-
Deciding to take out domestic or overseas loan to use by Mass Housing
Administration;
-
Taking precautions to provide participation of banks for the housing
finance and giving loan to the banks if it is necessary;
85
-
Supporting the units and people working on housing constructions and
related industries;
-
Participating with the companies dealing with housing constructions
especially in developing regions;
-
Providing all kinds of research, project and commitment processes with
contracts if it is necessary;
-
Complete the duties that are determined by laws and other legislations.
However, there are some changes made in the duties of the administration
because of the housing and urbanization problems in different scales and some
more activities were needed. In this frame, new duties were determined with the
legislation in 2003 as:
-
Establishing companies dealing with housing sector or participating with
the existing companies;
-
Granting individual or collective loans, crediting the projects aim to
develop rural architecture, urban regeneration of gecekondu settlements,
-
conservation
and renovation of historical pattern and vernacular
architecture, if it is needed making subventions of interest for these loans;
-
Domestic and foreign project developments directly or with participants;
managing housing, infrastructure and social structure applications;
-
To do profit oriented projects or get them done in order to provide
resources to the administration;
-
Construction, promotion, and support for new housing and social
structure if it is needed in the areas affected by natural disasters.
Also TOKI has right to establish new units and to employ the staff from
municipality and other public institutions for these units as temporary workers.
With this esteem, it was decided to establish new units in cities such as Istanbul,
Bingol, Erzurum, Diyarbakır and Van.
Again with the new legislations, TOKI administration gained right to take over the
public land from the related minister with approval of finance minister and prime
minister.
86
As it can be understood, TOKI has a great power in housing sector in Turkey and
it is playing role of a leader with its rights and the support of the government party
as they have the same administrative power. However, sometimes this power
and dominance cannot be enough to satisfy the necessary conditions of a
sustainable living environment in terms of economic, social and environmental
way of living. None of the features providing sustainable environment is
mentioned as a concern in the listed duties of TOKI.
Figure 22: TOKI Istanbul Kayasehir Project
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5.3 Copy and paste? Critical issues on neighbourhood and housing
development
Istanbul as an enlarging and growing city, the demand for housing is also
increasing day by day in the city. As it is mentioned in the ‘Gecekondu
Formations’ section, people can find individual solutions to the housing demand
by themselves like building gecekondu settlements. However, gecekondu
settlements are seen by the government as a threat to the city and many efforts
are made to prevent gecekondu formations and find a possible solution to the
housing demand. In Istanbul as well as in other cities, the solution is developed by
building mass housing projects inside the city and on the peripheral areas. In this
case, TOKI is monopolizing housing developments in Turkey and has an ultimate
power on new housing developments especially on housing developments for
low and middle-income residents.
On the specific issue of this research, TOKI started a national ‘Urban
Regeneration Project’ aimed at eliminating gecekondu settlements, through
demolition and reconstruction of new high-rise buildings. In this project, Istanbul
has 18 districts in the list that are determined to be addressed in terms of urban
regeneration. In addition, they are proposing and building satellite towns in the
suburbs to relocate the inhabitants of gecekondus. This approach presents
several criticalities and a main one consists in the reactions of the inhabitants, as
they are dissatisfied and unhappy with their living environment.
Until now TOKI build housing developments have 55,427 residential units in
Istanbul while there are constructions for housing developments going on and
some of them are about to finish. When these developments are being
completed, there will be another 50,976 residential units in Istanbul that are done
by TOKI. If the housing development projects that are planned are also
considered, there will be 12,664 more residential units. As they announce
everywhere in Turkey, their aim is to reach 1,000,000 residential units in Turkey.
88
The main criticism that can be raised to the housing development policies of
TOKI concerns the fact that a same stereotyped scheme of housing
development is defined and applied all around the country in different cities. Even
if they build large amount of dwellings-apartment blocks-, architectural and
urban quality should always be concerned while proposing and building
structures for the cities and for the residents of the city. On the contrary it can be
seen that the same plan typology of an apartment block that is done in Bursa or
Ankara is applied to Istanbul without any changes according to the region, city,
site and user profiles or with some little make ups on the project. This is not an
appropriate approach to follow on housing developments for a city of 21st
Century, which should shine out with its urban planning and architecture.
Projects should have particular characteristics showing differences according to
the region, climate, user profiles, etc. Ignoring these facts can end up with a
failure in architecture and planning.
Figure 23: Floor Plan of TOKI Halkalı Project in Istanbul
89
Figure 24: Floor Plan of TOKI Rahva Project in the city of Bitlis
The first floor plan scheme is from the Halkalı Housing Project in Istanbul, the
second floor plan is from the city called Bitlis, which is located in Eastern Anatolia
Region, and the third floor plan is from the capital, Ankara that is in Central
Anatolia. The similarity between these three floor plans is obvious; there is almost
no difference between two floor plans.
Another criticism about the floor plan of both projects (which can be exemplified
with many other floor plans of TOKI from different cities) is the organization of the
spaces. The floor plan area is divided into four and each of these four divisions is
offered to inhabitants that are supposed to live in these apartment blocks.
However, each apartment unit will be looking towards to different directions and
each of these spaces will have different view and different amount of day light
during the day.
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Figure 25: Floor Plan of TOKI Yapracık Project in Ankara
When all these floor plans of the housing projects from three different cities are
examined carefully, it can be seen that there are just small differences but they
are all the same housing projects in three different places done by TOKI.
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5.4 “TOKI-zation” as a pattern of new housing developments
This is not a blacken propaganda or smear campaign against TOKI, for sure
there are some positive aspects of TOKI in the housing developments in Turkey.
However, there should be some points that would be considered while applying
the necessary residential structures.
As TOKI mentions about the growing population and necessity for more
residential buildings in order to satisfy the need, they determine an urban density
of 600 people per hectare in most of the areas in Istanbul. This number of an
urban density in Istanbul can be classified as high density in residential
developments. Beside the difficulty of maintaining this density in a way to provide
sustainable future, there are some limitations such as time and finance. In these
terms, TOKI is following the technique of modular construction in terms of quick
construction methods. This is important in order to complete the developments
in a limited time and provide housings for the inhabitants. Also considering low
construction costs in this way is an appreciable manner to satisfy the economic
part of the sustainability circle.
The problems in these kinds of housing developments of TOKI can be listed as;
no or limited neighbourhood facilities, low quality of life in apartments, alienation
of individuality, little consideration of ecological sustainability, no social
sustainability, no sense of place and creation of isolated closed neighbourhoods
in detached from the urban context.
92
The immigrants coming from rural areas that are supposed to live in TOKI
apartments or the ones that were living in gecekondus before can hardly adapt
their lifestyles into these apartment blocks.
The lifestyle that is expected is the areas with high level of neighbourhood
facilities with the social and public facilities with a bearable density that people
knows each other and can communicate with each other. These habits are
coming from Turkish way of life in neighbourhoods that people know each other,
they see each other almost every day, and there is a social interaction among
people. They are visiting each other for coffee times during the day, or they used
to gather in open spaces around their neighbourhoods.
However, the design of these apartment blocks brings alienation to the
inhabitants and individuality in a negative way. They live in their own residential
units, isolated from their neighbours and environment. The introverted formation
of these apartment blocks force people to live in that way, isolated from outside.
Especially the ‘satellite cities’ that TOKI is proposing are even much more isolated
when it is compared to the ones that are inside the city or close to the centres.
When people leave out from their living spaces, as it is to say own residential
units, the city and the social and cultural functions will be far away from them.
However, they should be supposed to find some of these social and cultural
functions also in their neighbourhood.
The concept of housing requires a new understanding to effectively address the
pressing issues of slums, the urban divide, economic and human development,
and climate change. No longer regarded as simply a roof over one’s head,
housing today plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable development (UNHabitat, 2012).
Discussing of lacking or limited neighbourhood facilities is not at all referring only
to informal and soft social facilities and functions in the neighbourhood. In
addition, general public and private functions in the neighbourhood such as
schools, libraries and commercial facilities are to be considered as a main
criticality in these projects. If all these functions are being pushed from
neighbourhood scale to the city scale, there will be low quality of life in the
neighbourhood as it can be seen in TOKI developments.
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Ecological sustainability is another issue that has to be taken into account for the
development of any sustainable future for Turkish cities. Renewable energy
sources and natural energy systems can be the part of housing developments
with the manner of environmental protection and using environmental friendly
materials in the construction and in the general frame of the projects is very
important. Also in terms of ecological sustainability, green zones should be
protected and no more trees should be cut in order to avoid creating concrete
jungles for the city. However, none of these aspects of ecological sustainability
exists in TOKI developments.
Social sustainability is also very important as one of the main keys for the
development of sustainable urban developments. Residents have some needs
that has to be fulfilled and they should have right to make choice on the living
spaces and how they want to live. Sustainable development is a recognized
principle for economic and social activities. Sustainable development is seen as
a
multidimensional
process
that
links
environmental
protection
with
economically, socially and culturally sound development. Those links are referred
to as a four-dimensional approach to sustainable development, highlighting the
need for a harmonious association between environmental, economic, social
and cultural dimensions (UN-Habitat, 2012). This can be possible with the
participation of the inhabitants. If they cannot participate in any way to the
formation of their own living spaces but rather they are placed into residential
units, it is hard to talk about social sustainability in that case. It is the people that
turn a space into a place and ordinary spaces become places with the existence
of people. This issue is not just existing in Turkey but beyond it is a wider issue of
modern mass housing estates in Europe also as it was analyzed by Anne Power
in her book called “Estates on the edge”. Power explains the situation as:
Rural to urban migration, slum redevelopment, public aspirations, and the
development of industrialised building systems led to a belief in gigantism and
mass solutions, which in turn created unwieldy, heavily subsidised, separate
housing areas that were designed for those in need. Gradually as overall
shortages diminished, the populations that could not realistically aspire to ever
more popular, owner-occupied houses of a very different style and smaller-
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scale ended up often feeling trapped in, or coerced into, estates which were
marginalised, stigmatised and rejected by mainstream society (Power, 1997)
If the formation of these kinds of “mushroom” developments developed by TOKI
inside or around the city continues, the threat will be considerable, especially for
the future of Istanbul, as this is the major Turkish city in which social polarisation
and segregation risks to produce relevant criticalities.
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6. A PROPOSAL
96
6.1 An Alternative Proposal Aimed at Discussing theTOKI Approach
TOKI developments, for the current situation and for the future of Istanbul, are
described with all their positive and negative aspects in terms of social,
economical, and environmental frames of sustainability. As a conclusion, it is
possible to affirm that TOKI developments are not the suitable solutions for the
future of growing Istanbul suffering from high population and residential
problems.
In this point, a proposal for the development of an alternative project is being
proposed for the possible sustainable future of Istanbul to prevent uncontrolled
growth -which is in an inappropriate way- against TOKI developments. As it was
mentioned before, not all the approaches of TOKI is wrong; there are some
positive approaches of TOKI and these positive manners are tried to preserved
in the proposal project in order to satisfy the requirements that TOKI and
government determines. Especially there are two important concerns that TOKI
elaborates with the government and it is important to consider and assume
these orientations as guidelines for the development of any projects that aims at
alternative design solutions:
-the first one is the achievement of high-density developments and
-the second is low costs in the construction process.
These two aspects are tried to be kept as the main considerations for the design
process and supported with many other aspects that are necessary for a
sustainable development and missed by TOKI developments. Therefore the
proposal is addressing some criticalities and missing aspects that are to be
identified in TOKI projects: the quality of construction, good and modern
neighbourhood facilities, the quality of life in apartments, ecological and social
sustainability and a good sense of place.
This architectural and urban design project is the result of a design studio work
that was held in Politecnico di Milano in the 2011-2012 Spring Semester
coordinated by Oliviero Godi. During the project, two site trips were done to
Istanbul in order to conduct site analysis and observations in the selected
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neighbourhood, Ispartakule, for a better understanding. Also during these trips,
there were several lectures given by the authorities from Istanbul Metropolitan
Municipality and Istanbul Metropolitan Planning.
TOKI
An Alternative Project
Urban Density: 600 people/hectare
Urban Density: 600 people/hectare
Quick Construction
Quality of Construction
Modular Construction
Modular yet Variety of Construction
Low Construction Costs
Low Construction Costs
Low or Limited Neighbourhood Facilities
Good, Modern, Extensive Neighbourhood
No Quality of Life in Apartments
Good Quality of Life In Apartments
Alienation of Individuality
Emphasis on Individuality
Modernist Approach/ Unrespectfulto Context
Holistic Approach Based on Context
Very Little Consideration of Eco-Sustainability
High Consideration of Eco-Sustainability
No Social Sustainability
High Social Sustainability
No Sense of Place
Good Sense of Place
Table 5: Comparison between TOKI and ‘An Alternative Against TOKI’
As it can be realized from the outputs of the interviews made in three different
gecekondu neighbourhoods, 41% of the inhabitants does not want to move
from their gecekondus. The reason for that is there are no alternatives other than
TOKI solutions for them. The type of apartment blocks that TOKI provides are
seen as frightening solution for the gecekondu inhabitants. If better quality of
living space with affordability could be possible, number of inhabitants who
would like to move into the proposed new apartments would increase. As soon
as proposed apartments will be completed, the transition from gecekondu
settlements can start.
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The realization process of this project can start with the governmental support
and funds that would be spared from the budget. When the inhabitants move
from their gecekondus, at that point the vacant gecekondus can be demolished
in the process of urban regeneration.
Gecekondu
TOKI Developments
An Alternative Project
The starting point for an alternative project is to understand the current situation,
problems,
positive
and
negative
aspects
of
anon-prospering
urban
development in the area. The gecekondu formations and gecekondu
settlements are seen as a threat for the city by the government. As it is
discussed before, it is hard to say this outlook is completely true or false but there
are some positive and negative aspects of gecekondu settlements. On the
other side, TOKI is proposing some other housing developments as a solution to
the growing population, housing demand and for the urban regeneration against
gecekondu settlements. However, TOKI’s approach to the existing situation is
also to be debated as a non-suitable perspective for the future of Istanbul. At that
point, an alternative project is becoming necessary to comprise gecekondus
and TOKI developments in the middle.
The design of this alternative project was a long process that consists of
different phases. Main aim was to follow a route that goes from zoom in to zoom
out scale. This means to start with the smallest scale in order to understand the
lifestyles and residents’ need that generated with Maslow’s triangles for the
99
hierarchy of needs for different user groups different types of apartment layouts
designed. According to Maslow’s theory there are at least five sets of goals,
which we may call basic needs. These are briefly physiological, safety, love,
'esteem, and self-actualization. In addition, we are motivated by the desire to
achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic satisfactions
rest and by certain more intellectual desires (Maslow, 1943).
The design process of the apartment layouts based mainly on contemporary
and shifting family composition considering immigration that is the main issue. In
addition, cultural backgrounds are considered for the formation of the living
spaces to provide the ultimate optimum comfort for the inhabitants in highdensity housing developments. In this phase of the project, the basic apartment
unit is defined as a 10x10 meter space consisting of prefabricated concrete
panels. The advantage of using 10x10 square dimensions is based on modular
and variety of construction with low construction costs. According to the defined
user, profiles and needs this 10x10 square can be diversified with additions or
subtractions to it.
A second phase was aimed at generating ‘clustering’ after the formation of
individual living spaces for the inhabitants. In this phase the aim was to create, a
cluster consisting of a variety of apartment layouts, considering good sense of
place and good public life inside the apartment clusters. The urban density is
supposed to be dense so another very important manner was to provide
intimacy and individuality without creating alienation in the coexistence in order
not to segregate or alienate inhabitants in the high-density apartments. In
addition, when it is said apartments, they are not isolated high-rise apartment
blocks but tried to maintain the diluted high-density settlements.
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The last phase of the design process was to deal with the larger scale as it goes
through the zoom out in the project scale, which is neighbourhood scale. In this
phase of the project, the aim is to provide a sustainable and suitable
neighbourhood for the inhabitants in a way that brings the traditional
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neighbourhood life in a contemporary manner with respect to the apartment
layouts and clustering. The main issues to be dealt with can summarize as
generation of public services and infrastructure, roads and organization of
spaces. In addition to that, leisure, commercial, and public spaces with the
parking and transportation network in the neighbourhood were redesigned
according to the determined neighbourhood layout.
6.2 A Selected Site for Testing the Proposal: Ispartakule Neighbourhood
The site that is selected for the alternative proposal project toTOKI housing
developments is Ispartakule Neighbourhood. The neighbourhood is located in
the borders of Basaksehir Municipality and adjacent to Bahcesehir Municipality,
which was a big satellite city consist of mass housing developments and
become an independent municipality in time.
Map 7: Location of Ispartakule Neighbourhood in Istanbul
102
The site is selected with the common determinations of Politecnico di Milano and
Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul according to the increasing potentials of the
area in expanding Istanbul through its peripheries. A swot analysis is made in
order to analyze the positive and negative aspects of the neighbourhood and
the selected site before the initials of the design process.
Map 8: Location of Ispartakule Neighbourhood in Closer Scale
Map 9: Location of the Selected Site within the Ispartakule Neighbourhood
103
As it can be seen from Map 9, the selected area has a specific place that
remains between the gecekondu settlement and the TOKI developments in
Ispartakule neighbourhood. In addition to that, some parts of the gecekondu
developments are inserted in the selected area in order to start the urban
regeneration that will provide a bridge connection not in a sudden way but rather
slight transition between gecekondu formations and TOKI blocks. . As it was
mentioned before, the transition will start with the completion of the proposed
apartments part by part, people that live in the gecekondu settlements can
move into these new developments, and urban regeneration can start.
Another issue that can be realized from the Map 9 is the density over area ratio. If
we consider an area of one hectare to compare the density, the density of the
TOKI settlements is approximately 600 people per hectare where in the
gecekondu settlements this ratio is 140 people per hectare.
The incline, from the highest point in the north and lowest point in the south,
provides a great opportunity to use the existing topography as a part of the
design. Moreover, existence of the Kucukcekmece Lake and Marmara Sea in
the south direction will be the part of the vista that apartments can look through
for a perfect view.
S trengths:
-
Being close to TEMHighway and easy access with connections and exits
-
Open to the real estate development with the stock of empty plots in the
area,
-
Being close to Bahcesehir Municipality and to the new Ataturk Olympic
Stadium,
-
Convenient for the settlements in terms of topography with the possibility
of buildings having a panoramic view,
-
Easy access to the Ataturk Airport via TEM Highway,
-
Open to the well-organized settlements due to stock of empty plots.
104
W eaknesses:
-
Lack of infrastructures,
-
Difficulty of access with public transportation,
-
Unplanned housing developments nearby; such as Altınsehir and
Sahintepe
Opportunities:
-
Existence of spacious surface areas that give possibility for qualified
projects,
-
Existence of some new housing projects around that creates an
attraction to the area,
-
Existence of railway that passes through the periphery of Ispartakule has
potential for an access to the area.
Threats:
-
Illegality of the developments inside the area and in the nearby
neighbourhoods,
-
Distance to the Basaksehir district centre as location that can create
administrative problems.
6.3 A Profile of the Old and New Inhabitants
After the determination of the site for the project, the design process starts with
the definition of the user profiles that are thought to be the potential users for the
project. This is one of the most important phases of the design process because
in this phase possible potential users will be defined and analyzed for the
planning of the most suitable apartment typologies for them.
105
These possible user profiles are categorized as:
-
Gecekondu Inhabitants
-
New Immigrants
-
New Nomads
-
Middle Income Families
The categorizations listed above are selected according to the current user
profiles in the selected neighbourhood and according to the future prospects of
Istanbul with its growing formation; Gecekondu inhabitants that already live close
to the area, new immigrants who will come to Istanbul as immigrants, new
nomads as remote contemporary nomads (Klein, 2007), and middle income
families. Each of these categories will be analyzed using “Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs” triangles as a tool to understand the basic and minor need in a
hierarchical way. These needs of each category are used as main
considerations of design of the apartment units according to different possible
user profiles.
Moreover, there are three different ideas represented for each type of user
profile. First idea is to design a housing unit without using the interior walls as
separators to divide living spaces. In this kind of plan, typology there will be no
interior walls and no standard rooms but instead the furniture will be used in
order to define spaces and furniture will take the role of the walls. This will provide
flexibility of spaces and participation of users to organize and participate in the
design of their own living spaces.
The second idea about the plan typology is to use just the walls of the house but
there will be no furniture because walls are going to have the role of the furniture.
In other words, walls will already have the embedded furniture inside that can be
pulled out, pushed in or slide by the users according to the necessity of use. For
example, beds can be hidden during the day in order to gain some more free
space and they can be pulled out from the walls during the night when they are
106
necessary. This flexibility of usage will provide the possibility of cross
programming. According to Bernard Tschumi’s concept of crossprogramming:
“Architecture has always been as much about the event that takes place in a
space as about the space itself. The Columbia University Rotunda has been a
library, it has been used as a banquet hall, it is often the site of university lectures;
someday it could fulfil the needs for an athletic facility at the University. What a
wonderful swimming pool the Rotunda would be! You may think I am being
facetious, but in today's world where railway stations become museums and
churches become nightclubs, a point is being made: the complete
interchangeability of form and function, the loss of traditional, canonic causeand-effect relationships as sanctified by modernism. Function does not follow
form, form does not follow function -or fiction for that matter - however, they
certainly interact. Diving into this great blue Rotonda pool - a part of the shock
(Tschumi, 1996).”
Figure 26: Representation of the Conceptual Plan Typologies
107
According to the crossprogramming concept of Tschumi, people are defining
spaces and give them meanings as places. The flexibility of use can change the
definition of spaces and give them different meanings. This is a spatial ability of
transformation, adaptation, and change as a movement in design. So based on
the crossprogramming concept that applied on this project, a 10x10 meter
space can be a residential unit but also can be arranged as a spa, a meditation
space, a kindergarten, etc. When all the wall units will be closed, the remaining
free space can provide possibility for any other functions. These alternative plan
uses will be presented with the closed walls and without any furniture (Figure26).
6.3.1 Gecekondu Inhabitants
The category is defined as ‘Gecekondu Inhabitants’ because it consists of the
inhabitants of gecekondu settlements in Istanbul who can move from their
gecekondus into new developments. These people are generally does not have
very good economic conditions but because of living long years in the city,
somehow they adapt themselves to the system better than new comers.
The figure above shows the hierarchical needs of gecekondu inhabitants
according to the observations applied on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Triangle.
Different plan typologies are designed according to these determinations in the
triangle.
108
// 90 m²
Figure 27: Gecekondu Inhabitants’ Plan Typology without Walls
The plan typology is designed according to the living conditions of gecekondu
inhabitants, considering that the common space is the most used space in the
living area for gathering during the day and night time and it is located in the core
of the plan. The Kitchen is also connected to this core with an open access.
Furniture are placed according to provide the most suitable separation between
the spaces. Bedrooms are located in the backside of the house for more privacy
109
and more room can be provided for the possible expansion of the family with the
flexibility of the plan typology. Privacy of the bedroom can be increased if it is
necessary, with the sliding panels that are hidden behind the wardrobe modules.
// 90 m²
Figure 28: Gecekondu Inhabitants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open)
Similar sense of space is planned in the plan above (Figure 28), with eliminating
the furniture separations but instead using the depth of the walls to embed the
furniture. Central core is designed according to the usage of the inhabitants
during the day and night as a gathering space. When the kitchen space is not in
use, an optional bed can be pulled out from the top of the kitchen counter.
110
The closed type of this living unit (Figure 29) can be used as a Turkish bath with
the tap in the centre or as a kind of spa by the inhabitants, by public as a source
of income to the family members or when it will not be used as a residential unit
anymore function can be changed permanently.
// 90 m²
Figure 29: Gecekondu Inhabitants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed)
.........
111
6.3.2New Immigrants
‘New Immigrants’ are defined as new comers to Istanbul from other cities or
villages who are in search of a place to settle down. Generally, these people are
not in a good economic condition and they are trying to improve their resources
and employed. Settlement is one of the most important issues for these people
and in order to avoid more gecekondu formations, an alternative and feasible
solution is tried to be proposed for them.
Their hierarchy of needs are same as gecekondu inhabitants but the only
difference is the economic conditions somehow. As far as they recently come to
the city, family bonds and solidarity is important for them and this can be
provided with starting from the smallest scale, as the organization of the living
space.
112
// 90m²
Figure 30: New Immigrants’ Plan Typology without Walls
The plan typology is similar to the gecekondu inhabitants’ in terms of the spatial
organization. Common space is located in the centre as a gathering space for
spending the time mostly during the day. With an open plan typology, direct
access can be provided from the kitchen space and the bedrooms as night
spaces located on the left side of the house with master bedroom and bedroom
of children. Wet volumes such as bathroom and kitchen are located in the right
side of the house. Between the night and day time spaces there is a level
difference of two steps in order to feel the sense of difference.
113
// 90 m²
Figure 31: New Immigrants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open)
The plan typology without separator walls is applied in this plan above with
eliminating the furniture but rather using the walls as furniture. The locations of
the spaces are same as the plan without the walls. Spaces can be separated
from each other according to the preference of usage. For example, the
wardrobe coming out from the wall is acting as a separator between the master
bedroom and the children’s bedroom.
More space can be obtained when the wall units are closed (Figure 32). In
addition, this free space can be used as a playground for the children during the
day or as a kindergarten that can be the job for the housewives to look after
children and earn some money at the same time.
114
// 90 m²
Figure 32: New Immigrants’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed)
.........
115
6.3.3 New Nomads
‘New Nomads’ is a recent terminology started to be used in the life conditions of
21st century. New nomads are the people who does not have a permanent
place for a long time but rather travel and change their places for work or
education. Instead of going to work or an office, they are continuing their lives
from remote locations via technology and virtual communication systems with
shifting life styles. Instead of simply working from home, they are running
businesses from remote locations across the globe using virtual communities
for support (Klein, 2007). In the last years, number of these people started to
increase in Istanbul as every single contemporary city.
Family or roots are not the priority for them; generally, they are individuals or
couples and mainly they need individualism. They are using the house as a
shelter to sleep or sometimes as a working space and their life can be defined
with fast tempo because they run from one place to another. Their life style and
thereby living space does not require any conventional manner.
116
// 65 m²
Figure 33: New Nomads’ Plan Typology without Walls
The life style of new nomads does not require a large living space and because
of this reason, 65 square meters are designed as a living and working unit for
them. As far as far they are not attached to any office or place working, live-work
concept is highly suitable for them. The common space is also the working
space as the core of the house and it is separated from the bedroom as a
volume with separator and with level difference. Also level difference between
the entrance hall / kitchen and the living area created a different sense of place
in the interior atmosphere. Toilet and bathroom are hidden behind the kitchen
space in order to keep all the wet volumes together.
117
// 65 m²
Figure 34: New Nomads’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open)
New Nomads’ plan typology with walls has the same approach with the one
without walls. Day and night spaces are separated from each other and wet
volumes are kept together. Kitchen is not occupying a large space, it is formed
by the panels coming out from the wall, and this space can be covered for other
usages when it is not used.Level differences are used again for the different
sense of spaces.
When all the wall panels are closed, large free space can be obtained for the
users (Figure 35). This place can be used again as a working place for the
inhabitants or also it can be an office independent from a residential unit in the
apartment clusters, consist of various different programmes.
118
// 65 m²
Figure 35: New Nomads’ Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed)
.........
119
6.3.4 Middle Income
Middle Income inhabitants have a certain economic condition and they have a
more stable position in the city. Recently most of the housing developments in
Istanbul are focusing on this categorization because they have purchasing
power and they are the potential customers for the development companies
and TOKI.
Life conditions and expectations of this category are higher than the other
categorizations. Because of higher economic conditions, life styles can show
differences and the living spaces should be designed considering this aspect.
120
FIRST FLOOR
// 140m²
GROUND FLOOR
Figure 36: Middle Income’s Plan Typology without Walls
The residential unit for middle-income inhabitants are designed as two-story
apartment unit of 140 m². The first floor is used for the nighttime activities with
master bedroom and bedroom of children with the bathroom in between as a
separator of these two spaces. Ground floor, where the entrance of the
apartment is, consists of common space, kitchen, and a multifunctional room
that can be used as a bedroom, guestroom, or a working room by the
inhabitants.
121
// 140 m²
Figure 37: Middle Income’s Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Open)
The same typology is used for the plan with walls and without walls. The main
difference is the access to the upper floor, which is provided with the
stairs/kitchen space. Stairs are used as a part of the kitchen space and toilet is
hidden under these stairs.
The open plan typology gives possibility for cross-programming when all the wall
units are closed (Figure 38). This unit can be used as a place for daytime courses
by the inhabitants during the ownership or it can be a meditation centre with high
capacity of daylight, luminous space provided by the big opening on the facade.
122
// 140 m²
Figure 38: Middle Income’s Plan Typology with Wall-Furniture (Closed)
.........
123
6.4 Designing for Coexistence
After determination of possible user profiles and related different apartment
units, the process goes through gathering this diversity of different units. Defining
different user profiles does not mean making classifications but instead the aim
is to create common clusters that people can live together in the peacefulness
of coexistence.
Conceptually this coexistence is tried to be analyzed with a geometrical
expression of cubes. This cube can be understood as Rubik’s Cube with six
sides and each part can be moved to mix it and shuffle. Using the cube as a
metaphor, four categories are placed on four sides of the cube and public and
private interfaces are place on the top and bottom of the cube to cover all the
sides with the requirements of inhabitants.
124
When this cube is mixed all around, these four categories are mixed together
with the public and private interface between them. If this cube is realized as an
apartment cluster, different typologies of single apartment units come together
to create a typical floor plan of an apartment with public and private areas of
usage. In addition, according to the specific needs of each categorization, there
can be changes, additions, or superimpositions in the cluster of apartment units.
Figure 39: Shuffling for Coexistence
125
Starting point of the clusterization is stack of rational boxes on top of each other
and attached to the commercial volume on the ground floor. Height of the
building structure is determined according to the requirements of the density to
provide 600 inhabitants per hectare.
Cluster of an apartment block is shuffled as each single unit is shifted on top of
each other and a dynamic form is provided. While doing this shifting, street
access, and pedestrian flow on the ground floor and connections in between
the cluster is taken into consideration.
Roof terraces and roof gardens are provided and oriented towards the sun
orientation to enrich the spatial quality of each individual single unit with light and
vista. Each unit is looking towards the South direction, which is the most
beneficial direction in Istanbul to gain daylight and lake and sea view in the
selected site.
The floor plan below is taken from an apartment cluster as a layout of a typical
floor plan (Figure 40). As it can be seen, different plan typologies come together
in a floor plan as different residential units and in the first floor plan, there are also
some public and commercial functions located for the usage of the inhabitants
of that apartment cluster. These are functions to vitalize the dynamism in the
apartment for the inhabitants and there can be offices that can be rented or sold.
126
Figure 40: First Floor Plan of the Apartment
By this way, a second layer is created above the street level and an elevated
street level is formed with residential, public, and commercial functions together.
Examples of these kinds of elevated street levels and terraced spaces can be
seen also in Europe such as the project "Villaggio Matteotti" by Gian Carlo De
Carlo in Terni and “Alexandra Road” by Neave Brown in London.
In addition, in some specific points there are connections provided with
lightweight bridge structures between different apartment clusters to achieve
and improve accessibility.
127
6.5 Mahalle Concept
‘Mahalle’ is an Ottoman word used in Turkish; standing for quarter and
neighbourhood in English and it is coming from the Ottoman period. Mainly it
was a place where people live together peacefully with strongly attached social
ties (Bayartan, 2005). In addition, it is defined in a sociologic way that; mahalles
are the places where people from different classes, different regions, and
different religions can live together around certain ethics and regulations (Ortaylı,
1985).
It was a life style, which is missing in most of the areas of today’s Istanbul with the
scale of the neighbourhoods that are started to melt in the metropolis and lost its
scale with high-rise buildings and isolated satellite cities. People used to know
each other in a neighbourhood and they knew there was connection and
communication between neighbours. Local shops and local enterprises were
vitalizing the neighbourhood that were mostly located in the ground floors of the
buildings and there was a street life with the participation of the residents. These
local enterprises such as bakkals (small local markets), butchers, green
groceries, coffee shops left their places to the branches of big chains with
globalization and institutionalisation.
The aim is to bring this concept back to today’s Istanbul with the adaptation of
the contemporary way of life to create new mahalles that people can live happily
together in a neighbourhood that brings their living habits and memories back.
Photographer: Ara Guler
128
The table below shows the public and private functions with commercials,
indoor and outdoor communities that are located respectively from the city
scale to the main vehicular road, semi-public road and residential road. The
isolation and the passive life in the neighbourhoods occurred with pushed out
functions through the city scale. In this project, the aim was to bring back the
neighbourhood life and vitalize it with filling the missing programmes in it with
shifting some of the programmes to the semi-public road and mainly to the
residential roads. When these services are located in the neighbourhood on the
ground floors of the buildings and on the elevated street level, the
neighbourhood will start to gain back its dynamism with variety.
Table 6: Enrichment of Neighbourhood Scale
129
6.6 Neighbourhood Scale
The last phase of the alternative proposal project is thereforethe development of
a scheme and design at the neighbourhood scale. As it was mentioned before,
the concept of mahalle brought back as a reference for the fulfilment of the
programmes in the neighbourhood level. As it can be seen from the site plan
(Map 10), the selected site is located between the gecekondu settlements and
the new developments by TOKI, to create a transition, a bridge to propose a
solution.
Map 10: Neighbourhood Site Plan
130
Figure 42: Neighbourhood Site Plan Zoom In
Figure 43: Neighbourhood Ground Floor Plan
131
On the ground floor plans, mostly commercial and public functions are located in
order to vitalize the street life. These functions are small markets, coffee shops,
boutiques, kiosks, buffets with sports and educational facilities in the
neighbourhood such as elementary school, small library and bookstore, etc. The
repetition of these functions can be seen as individual modular units distributed
around the site and on the first floor of the apartment clusters.
Figure 44: Foreseen Programs of Neighbourhood on Ground Floor Plan
Figure 45: Neighbourhood Site Section
132
Some of the roads are closed to vehicular access to provide pedestrian roads,
which are supported with commercial and public functions for the inhabitants to
vitalize the neighbourhood. As it was mentioned before under the ‘Mahalle
Concept’ title, the idea is bringing back the small scale entrepreneurs into the
neighbourhood. Although the existence of various large-scale shopping malls in
Istanbul, these small-scale retails sustain their existence in gecekondu
neighbourhoods. These functions will provide employment for the residents of
the neighbourhood with new working opportunities that are close to their living
space.
The topography of the project site gave opportunity to use the existing level
differences as part of the design. This benefit of topography is used to create
level differences in the apartments with the inclined site from north to south
direction and car parking is hidden under the ground floor level. In addition, there
are temporary car parking areas for short-term parking and for the usage of the
guests. Similar attitude of topography is applied in the apartment clusters where
apartment clusters become the part of the topography that rises from the
ground and ascend through south. In addition, beside the elevators, pedestrian
access is provided with ramps and stairs from the ground floors until the upper
most levels with different various ways to feel and realize the atmosphere and
sense of place.
Figure 46: Neighbourhood Partial Section
133
Figure 47: Street Life
Figure 48: Residential Pedestrian Road
134
Figure 49: Public Spaces
Figure 50: Neighbourhood
135
Figure 51: Elevated Street Level on First Floor
Figure 52: Roof Gardens – Roof Usage
136
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Internet Resources:
http://www.ibb.gov.tr/
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Documentary:
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Turkey
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ANNEX I
SAMPLE OF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE INTERVIEW
Interview No:
Date:
District:
Neighborhood:
Street / No:
FamilyM
embers
Place of
Birth
Sex
Age
Maritial
Status
Educati
on Level
Profession
Working
Place
Social Security Service
Emekli
San.
SSK
1- For how many years have you been living here? ……………..
2- Landlord ( ) Tenant ( ) WithFamily / Relatives ( )
3- If you are the land lord, did you built the house yourself ?
4- How old is the building ? …………..
5- How many rooms are there ? ……………….
6- From whom did you buy / rent the house ?
a. From and old owner ( ) b. Old land of thefamily / First owner of the
gecekondu ( )
c . Relatives ( ) d. Foreigner / Real Estate Agency ( ) e. Found it ( )
7- If you are a tenant,
Monthly rent cost ?
…………………………
Rent as percentages of monthy wage salary ? ………………………..
8- If you arethe land lord,
Real estate value of the building? ……………
Real estate value as percentages of annual wage salary? ………………….
141
Bag
kur
No
9- Is the first state and the size of the building same as current state?
10- Are there any renovations or alterations done after moving in? If yes,what are
them?
11- Has the landlord got any other real estates ? If yes, where are them?
…………………..
12- The place /district / neighborhood that you wereliving before?
…………………………
13- The type of the building that you were living before? …………………..
14- Why did you choose this district specifically?
a. Close to the family ( ) b. Owned by family ( ) c. Close to the work ( )
b. d. Low-cost ( )
e. Close to the school ( ) f. Green space ( ) e. Other …………………
15- If you had the chance to move, what kind of a house would you choose?
a. Newer house in the same district ( ) b. Another house in another district ( )
c.
Apartment Floor ( ) d. Don’t want to move ( )
16- Do you have any vehicles? …………………………….
17- What is the average monthly income of the family members?
………………………………..
18- What are the missing things in the district? (Ex: School, parks, gardens,
commercials, vs.)
19- Do you think transportation systems and infrastructure is enough?
………………………………….
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ANNEX II
ALAN CALISMASI ILE ILGILI ANKET SORULARI
Anket No:
Tarih:
İlçe:
Semt/Mahalle:
Sokak/ No:
Aile
Bireyleri
Doğum
Yeri
Cinsiyet
Yaş
Medeni
Hal
Eğitim
Durumu
Meslek
Çalıştığı
Kurum
Bağlı Olduğu Sosyal Güvenlik
Kurumu
Emekli SSK Bağkur Yok
Sand.
1- Kaç senedir burada oturuluyor? ……………..
2- Ev sahibi ( ) Kiracı ( ) Aile/Akraba Yanı ( )
3- Ev sahibi iseniz evi siz kendiniz mi inşa ettiniz ya da ettirdiniz?
4- Bina kaç yıllık? …………..
5- Oda sayısı? ……………….
6- Evi kimden satın aldınız yada kiraladınız?
b. Eski gecekondu sahibi ( ) b. Ailenin eski arsası / İlk gecekondu sahibi ( )
c . Akraba ( ) d. Yabancıdan / Emlakçıdan ( ) e. Kendisi Buldu ( )
7- Kiracı ise,
Aylık ortalama kira bedeli ?
…………………………
Kira bedeli aylık gelirin kaç katı? ………………………..
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8- Ev sahibi ise,
Evin satış değeri? ……………
Evin satış değerinin yıllık gelire oranı? ………………….
9- Evin ilk haliyle, şimdiki hali ve büyüklüğü arasında bir fark var mı?
10- Eve taşındıktan sonra herhangi bir yenileme ya da değişiklik yapıldımı? Yapıldı ise
nedir?
11- Ev sahibinin başka herhangi bir yerde evi veya arsası var mı? Varsa nerede?
…………………..
12- Bu evden önce oturulan yer / semt / mahalle? …………………………
13- Daha önce oturulan konutun türü? …………………..
14- Bu bölgenin seçilme nedeni?
c. Aileye yakın ( ) b. Aileye ait ( ) c. İşe yakın ( ) d. Fiyatı düşük ( )
e. Çocukların okuluna yakın ( ) f. Yeşil alan bol ( ) e. Diğer …………………
15- Taşınmak isterseniz ne tür bir eve taşınmak isterdiniz?
b. Aynı bölgede daha yeni bir eve ( ) b. Başka bölgede bir eve ( )
c.
Apartman dairesine ( ) d. Taşınmak istemem ( )
16- Sahip olduğunuz aracınız var mı? …………………………….
17- Ev halkının ortalama aylık geliri nedir? ………………………………..
18- Bölgede eksikliği hissedilen birimler nelerdir? (Örn: Okul, park, bahçe, yeşil alan,
vs.)
19- Ulaşım ve altyapı sorunları olduğunu düşünüyor musunuz?
………………………………….
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