Embracing Today’s Economic And Technological Reality What It Means For Design Professionals

History has shown that technological advancements alter the way we produce, exchange, protect, consume and save all kinds of goods. The First Industrial Revolution, for example, has been named as such since it indeed revolutionized everything related to daily living including art, culture, economy and politics. History has also shown that most cultural actors are reluctant to embrace advanced technology at first as they might see it as taking away something at the core of humanity. Arts and Crafts movement, for example, grew out of a concern for the effects of industrialization on design, on traditional skills and on the lives of ordinary people. Today, economists, scientists and policymakers in developing countries are talking about the coming of the fourth industrial revolution and the Second Machine Age, that not only will redefine the way humans live their daily life but also the very definition of human beings. The aim of this study is to discuss the effects of these changes on theoretical and practical issues related to design professionals and education, including advanced technologies available and social and cultural implications of their use. The paper will argue that today’s economic and technological reality will alter the design profession from its education to its implementation

Appropriated 'a la Franga': An examination of Turkish modernization through the lens of domestic culture.

The scholarship on modernization of non-western states can be enhanced with the help of recent formal approaches to architecture such as space syntax methodology that examines the spatial morphology of the built environment. This research explores the complex dynamisms involved in the Turkish modernization process and demonstrates the schism that exists between the historical periods representing social changes and the spatial periods representing the transformation of Ankara house genotype. Based on the interpretative examination of selected sources, the continuity and change in domestic life is examined within five sub-categories: namely, the relation between public and private realms within domestic space, the relationship between inhabitants and visitors, the social role of women, the upbringing and significance of children, and the impact of material culture on daily life. Using space syntax methodology, the formal syntactic aspects of 108 exemplary house plans, all designed by Turkish architects for upper-middle class citizens, are examined to uncover the Ankara house genotype. These houses are digitized and syntactic analyses conducted to examine the permeability and visibility properties of domestic spaces. It is suggested that spatial transformation of apartment designs reflect three distinct genotypes in terms of sector differentiation and relation to the exterior: (a) no sector differentiation one entrance; (b) different sectors, multiple entrances; and (c) different sectors, one entrance. To present the socio-spatial transformation of Turkish domestic culture, a conceptual framework with three categories is proposed. The first category, the definition of boundaries, involves a diachronic examination of houses focusing on functional spaces and service areas. The second, flexibility of definitions, involves a synchronic examination looking at the changes in activity patterns based on time and occupancy, and discussing fluidity of what is considered public and private. The last category, the in-between, examines the significance of the transition spaces in the house, between inside and outside, and between rooms. Through this framework, both social as well as spatial transformations are considered in understanding of the complex dynamisms that reflect cultural change. This change, i.e. modernization, is defined as an evolutionary process that involves a cultural synthesis as two different ways of living encounter each other.Ph.D.ArchitectureCommunication and the ArtsCultural anthropologySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125091/2/3186640.pd

The evolving design of 20th-century apartments in Ankara

This study analyzes a longitudinal series of Ankara apartment houses using space syntax methodology to uncover the underlying genotype and its transformation over time. The results indicate that transition-space-centred organization is the underlying spatial structure for 20th-century Ankara apartments. Diachronic examination of the sample in terms of sectoral differentiation—that is, clustering of spaces based on functional and social requirements, and in relation to the exterior—has identified three groups: (a) the houses from the 1920s with no sector differentiation and one entrance; (b) the houses from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s with different sectors and multiple entrances; (c) the houses from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s with different sectors and one entrance. Viewing these results in relation to an analysis of the history of domestic culture demonstrates that there exists a schism between the historical periods representing social changes and the spatial periods representing the transformation of the Ankara house genotype.