Architectural Design Studio 2 intends to focus on morphology to explore the interactions between space, function, and users as a design challenge. Following the path developed in the previous studios, the students are expected to represent their design idea with the appropriate tools, developing critical thinking about the social and cultural aspects of architecture. They are also expected to work with material and technological features to produce space and explore the architectonics of the design they create. These will incorporate form, morphology, topology, ergonomics, including special requirements and accessibility for the users, and last but not the least sustainability and environment friendliness.

  

• Design 2: Coping with Post-Trauma: Kocasinan Spatio-Therapy Node in Kayseri

 

​Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the failure of our mental immune system to cope with stress following a trauma. According to dictionaries, Trauma refers to a long-lasting emotional pain caused by upsetting experiences. While most of these experiences are commonly associated with some momentary and personal phenomena, underlying reasons may vary to social, economic, cultural, and 

political that are shared across communal, national, and global scales. Underestimation of PTSD at broader scales, and together with its underdiagnosis for individual cases, causes some other problems that, paradoxically, continue to put continuous pressure on our mental yet physiological stress management mechanisms.

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Triggered by the global pandemic (COVID-19) and continued through social, economic, and political fluctuations thereafter, PTSD-related risk factors have reached their peak in Turkey, especially after the 2023 Kahramanmaras Earthquake. One of the neighboring provinces of the earthquake's epicenter, Kayseri, has also been affected but has had to serve as a common escape location to provide shelter and support for survivors.

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This semester, we will be revisiting architecture and architectural design as indirect aids in uplifting the experiences of post-trauma survivors from a holistic perspective, referring but not limited to the earthquake. We will deepen our understanding of the health & architecture phenomenon, examine its precedents, and develop skills to design non-clinical post-trauma centers in domestic scales in Kayseri.

 

• Programmatic Theme

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The building program will consist of three programmatic elements: (1) temporary living, (2) community-based education, and (3) ethnographic research. Three components will be brought together not only functionally but also on a flexible- spatial basis. Each design will be expected to have creative and innovative approaches to the therapeutic aspects of physical spaces and ensure required spatial/environmental comfort. Proposals are expected to cover a 1200-1500 sqm closed space + circulation, service, and technical spaces that will be decided upon the realization and grounding (by ‘research by design’ findings) of design scenarios (i.e., users’ profile, main-secondary-third activities, etc.). Designers are free and encouraged to decide (in qualitative/aesthetic and quantitative manners) on particular ways of their interaction with topography and landscape as long as the site and urban context(s) allow.

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• Students will be expected to define and refine their own project brief (building onto the studio brief) with additional programmatic details both in qualitative and quantitative manners.

• Each project is required to comply with existing legislative principles related to health & safety.

 

Keywords: spatial therapy, social therapy, temporary living spaces, community-based education, ethnographic research