Jury Members:
Ayşe Şentürer + Nizam Onur Sönmez + Erenalp Büyüktopçu + Elif Nur Adıgüzel
Meltem Erdem Kaya + Zeynep Günay + Gürbey Hiz + Sinan Logie
This diploma project intends to investigate ‘un-settled’ living practices and their architectural reflections that gradually evolve/transform/change through the reciprocal relations they constitute with ecology, climate, and geography. As a particular development of the stated aim, the unit aspires to reassemble the context of transhumance, with an emancipatory, visionary, critical, and creative architectural approach, aiming to leverage the thrilling potentials of un-settled modes of living, especially their tendency to oscillate between mobile and stable phases during their various interactions with an extensive environment.
In this context, the term geography refers to an entanglement of material-social relations produced constantly through the more-than-human universe. In that frame, geography is critically considered as an entanglement of topography, weather conditions, various organisms, vegetation, landscape, micro/macro politics on agriculture and livestock, human-centric perspectives, climate crisis, scarcity of resources, migration forms and dynamics, education and culture issues, and other significant factors.
TAURUS MOUNTAIN NOMADS (SARIKEÇİLİ YÖRÜKLER)
The Sarıkeçililer are a nomadic group in the central Taurus Mountains, primarily goat herders living in around 120 tents. Their annual migration spans between the coastal areas of Mersin and the highlands of Konya. They reside in black tents woven from goat hair, known for their ease of assembly and disassembly, perfectly suited for their constant movement.
KNOWLEDGE OF ECOLOGY
The tent integrates with its environment, dissolves, and relocates, embodying a deep understanding of impermanence encoded in nomads’ lives. Movement is both the cause and effect of existence—a lifestyle that enriches with each migration and coded in spoken narratives. This continuous motion sustains ecological care cycles. The tent absorbs, transforms, and carries knowledge, contributing to the region’s biodiversity, regeneration and memory.
ITINERANTS
Itinerants are individuals researching and creating along migration routes. Unlike traditional scholars, they craft their own narratives for this circulation network. With unique specialties, they dedicate themselves to this system, moving independently or in connection with specific stops. Moving with or without nomads.
