Browsing by Author "Bican,N.B."

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Architectural Competitions in a Maturing Milieu: Mapping the Agency of Actors
(Springer, 2023) Bican,N.B.; Guneri,G.; Architecture; Department of Architecture
The last three decades, overwhelmed with capitalist competitive urbanisms, have witnessed a renewal of interest in the relationship between urban form and “the right to just cities,” mainly upon discussions over diversity and participation. The same period also witnessed the triumph of architectural competitions both as effectual tools of agonism and as potential means of cultivating participatory cultures in the production of urban space. Recent discussions, hereof, suggest that competitions’ agonistic vocations counteracted the pluralist. To solidify this critical rhetoric, withal, there is insufficient research on power dynamics, structures, and implications of competitions. Herein, this study, in its broadest sense, investigates the potency of architectural competitions in allocating spatial, social, political, and economic resources and capacities. The work critically and creatively maps the dynamics and structures of competitions and further testifies (potential) agencies of multifarious actors among these, specifically delving into the emergent local governance structures of two cities from a developing country: Istanbul and Ankara. With divergent spatial development histories and trajectories, the two become complementary cases, novel local governance models of which fundamentally operationalize architectural competitions as means of commoning and register a radical paradigm shift. From a critical and comparative framework, the research reviews literature and relevant data and relies on semi-structured interviews with local government officials, city councilors, competition organizers, jurors, and critics. The findings highlight repressive processual components and potential means and methods of cultivating public agency and a solid and longstanding tradition of public participation in urban space production via architectural competitions. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.
From Desperation To Best Practice: Spatial Decision-Making in the Regeneration of Gyldenrisparken
(Henry Stewart Publications, 2024) Bican,N.B.; Architecture; Department of Architecture
Post-war social housing estates in Europe have been undergoing wide-scale regeneration to improve the physical decay of these sites and address the concentration of vulnerable residents in these areas, which has resulted in their social segregation, marginalisation and stigmatisation. As these estates cover and affect quite large public spaces, holistic approaches have recently been adopted. Bearing in mind that each regeneration case is unique, this paper describes the collaborative approach taken in the regeneration of Gyldenrisparken in Denmark, which evolved from a desperate situation to a best practice case. The paper focuses on the spatial decision-making process — in particular, how the architectural quality of physical interventions was established and how participatory mechanisms were utilised and developed to enable liveable spaces and sustainable regeneration. Making use of a combination of qualitative documentary analysis and in-depth interviews with key actors, this study encompasses the whole regeneration process, including initiatives taken by the housing association and municipal agents, the methodology developed to collect ideas and implement them in the physical design of the public spaces, and the social effort to make the whole process sustainable and the estates liveable. It concludes that post-war estates have the potential to secure their future by embracing physical and social efforts through proactive empowerment strategies and creating new spatial identities. © 2024, Henry Stewart Publications. All rights reserved.
Citation - Scopus: 1
Systems, Policies, and Regulations Securing the Future of Danish Social Housing
(SINTEF Academic Press, 2020) Bican,N.B.; Architecture; Department of Architecture
Denmark regards social housing as a crucial tool for its welfare state and, thus, there is strict governmental control at national and local levels over the sector. For years, this sector has strived to keep the quality of existing stock through renovation, transformation, and/or complex regeneration activities. In addition, new settlements are recently built or integrated into larger urban development projects. For one following the recent spatial practices of social housing in Denmark, a pursuit for sustainability and liveability is evident. Based on a review of systems, policies and regulations circumscribing the Danish social housing sector, the current study questions how the underlying mechanisms control the spatial decisions related to social housing, how planning regulations, governmental policies address its practice and spatial quality and how the sector s historical evolution are all interrelated. In this sense, the present article discusses how such seemingly dispersed elements connect to each other to shape a sustainable future for social housing. Emphasising significant historical and social facts, this article provides a structured contextual outline of the Danish approach to social welfare and housing market, while highlighting critical local, national and international principles in place to secure the future and the quality of urban space within social housing settlements in the country. To this end, reference will be made to the discoveries of local actors, which render social housing a practical tool, in that a social housing settlement can be durable and affordable once it is built for liveability to secure future demand; that enhancing spatial quality can be a dependable means to regenerate an estate through holistic and participatory approaches; that new social housing can be instrumentalized to arrange social mix by innovative planning and architecture; and that architectural quality has the potential to transform a building into a self-promoting investment. The study concludes that the history of socio-economic survival in Denmark works hand in hand with that of social housing, which has been a means of sharing and cohabitation under the severe and unexpected circumstances of national economy and unrest. Moreover, in line with the expansion of the Danish economy, success of regenerative trials in recent years, and the growth of qualified architectural know-how, the sector has found its sustainability in further promoting spatial quality. © 2020 THE SHAPING FACTORS FORMING CONTEMPORARY AND FUTURE OFFICE DESIGNS. All rights reserved.