Refine
Document Type
- Scientific article (1)
- Book (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (2)
Year of publication
- 2023 (2)
Language
- English (2) (remove)
Keywords
- Abbruch (1)
- Architecture (1)
- Architektur (1)
- Bauabfall (1)
- Bergung von Gebäuden (1)
- Building salvage (1)
- Gebäude (1)
- Ghana (1)
- Hybridity (1)
- Informality (1)
Institute
- FG Stadtplanung (2) (remove)
Salvaging Buildings : reclaiming a livelihood from the excesses of Istanbul's mass urbanization
(2023)
Turkey’s demolition waste management is, to a great extent, dependent on çıkmacıs (reclaimers) who salvage condemned buildings for raw materials and architectural elements. Its urbanization history is full of key moments marked by building demolitions, which became a necessary material resource for informal urbanization. As early as the 1970s, the çıkmacıs helped the gecekondus [squatter houses] by supplying second-hand building materials and construction loans. They managed to turn a lack of infrastructure into an advantage and remain very adaptable to the ever-changing conditions of neo-liberalized urbanization. They depend on solidarity networks and other informal resources. Assemblage thinking helps to redefine the concept of informality, understand the relational dynamics between various actors, and focus on the agency of materials. The empirical data gained from ‘follow the thing’ ethnographic research in Turkey and Georgia reveals the double lives of çıkmacıs who move between village and city. Additionally, by following the example of a reclaimed window frame’s journey from Istanbul to Tbilisi, we can more clearly see the second-hand trade network in the context of urbanization and incremental architecture. In the context of waste’s materiality, the empirical part of the research shows the symbiotic relationship between çıkmacıs and the discarded demolition materials.
Comparing hybrid urbanisms in the global south : water delivery configurations in Peru and Ghana
(2023)
Urban development processes in the Global South (and North) are often described as characterized by formal and informal practices of different actors and their respective material realities. In critical urban studies, the disposition for this binary conception of formal and informal urbanisms has been discussed for many years. To a certain extent, these sometimes align rather problematically with contrasting notions of the “structural” versus the “everyday.” In this article, we explore an understanding of formal and informal urban practices (and respectively “structure” and “everyday”) as always interrelated, and we develop a methodology for a comparative examination of such hybrid urbanisms. In doing so, we address a missing link in the surging theoretical debate on comparative/southern urbanisms, which has rarely been substantiated by methodological explorations. The adapted concept of “delivery configurations” combines analyses of actor networks, material realities, rules and regulations, discourses, and heterogenous arrays of urban practices of negotiating these. However, bringing together local particularities and structural commonalities and exploring their interrelation only provides a basis for understanding case‐specific complexities. We argue that embedding the analysis in a multi‐scalar comparative framework can further its analytical rather than descriptive attributes and provide deeper insights into issues such as social inequality. To illustrate our methodological contribution, we provide first insights from a comparative research
project of water delivery in different neighbourhoods in the secondary cities of Sunyani (Ghana) and Arequipa (Peru). We highlight the practical challenges of comparing diverse urban contexts and examining the rather complex relationships between infrastructure delivery, urban development, and social inequality.