The THESIS RESEARCH STUDIO is an alternative pedagogical model to the individual traditional thesis project. It involves a specific and focused area of research based on faculty expertise within which students produce a thesis. TRS studio built upon the work done in the Thesis Research Seminar to ask questions of how architectural agency can be located within the Urban Informal.
Student work: Ari Minelli
The thesis investigates the importance of the temporal and informal elements of the urban fabric and proposes built reactions and urban strategies to preserve and bolster those programs. The structure is designed to create a permanent infrastructure for a temporal market in Istanbul. It creates a home for the Kadikoy Sali Pazari, a community institution that alters the social and urban fabric of the surrounding neighborhoods on tuesday, thursday and friday. It's temporary nature and event oriented vibrancy gives the Pazari a special place in the community, but that same temporality subjects the institution to a perceived lack of legitimacy on off days, threatening it's function to a ferocious development cycle that gobbles up 'underutilized' urban space. The intervention aims to create a permanent home to a vibrant informal fixture in the urban landscape that is all too often glazed over by the cities relentless development churn. While creating a face for the market on the exterior, the interior of the market is designed to mesh and flow with the ever-changing rhythms of the informal landscape. The flexible network learns from the myriorama of the informal city, using a network of small scale kit of parts that are able to reorganize and restructure in a reactionary fashion in order to facilitate a multiplicity of uses on the site. The kit of parts allows the infrastructure of the market to adapt to serve not only the weekly Pazari, but infuse it with other temporary and vital community functions, including sporting events, community gatherings, and political rallies. These layered temporal uses reinforce one another and bolster the legitimacy and importance of the site as an essential fixture in the community.