DENGENİN KISKACINDA:
Urla İçin Dönüştürücü Deneyimler Tasarlamak

IN THE GRIP OF THE BALANCE:
Designing Transformative Experiences for Urla

Coordination
Zeynep Arda & Onur Mengi

Designers Çağdaş Atlam, Hazal Urlu, Suzan Neşe Muradoğlu, Ahmet Can Güvenç, Erdinç Sel, Ezgi Sezen, Tolgahan Kamiloğlu, Duygu Güngör, Mohammad Emteir, Orkun Destici, Ege Dömez, Hakan Özler, Merve Aydemir, Cemran Yüceel, Ece Alpat, Selin Kocabıyık, Bilge Tütüncüoğlu, Sena Kayacan, Beril İşçi, Özge İlhan, Tutku İlayda Akgül

Kentli, kentin dönüşümüne, geleceğin tasarımına hangi noktadan, hangi ölçekten başlayarak katılabilir? Tasarım pratiğinin demokratikleşme süreci, hangi kapıları, hangi pencereleri açarak kentliyi/katılımcıyı
/izleyiciyi içeriye alır? Müşterek gelecekleri beraber tasarlamak için nereden başlayabiliriz? Tasarım, yaşamın artan kırılganlığına karşı köprü kuran, onarıcı bir rol üstleniyor mu? Belirsizlik gelecek günlerin ölçüsü haline geldikçe, tasarım birlikte yaşamanın daha esnek yollarını yaratmak için önemli bir rol üstlenebilir mi?

----

In today’s world, as designers that search for the meaning of a common future, we find ourselves in the grip of the balance between human-beings, nature and technology. In this project, working in the intersection of various different fields of design, we look to the future through Urla/İzmir that blurs the boundary between city and nature with small experimental/experiential interventions. With seven different projects in the series, we explore participatory practices that ignite and initiate urban transformations, starting from the user experience.

This project series intends to explain the role of urban acupuncture for creating participatory experiences through design. It also discusses how acupunctural interventions can create permanent or temporary impact in the axis of user, space and experience relations. The series questions the transformative effect of each project for the common good of the region. While explaining how a holistic effect can be created with incremental interventions in urban practices through different use scenarios, it also sheds light on planning and design commonality.

In this exhibition, the projects focusing on the rural areas of Urla through different sectors aim to enable the Good Design Days viewers to identify themselves with the different types of users they focus on, to see the possible processes they can be involved in, and to see what they can do for the future of their city/settlements by taking on the role of active citizens in practice.

From what point and at which scale can the citizen participate in the transformation of the city and the design of the future? As the design process is democratized gradually, which pathways are offered to the city dweller/participant/audience to come in and join? How do we start designing our common futures together? Does design assume a bridging, repairing role against the increasing vulnerability of life? As uncertainty becomes the measure of the days to come, can design assume a significant part to create more resilient ways of living together.

Project “Yourla”
Co-creation Experience for Upcycled Communities

Designers:
Çağdaş Atlam, Hazal Urlu, Suzan Neşe Muradoğlu

Most of the craftsmanships and culture of our handicrafts have already started to be a thing of the past. When this situation is examined by taking Urla and the people in Urla into consideration, most of the people are trying to fulfill their needs and beautify their environment by reusing the materials or products, whether they are aware or not. In our opinion, these efforts are insufficient because of the lack of trained skills. An infrastructure that can be done right could bring community together and develop their abilities.

Based on our research, training can be the answer to support their talents by determining a working place. These could enable this community to feel belonging to their environment. Our project's goal is about creating a sense of belonging in the common future by putting design in the bridging role. In the light of our findings from the field of Urla, we intend to accomplish this goal by nurturing the interest in hand-made products for the public spaces of Urla and creating an intervention to a community that produces and adds value to their environment.

In our transformative experience, Design will be a bridging role in creating a common language with the co-creation process of the product for public usage by using the interest of arts and crafts in the community. Our co-creation experience is anticipated to bring participatory ecology and professional ecology together to build an upcycling system for the community. And with this kind of act, we hope the community will have an enriched perception of co-creation and increase awareness about the environment.

FarmUrla
Zero-waste Restaurant

Designers:
Ahmet Can Güvenç, Erdinç Sel Ezgi Sezen, Tolgahan Kamiloğlu

FarmURLA is a first zero – waste restaurant that makes farm- to table & zero – waste dining possible.
The key-values of FarmURLA are sustainability, inspiration, design and zero waste. The motto is to respect for the environment, for the way how food is generated and for the nourishment given to our bodies. Those who respects for environment and nature are welcomed to FarmURLA.
The experiences are to get the visitors involved in the cultivation phase of dining. Let them to pick their own products that they will eat and to give a chance to visitors to be the part of a closed-loop, zero waste system. Let them process their own organic wastes from dining experience

We are closing the loop always with the bin in mind…

Through the compost machine / aerobic digester set inside FarmUrla, the restaurant scraps and trimmings go directly into a compost to re-produce food. Anything that isn’t consumed by the customers (or staff) is fed into aerobic digester, which can generate up to 60kg of compost in just 24 hours.

Eko-Çocuk
Bringing Kids Together for Common Activities

Designers:
Duygu Güngör, Mohammad Emteir, Orkun Destici

Eco-Çocuk project is an ecological, innovative, sustainable, and common futures platform prepared for children, their families, and the locals of Urla. The platform provides kids with a variety of activities and opportunities. It aims to make Urla a place for children to shape the district through learning, returning, and interacting with nature.

This project has many positive effects on local people, creating an ecological life cycle for children.

• It is a pioneer and expandable for other cities.

• It involves children in the shaping process of the city by playing and learning, and discovering.

• It strives for better environmental solutions and more sustainable resources.

• It offers customized experience for each season.

• It provides safe places for children to play and learn.

Eco-Çocuk is designed to highlight solutions that respect nature without profit. Producers or artists apply to the municipality to post an announcement before the seasonal harvest or event begins. The municipality announces these events on the Eco-Çocuk platform. After parents signing up their children to the platform, they determine their children's interests through the eco-child application. Before the activity time, families receive notification messages for the place and time details. Then, families leave their children in the action field to explore the city and its local produce. In this process, children participate in the activities determined by the curators approved by the municipality. At the end of each activity, while the participating children have fun and learn, volunteer’s sapling planting day is held on the eco-child platform at the end of each month, and a sapling is planted in our forests on behalf of each participating child.

Art Move
Designing with Art for Shared Spaces

Designers:
Ege Dömez, Hakan Özler, Merve Aydemir

While Art Street is in such an important position for Urla, it loses its artistic value day by day, and it is a result of the identity of Urla being affected by urbanization processes. In this direction, our design problems are the deviation from the purpose of establishment and lack of attention on Art Street by visitors. The spatial identity of Urla Art Street has been disrupted by increasing cafes and restaurants and has become a place where visitors rest and get food and beverage services more than their curiosity and interest in art. The purpose and identity of the art street disappears over time. The art events on the Art Street have lost their continuity and have become an open-air area hosting the various service and entertainment sectors that visitors come to spend their free time. To prevent this situation and to regain the purpose and identity of the art street, our aim is bringing art, artist and visitor together. We will achieve this with urban acupuncture by designing a transformative experience.

The Art Street has its own distinctive identity, flow and experience. The desire of visitors to come to this destination is to experience this distinctive identity and experience and to be in the flow. The purpose of the ‘meeting points’ which we will design is not in response to this experience and flow, on the contrary is to be a natural part of this experience and flow and take it to the next level. The aim is to do acupuncture on the Art Street which starts to lose its identity and purpose by designing small scale interventions. Visitors are unable to completely understand the Art Street experience when in flow. Designing some acupuncture points, making small interventions to improve this experience has revealed 'Meeting Points’. The inability to reach the art and artist in Art Street, which is our design problem is resolved with a product series.

Urlaroma
Gathering Natives:
Therapy Experience with Local Plants

Designers:
Cemran Yüceel, Ece Alpat, Selin Kocabıyık

Aromatherapy has positive impacts on human’s mindfulness as well as memory, emotion, mood and learning. Since Urla region has a great variety in its ecosystem, Urlaroma as a new business uses endemic plants to deliver a sensual experience. Urlaroma provides an aromatherapy education, and a series of workshops by benefiting from the endemic plant diversity in the region. A total of 12 endemic plants specific to the Urla region is categorized under four groups based on their scent notes.

Izmir Institutte of Technology is a part of the innovative production process to manufacture essential oils, creams, candles, perfumes and incenses.

Klazomenai Olive
Workshop Series for Building Communities

Designers:
Bilge Tütüncüoğlu, Sena Kayacan

Klazomania Olive Workshop provides collaboration with Urla local tradesmen, trainers, and farmers. With this collaboration, Urla locals becomes co-creators. The mission of this community is to protect the natural resources and work about to provide more sustainable olive agriculture in the region. Being a worldwide brand with Klazomenai Olive and making Urla a pioneer in the field of sustainable olive cultivation is the community vision.

The Hub
Creative industries as collective act

Designers:
Beril İşçi, Özge İlhan, Tutku İlayda Akgül

The Hub project focuses on creative industries for collective act based on explaining the role of urban acupuncture to create collaborative experiences across design. Thus, the project aims to reach young people for changing to understanding of common good of the region due to cultural hub idea. It is based on gamification, is a creative and efficient way of engaging new visitors and offering them a multidimensional experience in Urla. Besides, the idea of a cultural hub in the creative industry is to build networks and support collaboration, for long-term impact, mutual benefit and enhanced cultural understanding.

As starting point, the initial observation and analysis comes from the need to take collective action. Women producer bazaar at Eski Tamirhane Binası (Old repair shop building) in Urla was the starting point. Bazaar concept and other events provide for locals are analyzed. Interviews with locals and observations in the field were made. When the bazaar and the events held on behalf of the local people were examined, the need for attracting tourists in order to revive the economy of Urla was discovered. According to findings, target group of these activities were determined as young population who have a power of change.

The project center was chosen due to the remarkable potential of the Old Repair Shop Building which enables to make younger people discover Urla’s different local stores, historical locations and gathering areas with a path through determined destination points in a game to join the cultural hub. These paths will be occurred as a phone application is kind of augmented reality game. When the participants join the game, they choose a classification of their interests and start to follow path with the clues given in the spots as asked questions. The questions are prepared about the history of Urla, to enlighten participants by drawing their attentions. When the participants reach the Old Repair Shop Building, they also reach the center of the cultural hub. Every true answer to a question gives a clue about the final stage of performing arts activities which are providing by the volunteer entrepreneurs in the center. With those clues, participants are going to prepare the stage before the performance.

As a result, this project gives a chance to contribute Urla’s local economy, take attraction of younger people with the help of the technology of augmented reality. By this game, local shops will advertise their brands and the cultural hub's activities will be sponsored by them.