Fragmentation // Nomenclature

FRAGMENTATION // CREATING NEW URBAN SPACES The city is a shared living environment, yet its development is often shaped by the accumulation of capital. Land becomes an asset, buildings become instruments of financial return, and access to housing and urban space is increasingly determined by purchasing power. As certain areas gain value, others are marginalised, reinforcing spatial divisions between social groups. Within this structure, spaces designated as public do not necessarily remain accessible to everyone. Their use is governed by policies and interests that determine who belongs, who participates, and who is excluded. This raises a fundamental question for architectural practice: we can produce compelling architecture, but for whom, where, and under what conditions? Fragmentation proposes a generative housing framework that gives inhabitants an active role in shaping their living environments. It approaches housing as an adaptable part of the city, connected to green space, employment, education, and shared facilities. Equal access and the capacity to participate form the basis of the proposal. The system consists of a modular frame accommodating container-based units. These units can support housing, cafés, play areas, workspaces, and other uses defined by inhabitants. Their arrangement, function, and location within the frame can change as needs evolve, allowing the framework to accommodate different patterns of occupation over time. The frame establishes a common spatial structure while leaving room for individual decisions: the system provides the codes; its inhabitants write the programme. Reusable components and straightforward assembly are intended to support adaptation and reduce material waste. Planting and shared open spaces form part of the framework, while its relationship with surrounding buildings and activities remains essential to its integration into the city. As a proposal for volumetric urbanism, Fragmentation explores how an adaptable framework might activate urban spaces and expand access to housing. Its ambition is to support environments that people can inhabit, modify, and collectively shape—beginning with the right to a home.

ARCHITECTURE IS A WEAPON

Architecture shapes the conditions of everyday life. It can reinforce exclusion, consolidate ownership, and reproduce social divisions. It can also challenge these structures by expanding access to space and giving people the means to shape their environments. The question is whose interests it serves.

Housing must respond to those excluded from prevailing models of urban development. When access to a liveable home depends on purchasing power, architectural quality alone is insufficient. We must ask: for whom are we designing, where, and under what conditions?

The proposed system treats housing as a generative framework, open to occupation, modification, and growth. It seeks to challenge spatial divisions between social groups and enable inhabitants to participate directly in the production of urban space.

A modular frame accommodates container-based units whose functions and positions can change within the structure. Homes, workplaces, cafés, play areas, and shared facilities become parts of an evolving spatial arrangement. Inhabitants define how these units are used and how they relate to one another.

The system provides the codes; people write the programme.

This freedom operates within a shared framework committed to green space, opportunities for work and education, suitable living conditions, and equal rights. Reusable components and straightforward assembly are intended to support adaptation over time. The framework must also engage with surrounding buildings and activities, becoming part of the existing urban environment.

As an exploration of volumetric urbanism, the proposal asks how architecture can give inhabitants greater agency over the spaces they occupy. Its ambition is to make change possible through everyday use, collective decisions, and the capacity to adapt.

We all deserve a home—and a role in shaping the city around it.

/Creating new //urban spaces

Ulus,the setting for the emerging /Modernism in Turkey,is unique for its historical capacity.Its rich strata reach back to the The Roman Era to challenge the abstract mapping of Modernist Urbanism.More contemporary urban developments,which are blind to the existing conditions,disregard the Modernist context as an unconscious ‘’tabula rasa’’.Historical reminiscences in the site,on the other hand,resist this ignorance and produce traces to quide architectural //references .

Metropolis/Movie
1930

WHAT IS A CITY //

Is the city a living system that responds to the needs of its inhabitants, or an instrument for accumulating capital?

Urban development increasingly treats land and buildings as assets. Investment concentrates value in selected areas, attracting further development and transforming their surroundings. Yet urban space is finite, and the distribution of this value determines who can afford to remain, who gains access, and who is displaced.

Dominant social groups shape land use through their influence over political decisions and planning policies. As urban environments are reorganised around financial interests, inhabitants’ ability to occupy, use, and transform them becomes constrained. Those considered undesirable are pushed towards the margins.

The designation of a space as public does not guarantee universal access. Rules, restrictions, and mechanisms of control determine which people and activities are permitted. Public space can therefore reproduce the inequalities it is expected to overcome.

These boundaries affect more than movement through the city. They limit everyday opportunities, encounters, and forms of participation.

If the city is a shared living system, who has the power to shape it—and who is allowed to belong?

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