The local conditions of Isanbul and the Randstad seem at first slight diametrical oppositions. The Randscad and its Green Heart are the paradigm of Hollands’s world famous planning, while Istanbul is not an emblem of planning at all. But at second glance, both regions deal with similar issues.
The Randstads concept of a ring of cities with an empty heart is of no use any longer. The ring is not the dense urban conurbation once hoped for, the heart no longer empty. It proved to be unmanageable, even in the Dutch condition.
Expanding powers in the Istanbul region also overcharge urban tissue and threaten vulnerable forest and necessary water reserves. Ad hoc decisions have unintended major influence on the development of the city. But no one seems to be in control. Bottom up initiatives, called Gecekondu, have determined Istanbul’s image for long. Recently TOKI entered the stage, a super authoritarian housing company that now builds stadiums and gated communities, which sounds similar to Dutch housing corporations, that have moved from develop social housing towheads… renovating cruise ships and buildings stadiums and gated communities.
In two MSc2 studios, the urban conditions and planning systems of Istanbul and Randstad are juxtaposed to reveal similarities and differences, in order to learn to manage the unmanageable and to unlearn a planning of total control. In 5 parallel phases all levels are crossed, from research to design, from the level of the metropolitan area to the level of a building block.
The 5 topics run parallel and inform each other perpetually. The local inspires the metropolitan. Analysis feeds the intervention, interventions loop back to analysis. Istanbul charges Randstad. Juxtapositions create scenarios. The end product of both studio’s will be part of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in the spring of 2012.
