Dear BUDDIES:
After a difficult night with lots of tension and difficult planning of logistics and organization about “What and How” are we supposed to direct our field work, I went to bed with mixed feelings of how to achieve our objectives, the positive aspect of the meeting was that we managed to designate the basic tasks to work in the morning.
After some intensive work in the morning on our tasks; and bagel for breakfast and lunch, we went to our daily complicated meeting where we all talked about the work we did.... this time luckily for us we only had limited time, since we had to meet Cassidy at 4 pm with the “Fener Balat rehabilitation programme” architects, therefore we only discussed for a 1 hr and half about social mapping, the walls of Theodosius and tangible and Intangible Culture....etc.
I head to the meeting with some of the guys by “Taksi”, but after the driver decided to kick us out for taking him into one of the most difficult areas concerning heavy car traffic, we found ourselves into a nice walk along the Golden Horn in a beautiful afternoon, and even got to the meeting point before all the other people which were stuck in heavy traffic.
The meeting with the Fener Balat districts rehabilitation programme, was very interesting and relevant activity, brilliantly conducted by the local Co-ordinator Burcin Altinsay, which was a nice enjoyable and honest Conservation Architect. We learn about how to deal with limited budget, conserving the heritage, ways to engage the community and tools to manage gentrification. I particularly liked the way that a simple rule such as: only renovating the houses bought before the 70’s, intended to maintain the community; and by not letting sell them after the works are done, in this way gentrification can be managed more easily. Their approach was in an incremental way which made the improvement more sustainable and with more chances to succeed which will be very important in order to empower the community. Overall I think what this programme achieved is an example on how to renewal historic areas with mixed social classes and different ethnic groups.
After that we went back to the Apart Hotel by Ferry across the Golden Horn, which was preceded by an informal meeting with our beloved tutors in the grass of the park while we were waiting for the boat. This meeting was very important and they made us focus more in the activities we have to do, and the reason why we are working in Istanbul and not in London.... Now I think we have a better idea of what we have to do, however “the challenge is big” (Cacciotti, 2008) and “only time will tell” (Acosta 2008).
Love you all
Diego
PS. Steph, be careful with ants... one day they will rule the world....
