the best days...... and good bye sulukule...

Thanks Isis for a wonderful blog….. It has indeed been an amazing trip so far.

Excellent work friends!!- For the Fridays multi stakeholder meeting….…but we realized… it’s not the end………the Sulukule people and the platform wanted a presentation with the us… and we also asked Niloufer(Mayor’s secretary) if we could present our work to the Mayor… this meant that the Fridays presentation was just a start of the whole process….

After Fridays’ presentation and Saturdays’ feedback session with the tutors, the words “window dressing” echoed in my mind, and I did not know what to do. Even though we discussed this in the feedback session; I was not convinced with myself, going back to the feeling - that if this is the right field for me…

Sunday 18th May

We celebrated on Saturday night, as we could not celebrate on Friday due to tiredness. Saturday night party was an incredible party. Everyone was craving for some enjoyment, and almost the entire class came together for the party!! 

Sunday was the day where all were supposed to visit the famous tourist destinations, but the work on posters for Monday’s presentation delayed this. After finishing my posters, I went to the amazing Topkapi palace. A must see for all art and architecture students, this palace is strategically located with stunning views of the Marmara Sea, Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Unimaginable beauty, domes all over the palace decorated by charming tiles and awesome gilding work. We also saw the world’s 5th largest diamond and some excellent small crafts studded with rubies, emerald stones. The next step was the even more wonderful experience of Sufi music concert and the Whirling Dervishes. Being a fan of Sufi music I was enchanted. Even though I heard that the dervishes were just trainees, and this was a fake attempt to lure tourists - I felt it was a complete experience.

Between the two Turkish delightful experiences, tired that we were Stephanie and me went to a local restaurant for orange juice. The casual chats lead to a mature meaningful conversation between two budding development practitioners. Ha… I know it’s quite an overstatement… but I think we need to start loving ourselves for what we are doing and be proud about us….

Well, we were amazed how far all of us have come in our career and “life”. A bold step of getting in the field of development, where more than half of the population in the world does not know this field…. We discussed how lost we were 24 days ago when we boarded the flight from London. We had a very hazy view of what we were going to do. We knew it would be a next step to last year’s report, but how? And was it possible? Our first visit to Sulukule felt as if we had lost the battle…..

Looking back today, it feels there is scope in every nook and corner; it’s just your perception and vision that matters. As mentioned in earlier blogs… all of us had their bad experiences in coordination with the group. But in the end we came up with a great show, and not just a show - A process which had just begun……..

Monday 20th May

Monday I woke up to very bright sunny day, and cooked some vegetables, had my lunch and left for a blissful experience of the great Turkish Hamam. Another Turkish cultural wonder, the feeling is simply superb when you lie down on the hot marble and look up at the dome with light filtering through the holes. You let yourself sweat…..the entire process of intoxication…. It’s a full process with even your mind letting you go free. One thought leads to another, when you feel…. You have nothing left, for that moment and then you reach that peak…. Sometimes you feel…you have slept….but no…its meditation……. Meditation is not concentration…but de-concentration…. (I don’t know if the word exists)

And after that what you need is an excellent massage by a bulky Turkish guy…who presses every muscle on your back…making you scream in your mouth…and then the foam bath with another head massage…. Till then you have become so light and rejuvenated; ready to face the amazing world you live in… the world you love………

I left the bath and went directly to the Sulukule café….. The posters were put up by the girls… thank you girls for doing this…and the community had started filtering in…… Cassidy took all the BUDD students to a corner…and asked us how to speak about our proposals….
Due to lack of leadership….. Cassidy had to do the posters work… … she was a bit angry with us… we apologise dear Cassidy… the posters looked amazing!!

The presentation began. Cassidy made it clear to the audience the stand that the university UCL, and DPU took for the project and also, that we have a presentation on Tuesday morning with the mayor. As the students explained their proposals, one by one, I felt the community getting more involved. One of the best audiences I have ever had in my life, and they clapped and cheered at every project. They nodded in agreement, when they felt they needed the project.

some snapshots......

the above image is titled - "speaker, translator, listener and the baby"

After I finished my presentation and Ola took over. I went behind to stand and have a look; and that’s when I realized something. Few people got up to shake hands and thanked me for the project. It was at this moment that I felt how important my project was for them. And this was the case with all the projects .When Diego says at the end of his project “and all will be happy”…this is what the struggle is all about…. Making ends meet…. “To create a win-win situation for all” (Burra, 2008)
And this is our work, as development practitioners….


I am amazed that the eight months in DPU I have learnt so much, gained so much knowledge. I would have been empty without it, and I am amazed that last two days have been the best days…. Cos through the process of self discovery through the Sufi concert and Hamam experience…. I have felt the same about my Career… my future life… it links….for me at least… somewhere…

And yes…we took a step ahead….

this was the last day we visited sulukule..... some snapshots.......

Mr Cheng du saying good bye to his favourite wall in chinese....monday ended with all of us preparing for the tuesday's presentation for mayor... and a small party at a local bar.. celebrating Roi's birthday and our last night in istanbul!!! cheers guys!!

Since I have been provided with the opportunity to write anything in this blog: P
I would like to thank all of you… personally...each of you has been a source of inspiration in some form of the other…. In random order… Elsie, Elly, River, Stephanie, Cristina, Roi, Isis, Ola, Hauxuan, Diego, Jonathan, Riccardo…. All your work so far… in London… and in the Istanbul has been wonderful…and it was fun sharing experiences…

Thanks to the tutors Michael, Yves and Cassidy for being there…and making this possible… a practical learning experience….

The Final Countdown!

The time has come my dear friends!!! After 3 weeks of lots of work and little sleep we finally got to the final presentation! I think you will all agree we started the day with lots of things in our head and a little bit stressed…but with no idea of what would come later on!
First, just to put a little bit more pressure we still needed to present our projects to our tutors, then make the corrections and put everything together again for the presentation at 4:00 pm!!! After some minor delays and computer crashes we manage to collect everything, translate to Turkish and print all of our work!
By the time we got to ITU, the exhaustion just became adrenaline, people just kept coming and in no time the room was not enough for the audience! Many people we met along the road came: Members of the community in Sulukule, even Diego’s friend, the amazing musician Erdogen Dalkiran with his drums, (which he delightfully played for us at some point!), members of the Sulukule platform, the IMP, the Fatih Municipality, the Fener and Balat EU project team, Professor Alper Ünlü and many friends we’ve made in this amazing experience.
The fact that so many people came just made us work harder and give the best of us; the presentation went great despite the fact that we had to condensed a massive amount of work in a rather small presentation! I also have to say…we had never imagine how difficult is to present with a translator! We had to speak very clearly and at the end you don’t even know if you are being translated exactly as it is! (There are some interesting stories about this!!)
However, the more interesting part came later on!! Before we even realize it, we were spectators of a never ending struggle between completely different interests, people with power that are convinced they’re doing the best for the city and people that are fighting their neighborhood, for the right to preserve the kind of life and relations that make up their daily lives, things so random as to talk to your neighbor from the window and just watch the people go by…things that many of us even take for granted.
And when one resident of the community addressed to us and said that even as outsiders, in three weeks we manage to understand Sulukule because we had the will to do it, it made all our effort worth it… (Although he was too kind, we wish we could spend more time and get to know more this amazing community)…
At the end of the day, this is not just a field trip, an exercise or another step to get a degree; this is not about houses, about globalization or even about demolitions… This is about people and their lives!
I think I’m not alone when I say, is a rather strange feeling to work with such real and overwhelming issues, make an analysis, propose, present and then just go back to your life in London while the problem here will sure continue and get even worse…I praise all the people working for the cause with such passion and courage and we sure hope an agreement can be made and most importantly, that everyone involved acknowledges, once again, that this about PEOPLE!
Ok, I will stop now or I will never end, plus I can already hear Diego (A.K.A Cochabamba) saying I speak and write like a Mexican soap opera!!
“Seriously guys” We hope you can get a glimpse of our incredible experience this day… we sure never forget it…
P.S I know my so dear colleagues have more things to say about this day…hope you can contribute! Photos and videos to be posted later!! Un Abrazo!

Work in progress... working process...

Alas not a lot of excitement on the blog front for you today my lovelies. Another day, another vast amount of work done, and a round in Sulukule but this time... thank the lord on high a rare occassion in the history of BUDD in Sulukule we got a lovely young lady (calm down gentlemen) to translate for us!! Cristina got some of the mathematics she needed to do come complicated looking sums about affordability (she's very clever our youngster Cristina), and Diego got a huge amount of info for his personal project through a good stint of translating with none other than the great Erdogen Dalkiran. You know the one. The Roma singer who taught many a famous Sulukule musician in the old days when the entertainment houses were open, and now runs the Orkestra Sefi (you're forgiven for not knowing but he was very rock star). Probably down to our translators charms and not ours we even got ourselves an invite to their practice on Sunday night, which will no doubt be a far more exciting morning-after blog.

Projects are coming together, we're reasonably on top of the presentation and we're having a trial run or two tomorrow. In the absence of any more chat for you I shall conclude with a pretty random selection of a few loved photos (basically what is on my USB right now) and wish you all a well-deserved good nights sleep...

Up days and down days

The thing about what we do, at least for this year, is we have to produce the kind of standard of work you would expect from a masters or even a job except with one crucial difference: we have virtually nothing to go on. Seriously guys, apart from our wits and sheer beauty (most of us anyway), we do what we do without time, information, reliability, even without the same language! For this and all the other things we do without i'd like to start todays blog entry echoing what Roi finished with, a huge pat on the back to everyone!

So today was a work day, some headed to Sulukule for another testing round of frustrated efforts in communication and information. But slowly slowly we're edging closer to the end, of the istanbul leg anyway, and things are beginning to make more sense so we know what we're looking for when we go to the field and it takes a little less time. Back at the palace all were balancing work between personal projects (well and truly off the starting line) and group analysis. Analysis has been a tricky one, a real test of what we've been accumulating all year, whereas the projects although a new format seem to be easier for people to get stuck into. Maybe its just because we've done so much group work and we're glad not to have to look at each other any more! Another huge lesson learnt, this business of working in a group, and i'd be the first to admit its a massive lesson involving a hell of a lot of learning how to shut up basically (yes, i know, especially me!). But we're getting there, we're getting things done faster, we've stopped shouting at each other and decisions are made more easily despite, as i said, having pretty much zero to work with.

Somehow - between thirteen people, no turkish, a lot of chai, and not a lot else - we've produced an astonishing amount of work, and I reckon with the wind behind us we'll be ready for the big guns on friday. Today wasn't really an up or a down day, but I think thats a real testament to how well we can all evidently cope with a situation that really, a lot of people couldn't handle, a lot of people chose not to, and a lot of people never experience the kind of challenge we have over the last weeks. Personally, i couldn't do it without everyone else, so thank you, and see you tomorrow for an up day...

Today – after a tiny brake of resting and going out – was the day of final analysis, according to the guidance from the conclusions of the interim presentation, and definition of guiding principles for the BUDDies, in order to proceed to their proposal and action projects. And I have to tell you, the definition of the guidelines has been a real struggle for the team…The meeting with Cassidy, Michael and Yves was at 19:00, and from what came up from the discussion, I think that we haven’t really got it yet…We’ re nearly there, but we need another discussion concerning our guiding principles…But don’t worry, we have everything under control!

The second part of the meeting with the tutors involved some initial thoughts and ideas about our individual proposals…I don’t want to stress anybody, but realistically we only have 4 days for the formulation of these proposals and that is not good news guys!!

Anyway, other than that the day involved a lot of staying in and thinking and working – and unfortunately eating – so I will probably bore you with all the detail…Looking forward for the tomorrow meeting so as to finally identify our guidelines, surpass this ‘snag’, and move on to the final projects (yieeehhh)!!
Once again, good work my dear BUDDies!

trip and working

Today is day off. So we all separated to different places, my room went to Blue mosque and Aya Sofiya. However, Cristina`s room went to Barzar. This is the second day off after we came here. It is nice for everyone to take a rest. After a short break, everyone came back to keep working on our analysis.....

First Presentation

After two weeks working, the first presentation started in Istanbul Technical University. Although Cassidy tried to invite people from Sulukule Platform, only Cassidy, Yves and Michael and all BUDD students are present. In fact, we heard that the eviction movement from government started again in Sulukule from yesterday and today. I understand why they were absent. It is strange emotion. We tried to keep local people on site but they were continually kicked out of their homes.

At half passed ten, accidentally we found the presentation PowerPoint was left in hotel. When we were waiting for the PowerPoint, everyone had an informal discussed about how to prepare a presentation. Yves suggested that putting your PowerPoint in internet or DVD, preparing handouts, playing picture slides and music to draw attention at the beginning of presentation is like a starting of a meal which assists listeners involve in this presentation.

Beyond the problem of preparation, actually organization is the most conflict issue in our group. After day to day tiresome group meetings and discussions, everyone would agree that it is more efficient and easy to work individual than in group. Ironically, we are leaning participatory which encourages everyone join and shares their ideas. Good participatory is by considering every opinion through negation, communication and understanding processes. In our situation, when every idea came out, the group work became more and more complex. If the outcome only selects some ideas, it would disappoint idea-contributors. Furthermore, limited time makes situation even more difficult. That is why most governments prefer the top-down approaches. According to Michael, “blanking eviction is easy, convenience and wrong”. But it still exists in this world because for government it is efficiency. Additionally, the objective for Sulukule project regarding to our prospective is too broad which needs long term approach. River said “if we have time, we can save this world.” Yes, she reminded us that we need more practical and face the reality according our capacity.

At 11:20, Jonathan, Elsie and Cristina presented our work and after that we received many good suggestions. Basically, we did many data collections but we didn’t show important data numbers and key findings. However, the message in our presentation should be clear in order to impress audiences. Fortunately, Cassidy and Yves helped us organize our “view” of the project to “concrete missions” through “analysis, proposal to action”. That is great help. So in the end, everyone needs to provide individual work for action projective which includes tangible, intangible heritages, resettlements and livelihoods.

After finishing the presentation, we walked back through the lovely coast. I think the beautiful scenery comforted everyone today. We passed through a developed area which is modern, clean and pretty. We all enjoyed it. However, this urban regeneration may be another excuse for small group of people to get huge profits without considering original poor settlement. But we still took pleasure in the result of modern development……

Nearly to half way point ....

After the many meetings, visits and exploration around Istanbul city in the beginnning part of our trip, we are all now beginning to pull the knowledge and information we have gathered and getting down to doing some serious work. Among 13 of us, this task is not easy and concious that we have to deliver a coherent analysis and diagnosis of our work on friday, we devised a systematic framework to do this. (wohoo! our project is finally taking shape in some form)

We welcome Michael Safier into joining our party and the briefing we gave Michael in the morning not only was to update him on the on- goings of this trip, but for us to reflect upon what we have actually been doing the last week or so. And as always, the feedback and guidance from our professors and Michael are insightful and putting us back on track .....

Our project statement... too vague/ not encompassing enough. (Doh! would help to actually define what we are doing accurately.) It transpires that forming the vision of the project and the mission of how to achieve this vision is not an easy task. We need to unpack the terms to clearly define what we are trying to do in a specific way, but yet consise enough for it to be a strong focused objective. Looking at the verbs used are key, as this determines the action we will do.



A quote from Yves's counterpart: "Stratgic planning is about knowing what you do not want to do- the rest is space for freedom."


It may have been identified that as a group, we WANT to do everything and help and address issues in many possible ways which is why we struggle to develop a focus vision and mission statement for our project.


With our vision in sight, it should help us distill information we do not need in our mapping and research activities, which we have spent the most part of today doing.....

Jon's hands-up to speak rule enforced during an orderly meeting

I would just like to congratulate everyone on their efforts so far and for the phenomenal amount of work we are producing. The long working days may have been draining, but let's remember this is our last few weeks working as students together so we should make the most of the remaining time to pull together all our efforts. We all have a strong common aim to do what we can to help the Sulukule residents and make a positive difference in the development of Istanbul.

Visit to Tasoluk and Sulukule

Today we have paid a visit to Tasoluk, the relocation site of the Sulukule. Comparing with the field work of Sulukule from yesterday, we can get more clear and integrated idea about this relocation process.

Obviously, the documents and statement from both sides are not exactly according to the reality. Only through our own eyes can we get more accurate information to keep on our work. However, the situation changes everyday which can be extremely complex and confused, whether it is an opportunity or a threat for us will be decided by our own.
There are totally 1356 units in Tasoluk right now and still have potential to extent. Most of them are four layer buildings with two kind of flats, small one is 83 m² apartments block and 118 m² apartments block. There are 120 buildings in total including elementary and high school, mosque, commercial center, sports center and library.

Among these units, 334 are for Sulukule and now owned by TOKI. People (tenants) from Sulukule repay the house in 180 months (15 years), longer than other residents who are required to repay the house in 120 months (10 years). As it is a social housing project which the houses are much cheaper than average price, all of the houses have already been sold and most of them were even sold before the construction began. They also need to meet some qualifications for applying such as monthly income less than 800 l.t., living in Istanbul for at least 5 years and not have any property in their or direct relatives’ name anywhere else. It seems comparing other people who face the same financial situation, people from Sulukule will have more benefit and have lighter burden and they should be able to afford.
However, if people move to the TOKI apartment and cannot afford the rent in 3 months TOKI is sending a warning note and in 4 months people have to start paying their rent. If they still cannot pay, TOKI returns to them all the money that they have already paid, in cash and they have to move out of the apartment. TOKI allows the people to rent or sell the house to another person. However, the apartment here supposed to be the cheapest offer in this location which means even if they sell their house, the money they get still cannot afford a new apartment anywhere else.
The opportunities for employment in the area including textile industries, construction jobs. In addition, the municipality stated that they cannot help each individual person that is in need of a job – if people organize themselves in groups (i.e.10 people together) the municipality could contact/mediate for a job in the factories of the area. However, there will be no chance for their culture industry as the site is far away from city center and more or less pure residential area. It seems there will be no options for them other than struggle to a place in the industries. At same time, within the huge community of 5,000 people, the identity of Roma community will be completely dismissed which has no chance to reclaim anymore.
Thanks Roi for offering the note.

Chapter 10 - Many Meetings

After a quite relaxing Sunday it was back to reality and continue with our research, analysis and start the physical mapping of the area of Sulukule. However considering that we had to meet 2 important actors, which will help us understand better: the development of the city of Istanbul, where it is heading to and what strategic plans are they taking into consideration, there was the need to divide the BUDD group in two sets in order to attend both meetings and also work in the mapping of the area we decided to work in.

In my case I missed the morning meeting with the university and instead I went to Sulukule with my wonderful joyful mapping partner Ellie. The experience of mapping started very technical with us checking demolished houses, use of space, picture’s organization, etc. Local people were generally very friendly and curious with only one exception in which we weren’t welcomed; which might be a reflection of their despair of having a lot of attention from different sectors and actors without positive results. After the technical part we started to see a more social aspect of their lives, which was very difficult taking into consideration the language barriers, therefore it turned into a more informal and interesting activity that involved body language, sketches to show our countries, play football, dance, etc...every mapping group can add different stories they found on the streets of Sulukule.

The afternoon myself and some other BUDDS joined Cassidy to meet the Istanbul Metropolitan Planning IMP office in the city centre. The meeting’s purpose was to understand better the governance of the metropolitan area considering the differences between different local authorities, their approaches towards the economic growth of the city and the good legibility of the different suburban areas. It was very refreshing to see the magnitude of the city and what Istanbul means int the local area, Turkey and the international region. Even if the office works mainly as a consulting office addressing planning and urban design they had an opinion towards what is happening in Sulukule and the Fatih Municipality.

Once back in the apart hotel and with only 15 minutes for a break we found ourselves in what will turn into a marathon meeting involving all BUDD students and tutors firstly to discuss what are we doing which were our findings and what’s next; secondly after dinner we focused (without tutors) into brainstorming our proposals. This stage was directed by Jonathan in a very “Top Down” approach, even if Johnny’s tactics raised some eyebrows by the participants, I think it was very effective way to keep us focussed and stop us from wondering around the same stuff. After a hard night it was time to go straight to bed (no Tuborg).

After a really long day I just might conclude that the things and issues raised in the meetings will be important to our success, and will improve the feasibility of our proposals.

Sulukule

Sadly, it is raining heavily and there is no sign to stop soon and the singers invited to give performance only have a short stay. The whole thing seems would been ruined by the rain but surprisingly, to drummers from the community began to beat the drums and others dancing follow the rhythm.

They walk along the street and everyone hear the beat follows them. We walk with them as well and take pictures along the way to the wall. Although the celebration has been canceled by the formal organizer, this informal dancing party take place of it and last for over one and an half hour in the rain.

I think everyone’s emotion there has been promoted by the drummer and dancer from the community, one of the famous trumpeter plays with them, all journalists and tourists keep on taking pictures and we BUDDies all join the dancing with the kids and drum is still beet our heart on our way home.

Sulukule

Today we come to join the celebration of Hiderellez in Sulukule and it is such a nice event that has attracted people's attention to this special area from all over the world. It has gathered artists, architects, musicians, journalists and tourists together with community members to influence their future. It not only has created a chance for the Sulukule to show its amazing culture to the outside world, but also has given the positive impression to others of their optimistic, independence, creativity and contribution. Although due to the unpleasant weather, it has ended earlier than it supposed to be and the performance of famous star has been canceled, I'd like to say it is very successful as the community has taken over the leading role and give us such a wonderful self-organized show.

When we arrived, we found some artists are making graffiti on the destroyed buildings as the symbol to show their attitudes towards the eviction. They claim that there is no one should be defined as monster as the concept given to the Roma people. At the same time, they are worried about with demolishing the houses and relocation, the whole livelihood of Sulukule will also been wiped off.

At the beginning, the Band is playing nice music with some guys dancing, at this stage, it is a well organized show and everyone is amazing at the performance. However, it seems the volunteer has more influence on the events than the local people. They have high technical stereo, light and other facilities which not that match the character of the community. Anyway, under the pressure of eviction, it can be a cherish time for the community to relax and enjoy.

Soon after that it begins to rain. Although at first the rain has not quenched the people's exciting, when it becomes heavier and heavier, it stops the performance and people are leaving gradually. Everyone has the hope that it would keep on going after the rain, so we just use the arch of the city wall and the empty houses for a shelter. It is interesting that no matter how much the building has been damaged, as far as it has the roof, it still can be used as the space for certain activity.

Chengdu

hi guys,

there is some information about Chengdu's tangible and intangible heritages, just a little.

http://panprd.hktdc.com/content.aspx?data=PANPRD_content_en&contentid=879561&src=RA_Guizhou&w_sid=194&w_pid=639&w_nid=10168&w_cid=879561&w_idt=1900-01-01&w_oid=343&w_jid=
http://www.chinatour.com/attraction/chengdu.htm

If you are interested in, you can find a lot of things on the internet.

By the way, how do you say the word "Chengdu"? It is a bit strange to me, like "Shishi".

Forget it.

a day of colors

The truth is that when you are on your way to a walking tour with Orhan Esen to the historic center of Istanbul you really don’t know where this is going to lead you…This basically happens for two reasons; first of all, Istanbul is an ideal representation of the layers of history, and according to Orhan, what you will discover – Ottoman, Byzantine, Roman, Greek – only depends to how deep you will dig. Secondly, Orhan is a human encyclopedia of the urban history of the city and has the answer to every question that will pop out of your head at any time!

This small introduction presents how this morning of the 3th of May found the BUDDies, on their way to the metro to meet Orhan. The first stop was the Topkapi station at Fatma Sultan which at a first glance looked like a park next to the Byzantine Walls. As Orhan informed us, we were standing on top of a huge underground junction that was nicely “covered” by that park. As we started walking parallel to the Walls, we noticed a concentration of people and movement behind the Wall and, as all the BUDDies being curious by nature, we approached to investigate…Climbing up the stairs, we discovered an informal market, unfortunately in the process of breaking-up by the municipality’s authorities. The market proved to be a lot bigger than we thought at the first place with maybe hundreds of people selling anything that someone can imagine, from used clothes and shoes to paintings and kettles. Although we were all kind of reluctant at the beginning, we didn’t know how the people felt about our presence there and us taking photos like a typical group of tourists, we were quickly relieved by the people really enjoying it, talking to us – unfortunately in Turkish that none of us understands -, even taking pictures of us!! And all the above under the imposing presence of the Wall that constituted the ideal background. But you should have been there, I cannot really describe it…

We continued our walk through the area of Neslisah, there where lies another story of people living every day with the fear of being evicted out of their houses for the sake of a great urban regeneration project. We actually heard from a young girl that they wanted them to move out in order for the municipality to make a new tram line and a zoo (!?!)

Our next stop was the area of Sulukule, there where things were so different from our first visit! It was a sunny Saturday morning, people were sitting outside their houses, drinking tea and chatting, or selling vegetables in their small shops, even in the street, the children played in the streets, there was a really friendly environment. Again we were happy to see that they all welcomed us, the children wanted to meet us and talk to us, write their names in our notebooks, say some english words, try to be friends with us. And out of the blue, with no apparent reason, Diego became the king of football and all the kids of the area wanted him to sign on their ball or even their hand! It felt really nice to be so warmly welcomed by the people of Sulukule and I can assure you that this is a relationship that is only starting now…

After a break for lunch, the character of our walk changed a bit as we visited the Chora church or what now is called the museum of Kariye. No words can describe the amazing beauty of the frescos and the mosaics of the church! I cannot speak as an art historian – maybe Steph could help us a bit with the technical knowledge at this point – so I will only declare my amazement in the view of these mosaics and my regards to Cassidy that insisted that we should enter the church…

It was getting late; we had walked for many hours so we entered the Ayvansaray neighbourhood in a rather quiet and flat mood. No one could imagine what was about to happen…In the beginning there were 3 children approaching, some women waving as we were walking through the neighbourhood. Then the 3 children became 7, then 12, and before we even realized we were surrounded by more than 20 children of the area, everyone trying to draw our attention, talking to us, posing for us to take pictures of them, playing games with us, forming a small, colorful “parade” in the center of a colorful neighbourhood full of, apparently “colorful people”.
As I close my eyes and think of today’s long walk, the scenes that mostly come to mind are those with people “engaging” the Wall in the most incredible and inventive ways, making it an indispensable part of their life, and, at the same time, the astonishing colors and shadows of the frescos and mosaics of the Kariye museum. The one thing that still comes to my ears is the endless laughing of the children in Sulukule and Ayvansaray…

02 - 05 - 2008

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....

labour day

hi Buddies,

Today I woke up to the rather sensitive political situation as I was jogging into a normally tourist friendly square (Tashaluke), I would like to draw a comparison between the heavy police presence that was evident everywhere and the removal of the Sulukule people, this would be dangerous, but I shall try any way. The intimidation of the disciplined regiments of police echoes the determination that the authorities have displayed in turfing the Sulukule residents out. The laid back attitude of the police getting lunch as there was evidently not enough work for the many thousands of them, is a little bit like the civil societies and trade unions managing to get noticed, to bring the city to near chaos to bring their cause to the public eye, without causing much violence.

Sulukule is organized and also knows the power of organizing and the media as tactics to put political pressure on the authorities. This may not prevent inevitable eviction, but it buys time for negotiation and brings political clout to their cause.

We met the Agenda 21 staff members for the Middle East, they explained to us some interesting points about local governments, their structure and where the real power lies. A 21 is international NGO that encourages institutionalization of a process that came out of the Rio 1992 conference. It invites people from all the organized groups in a municipality to a meeting to create a group which will try to improve the situation of the city town or village by working together to cultivate the power of collective organization and action. They have created Local councils which appoint working groups that work on specific issues for instance urban design or education. The main speaker for the meeting was late due to the disruptions of the May 1st demonstrations, they were a stark difference from the radical activism of the labour day disrupters, they use quite diplomacy which was very impressive given the miniscule staff.

Before we spent another evening working the Budd team managed to have a stroll back from the A21 offices to the hotel through the touristic areas near the blue mosque back to the Golden horn, we witnessed the powerful effect of tourism to transform the city for the better in terms of physical improvements, but whether the communities that had to be displaced to allow the tourist to move in is something that we will never know.

Fatih Municipality Meeting

I think you guys may need this picture which I took yesterday.

Fatih Municipality Meeting

Based on the work of the last year BUDD group, we have been invited to meet with the Mayor of Fatih Municipality and with members of the CBO called the Sulukule Platform. Thus, we have been able to establish a development dialogue with them, getting the different perspectives of these actors regarding the Renovation Program and its implementation.

After hearing their interests and priorities, we have a better idea of the process of transformation that Istanbul is going through, and what this implies for the civil society and the government. Now we have to make a choice about the issues we want to focus on during the next two weeks and justify that decision. So far we have agreed in the importance of the preservation and the conservation of heritage (tangible & intangible), and the issue of the relocation and resettlement of the Sulukule community. But how to link these objectives is part of the struggle of defining the scope of our project, however, we have been advised to chose the needs that we can effectively address in order to make a final decision and start working.

Sorry again

Sorry for my mistake about Roman and Romani.

So as I see, there is some interactions between the people in Sulukule and the City Walls. But it is not enough. In this term the people in Sulukule have no strong reason they must live in this place. But it doesn't matter. We have the Walls and the Roma community there. But what we got today is that the Roma are the minority (17%), and in fact the majority of them don't have the talent of singing and dancing. And they will be relocated in June (right?), so we don't have time to make a tourism plan. Therefore, we will try to address it in another way. That is what we talked about in the evening.

Personally I prefer to do a conservation plan for the heritage because we will meet the relocation problem during the planinng. Because I have made several conservation plans before, relocation is a very important and most expensive part. And there are a lot of aspects we can do to analyse, evaluate and preserve the heritage.

But we want to put both in the same weigh (right?). personally I don't think it is a good idea because conservation is not just relocation, and relocation is not the best way of conservation sometimes. I think there should be only one topic. Now it looks like we want to analyse every thing, but maybe we can't touch the core of these issues. What do you think?

Based on my background, conservation will be very interesting. But as an urban designer, relocation may be a challenge. that's just my thoughts. Whatever, both is ok for me.

Good night.

Sorry

I have made some mistake about Roman and Romani. Sorry.

my idea about Sulukule

hi Buddies,

Based on the information we collected during the last week, I have some thoughts about Sulukule. Just some personal ideas. If you are interested in, please tell me your comments and suggestions.

Firstly, as I saw, there is little relationship between the people in Sulukule and the Walls. The renters don't go to the Walls for some social activities. And on the other hand, there is little linkages between the renters and the place, by which I mean the renters living in Sulukule don't work in the factories. They just earn their lives in their houses or do some music-related jobs, because of the culture of Roma. So in another word, there is no strong reason that people "must" live in Sulukule, in the sense that their livelihoods and culture are based on the community per se, not based on the place where they occupy. From this angle, relocation seems to be a good choice for the municipality due to their needs of the land.

However, relocation is disaster to the renters because they are not the owners. If the municipality want to get the land, some compensation must be given, to the owners of the buildings, not the users. So the renter will get nothing but have to find a new place to live. If they can't find, they will become homeless. Nevertheless, in the eyes of municipality, what they are doing is obviously right. Let me give an comparison. A (some guy) lend a book to B, and C want to buy the book from A. So C will ask B to return the book. But B says he doesn't want to return it because he can't get any benifit. Obviously the unreasonable person in this issue is B.

In the name of the human rights, however, forced eviction is evil, and we won't do that. But Sulukule must be changed as the quality of the buildings is very bad and some of them are dangerous to live in. We can't conserve a slum as what it was. Sulukule must move on. So what I want to show is another way to potect the renters, as well as develop Sulukule. It is like renewal or upgrading, but goes beyond that. Do you remember what I mentioned in the evening about the tourism. I think revive tourism is the best choice for the future of Sulukule, based on the following reasons:
1 there are 70% Romans, which is a very famous word in the world.
2 there is the World Heritage--the Walls, which is a very attractive place of interest to the tourists.
3 Fortunately, the Walls are built by Romans. In this sense, the linkage between Romans and the Walls is extremely strong. If the municipality want to develop the tourism around the Walls, Romans is a necessary element. That means if we can persuade the government to focus on the tourism, the Romans won't be evicted.

So it comes to the question that how we can draw the attention of the municipality. Of course we can because there are lots of benefits to do this. Here are some:
1 make the city much more beautiful. When I came to Istanbul, I doubted that is it really the most important city in Turkey? It is just like a small town anywhere in the world. Maybe the only difference is that there is less cabage in the street. It should not been seen in such a famous city. Let return to Sulukule. It's a slum in the center of Istanbul. As a world heritage, (don't worried about in danger or not), it should be attractive. But I didn't see many foreign tourist nearby. I think one of the reasons is that there are some slums just at the foot of the Walls. If Sulukule is upgraded, obviusly the city will become more beautiful, and more foreign tourist will come here.
2 what benifit can the municipality get? When tourism is developed, arange of investments will be attracted, and more money can be put into the development of the tourism and the city. A benign loop will be formed. In addition, unlike industry, tourism will produce little pollution. It is environmental-friendly.

Someone may ask the following question, and I will try to address it:
1 what the Romans do for the tourism?
Romans are good at singing and dancing. they can hold some preformances for the tourists to show the Roman culture. And they can be the guides of the Walls. there are a lot of works they can do.
2 how about the non-romans?
they can be the street seller or the cleaners, ect.
3 Sulukule is not seemed as a location of Romans.
As I said, Roma culture is based on the community. where there is Romans, there is Roma culture.
4 How about the people who have already moved?
If they want to come back, they will be welcome.

in my opinion, there are lots of work we can do based on what BUDD did last year. and if we can use their materials, not focus on another place, it will be much easier and deeper to make a good project. What do you think?

Lu Haoxuan

Sulukule Community: Rebabilitation or Relocation

Budd Community,

We have been today introduced to the Sulukule community of space, interest and culture. After this what next?.......................................

In terms of culture, the residents have a sense of realization and desire to live together,while in relation to interest, they have come together for a common course to resist eviction and continue to me protect their space within the city.

In the opening remarks of Prof. Yves Cabannes noted that our group is interested in understanding the struggle of the Sulukule platform and learn how they resist evictions. The food for thought is that "even if we have accumulated principles or knowledge, it will be of no use if it is not going to transform society positively (Cabannes, Y, 2008).

The efforts of the last set of students has been acknowledged by the platform and specific reference was made to the use of children as an important to for their field work. The question for us is whether we are prepared to approach our research through a unique approach or we want to dwell on last year's product...........................what is the challenge

The chair of the Sulukule platform did say that the community have the right to live within their historic location but the Fatih municipality seem to be embarking on a process of gentrification and may not be interested in collaborating with them as demolition of a least 65 property formation has been carried out recently.

Sincerely as development practitioner i wonder what we think about the area we visited today. Diego are the houses healthy for living? Riccardo are the people provided with basic amenities? Elsie, what is the structural strength or durability of building found in this area? Steph do the residents deserve better living conditions................................please lets think about this issues in relation to the submission of Yves Cabannes above.

Technically, are we in support of redevelopment or rehabilitation as appropriate intervention. Maybe a combination of both and other concepts as conservation may be adopted. What i do know is that we are all not in support of forced eviction......................right guys?

The big question at tonight meeting is if our intervention will not trigger emotions and view from the political angle as a disruption within the society as the Sulukule people may have resulted to faith and wait for the aftermath of the bulldozers. I stand to be corrected but i believe we bring the people fresh hope and they will dwell on this. However, remember that the community are already asking us to proffer solution to their inability to finance alternative housing or relocation arrangement by government.

Dear all, on the issue of using from last year, note that the data will by now be out dated and the pieces of information provided by the community platform must be verified as they weren't able to substantiate this to us during our interaction. We as planners studying or carrying out a practical research such as this should by all means take advantage of been present on the field and carry out our own survey and unique investigation. Or how else can we justify of financial commitment towards this trip or put to test what we have learnt over the past few months.

Reconnaissance survey is not just a technical term in planning, we must put this to test. What about our skill on gather data through primary source...................do we not need them now. Come on guys, we cannot just depend on secondary information for this study, we need to discover and gather knowledge first hand now that we have the chance.

Have we decided on our study area yet............................in doing this, please lets consider all we talked about earlier and note that every single contribution counts. This is team work, make it work.

Just imagine..................................................................................................
I may have walked through another path and never have known you guys
That moment that we met I found out that you are all very special to me
You are everywhere in my heart and everything you are is PERFECT!

We will all meet above the top someday, somewhere, sometimes..............

Lottaluv,

Olajide Abiodun Babatunde, OAB

Conservation in Urban Rehabilitation

Planners,

Without the fear of contradiction from my earlier communication, I support the principles of conservation particularly with references to cultural heritage which has become vulnerable as they face extinction for several technical, social a political reasons. However, i will like to ask you all to answer the following question:

What will you do in a situation when you are expected to take decisions on a building of the highest cultural heritage which is technically or structural weak leaving millions of people endangered as a result of its existence..........................Preservation and Conservation or demolition?

Please be honest, practical and sensitive in sending me your view as a major body of knowledge in today's context of best principles and UNESCO ideals.

In planning school, we acquired knowledge on the principles of Urban Renewal which dwells on the concepts of Rehabilitation, Redevelopment, Conservation, Preservation, integration, etc. We must as development practitioners understand all these concepts and use them interchangeably in designing our intervention in a context specific situation.

The issue of funding, relocation, compensation, etc have always made redevelopment very unpopular and Rehabilitation which incorporated other concepts as conservation is too useful to be ignored in practice.

Have a nice day.

Olajide Abiodun Babatunde

Community Participation in Urban Rehabilitation

Budd Community,

How are you doing today.

Community as we know is very difficult to define as they are very complex and multi dimensional in nature. According to one author, we may not even know all the communities we belong to as communities interwoven and cross sectional within a defined area and beyond.

I will like to know if you have recently discovered the new community "Sulukule Platform" which we now belong to.

Whenever people, professionals, political leaders, etc identify with a particular course, then community is formed. As we know from our days in the DPU, we have different types of communities which include communities of culture, communities of interest, communities of place, communities of religion, etc.

The organization of communities can be very vital to the implementation of any project and the investigation of all spheres of a community is recommended for a people involved, bottom-up and participatory approach which we intend to explore within our study area.

We must thank the group on community for the detailed SWOT analysis and Timeline below as an addition to our Knowledge and basic tool for engaging this unique community:

Community must be viewed as multicultural and not mono-cultural in nature (Cabannes, E, 2008).

In your own understanding what is Community?....................................review

OAB

Stakeholders in Urban Rehabilitation

Dear All,

The pulling together of resources in project design and implementation is very fashionable and has been proven to be effective.

If the intervention will succeed, then all hand must be on deck as ‘people can only become genuinely committed to projects and programmes which are derived from their needs, which advance their interest, which take into consideration their capacities, limitations and constraints and which incorporate their participation in problem definition, project determination and design in choice of modalities or strategies of programme implementation and in the evaluation of the past and present effort’, (Taiwo, D.O, 1995). At this junction, I am bold to suggest that Taiwo’s submission above should be considered by very development practitioner as one of the basic rules of engagement in designing of intervention in the context of Urban Rehabilitation Project.

Understanding the SWOT analysis of stakeholders and actors that we will be dealing with is too important to our study and the identification and pulling together of these resources (stakeholders) must be done now to form the effective partnerships required.

I rest my case.....................

OAB

Policies and Laws in Urban Rehabilitation

Dear Buddies,

The importance of laws and policies in the implementation of urban rehabilitation projects can never be over emphasized. Also, the adoption of conservation strategies for Historic Districts within any city which depend on the ability of the government and/or administration to adopt certain local and international principles (e.g UNESCO) cannot be ignored in understanding the strengths and weakness of our task.

Remember to retrieve necessary documentation from the group on laws/policies and digest the contents in relation to the workability of our acquired technical knowledge in a context specific intervention we are now faced with.

We must not design in isolation because it is only "where there are no laws that there are no procedures".

Therefore, as part of the rules of engagement, we must have a fair knowledge of the laws/policies that exist within our study area.

Ask questions on deficient laws and make proposals or find alternative approaches within the existing laws as the case may be. This I believe is the cross of a development practitioner, we must carry it.................................hard luck guys.

Good morning.

Renewal and Rehabilitation in Building and Urban Design

Welcome to Building and Urban Design in Istanbul, Turkey.

Urban Rehabilitation has for a long time been considered as the preferred approach in the overall improvement of settlements the world over. It has been chosen in most cases over the redevelopment strategy for the following reasons:

- Can be done Fast
- Cheaper
- prevents Gentrification
- Supports conservation of Historic sites
- Fosters local participation
- Builds partnerships
- Does not reduce the housing stock
- ETC

However, for a rehabilitation project to be effective, several studies must be carried out to determine if the approach is the best in a context specific situation. It is important that the following be determined:

- Age of Building
- Type of building Material
- Strength of Structure
- Access to portable infrastructure
- Number of occupants
- Type of roof and structure

All the above and others that I may not have included should be put into consideration to determine what development approach to apply as a development practitioner.

Today, we visited the Fener and Balat Rehabilitation projects which was sponsored EU in a counterpart arrangement with Fatih municipalities in Istanbul, Turkey. This projects were designed to avoid gentrification and encourage preservation Historic and cultural buildings.

The food for thought is that several buildings are been abandoned because of their poor cultural state. Also, we need to ask the project champions if the success stories that they have recorded in the area is been replicated or if their strategies are been adopted elsewhere within the city of Istanbul and beyond. With the state of disrepair and dilapidation of many existing properties seen during our street walk with weak structures and foundation failures evidents, we need to find out if the several rehabilitation addressed these issues and if there exist reports or history of such renewals.

Dear Buddies, I am of the considered opinion that a renewal project may be approached as a double headed sword. In the areas we visited today, I believe that Rehabilitation and Redevelopment are the two sides of the same coin that must not be ignored. Why don't we suggest a mixed developmental approach within the study area as a two way traffic intervention that has already become inevitable in this context.

OAB