Naast de analoog ontwerp-game, wij bouwen aan een plek op internet waar bewoners, ondernemers en andere betrokkenen kunnen discussiëren, hun ideeën kunnen presenteren en elkaar kunnen vinden en helpen bij het uitvoeren van ideeën. Zie www.playthecity.nl open vanaf 14 Oktober

Play Noord!
Play the City’s volgende speelveld is het crisis van nieuwe ‘centrum’ van Amsterdam: Overhoeks met de aanliggende gebieden Van der Pek en Buiksloterham. Op 14,15 en 16 oktober  gaan de spelers vechten tegen bezuinigingen, stagnerende bevolkingsgroei, overbodigheid en algemene richtingloosheid. Ga je voorkomen dat Overhoeks, Buiksloterham en de Van der Pekbuurt verder vermorst worden?

Locatie: Infocentrum Overhoeks [dat is die drijvende kas tussen Tolhuistuin en toekomstig Eye Instituut

Stichting Play the City
Stichting Play the City presenteert Play Noord! Play Noord! wordt gefinancierd door Stichting DOEN en de Mondriaan Stichting. De eerste editie van Play Noord! vindt plaats tijdens Niemandsland, een driedaags evenement over het braakland Overhoeks rond dromen van schrijvers en projectontwikkelaars, buurtbewoners en kunstenaars. Met verhalen, film, muziek, fotografie en eten. Meer info over Niemandsland op www.tolhuistuin.nl
Play the City! is een international stadspel programma. De eerste locatie was Istanbul [2010]. Volgende spellocatie is Binckhorst, Den Haag, [2011].

Voor de redactie
Voor aanmelding om te spelen of kijken mail naar info@theresponsivecity.org
Voor toelichting bel met Ekim Tan op 06 4141 5959

Iedereen met (tijdelijke) plannen mag mee doen
Iedereen met (tijdelijke) plannen voor Overhoeks, Van der Pekbuurt en Buiksloterham mag mee doen in Play Noord!, het simulatiespel dat researcher/ontwerper Ekim Tan en haar bureau TReC ontwikkelde voor het plannen en transformeren van steden. Het spel simuleert complexe situaties op het gebied van stadsplanning. Het combineert de kennis vanuit verschillende disciplines, en brengt zoals zelden gebeurt alle spelers bij elkaar – de autoriteiten, de ontwikkelaars, de architecten, de onzichtbare spelers, de toekomstige bewoners en de buren. 

Games, social media en zelf-organisatie bij elkaar
We brengen de spelers bij elkaar, drie dagen lang: van ING Vastgoed tot Peter van de Ranonkelkade, van projectbureau Noordwaarts tot Amina de kleine visser. De inzet is hoger dan het spel alleen: nieuwe aandacht voor de tijdelijke invulling van stedelijke vernieuwing die stokt halverwege ontwerp en realisatie zorgt ervoor dat gemeente, ontwikkelaars, ontwerpers, architecten en bewoners in samenspraak tot betaalbare alternatieven komen. Play Noord! biedt hen nieuwe tools door elementen van games, social media en zelf-organisatie bij elkaar te brengen. Voor de stad betekent deze nieuwe aanpak levendigheid in plaats van braakland. Voor ontwikkelaars een pauze om tot nieuwe modellen te komen. Voor jonge architecten de ruimte om al doende hun ideeën aan de praktijk te toetsen. En voor buren en bewoners het mede-eigenaarschap van een gebied waar ze dagelijks op uitkijken en doorheen lopen.

In June 2011, we have moved our temporary office to Amsterdam Noord, Van der Pekbuurt. Since then we have been working on forming offline and online communities with a special interest on their cities. Players of the World of Citycraft involve sofar around 100 people from neighborhoods of Noord, companies with audio video focus, the local government, housing corporation Ymere, cultural organizations considering moving out of their expensive locations in the city center, young architecture companies, international investment corporations.

We are constantly looking for people, organizations and companies who might bring in new program to Kop van Noord of Amsterdam. Please tip us at info@theresponsivecity.org if you have ideas, plans to realize in Noord’s future.

TReC has been developing non-digital city design games since 2008, besides its research on cities, complexity and design. Currently we are making World of Citycraft [WOC], a game for co-designing cities by crowds. WOC is a family of design games, which will allow communities to play in interconnected digital and non-digital city game platforms. For the development and communication of WOC’s activities and events we are looking for an intern as of September 1st, 2011.

What we offer?
As you work with TReC closely you will be challenged to expand your content and practical knowledge through our workshops, design and application of city games.
We offer you free access to our growing library of books and games and colleagues who are allowed to play 5% of their working hours.
TReC is an open and innovative network of individuals from The Netherlands, London, Istanbul and Cairo. You can become part of our network use and our international connections to initiate new activities.

Guidance
Ekim Tan: architect, urbanist, game designer

Period & Payment
A TReC internship lasts 100 days. We pay monthly 300 EUR bruto for a fulltime intern. We prefer interns who work 4 or 5 days a week.

Tasks
Help with publicity: spreading publicity materials for TReC events, sending out newsletters
Setting up new media installations for games, conduct street intervies
Contact and update game players [players are often a wide variety of people aldermen, senior planners, university professors, developers, residents, collectives] on the game sessions, locations, times
Maintain the TReC, Play the City, World of Citycraft websites
Communicate with our followers through Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, Linkedin and generate new followers
Think along during the design process of city games
Help design, organize, build and run game workshops

Intern Profile
Knows TReC’s content and has interest in human interaction design for citymaking
Has good communication skills
Likes to interact with people and is creative in forming new connections
Speaks and writes fluent Dutch and English
Has interest in city level projects planning, urban design, architecture and game design
Can work independently
Preferably lives and has a network in Amsterdam and/or the Hague
Has advanced skills in google earth, sketch up, autocad, adobe suite ect.
Has model making skills

New graduates or last year master students in architecture or urban design education are preferred for this position who have experience in communication management and interest in game design, architecture movies and animations, new media and social networks.

Information
Send a portfolio in pdf format [not larger than 10mb] and a short motivation to:
Cristina Ampatzidou c@theresposivecity.org

Thus first case for WOC will become Kop van Noord. What will be the next life of former Shell area, Ymere’s social housing neighborhood and a former industrial port? Will creative industries take over, as Richard Florida often advocates? Or will the existing industries and social housing continue their existence? Will there be more individual entrepreneurs with diverse housing and working dreams? Northern side of Ij is in search of its future ‘bestemming’. World of Citycraft games take these urban questions as its background. Overhoeks a high-income housing neighbourhood hit by the crisis, Buiksloterham a mixed-use urban zone to be developed by ‘particulier opdrachtgeverschap’ and Van der Pekbuurt a social housing neighbourhood facing dynamics of gentrification delivers an interesting complexity to be dealth with diverse interactive city games.

Earlier in 2011, the artistic director of Tolhuistuin*, Chris Keulemans invited us to research and design a game over the wasteland in the middle of Amsterdam Center, the north side of the Ij river. The director was convinced Play the City was what this site required after learning about our Istanbul city design game called Yapyasa. Our team visited the wasteland first time on an ice-cold snowy day in February 2011.

Soon TReC team was also convinced that applying the Play the City game method to collect systematically ideas, energies and entrepreneurs around the wasteland is not only necessary, but also this city gaming tool can support alternative ways for co-creating Dutch cities in the 21st century. Please read on our temporary office in Van der Pekbuurt, observations on Amsterdam Noord and our digital and non-digital game developments.

*The Tolhuistuin is Amsterdam’s newest cultural playfield for music, (performance) art, cuisine, academia, film, dance, debate & people. It’s a venue, a summer festival and an unconventional collection of (cultural) organizations all based in Amsterdam-Noord at the Overhoeks site opposite Central Station.

WOC Think Tank Team involves Jacqueline Tellinga, [project leader of the Homeruskwartier in Almere], Prof. Juval Portugali [TU Delft], Ute Schneider, [urban designer and director KCAP Zurich], Olof van de Wal, [director of knowledge institute for urban renewal KEI], Zef Hemel [Director DRO], Steve Elbers [program manager Stichting Doen], Willem Velthoven [founder of Mediamatic and initiator of many social media based cultural events], Klaar van der Lippe and Bart Stuart [artists Leren Spelen] and Chris Keulemans.

Meetings held sofar helped in connecting to relevant projects from the practice such as Homeruskwartier in Almere, Smallingerland’s Wij Bouwen een Wijk as well as notice main challenges of the process such as trust building and low threshold interfaces for the inclusion of larger crowds. Last meeting with Chris Keulemans [Tolhuistuin] and Zef Hemel [DRO] helped the team to define the boundaries of the case study better. Read more on our blog items Tolhuistuin invites World of Citycraft and Kop van Noord.

Here you can download short version of TReC’s presentation and please take your time to read the Polis article:

20th and 27th of April the TU Delft’s Urbanism student club ‘Polis’ organized two lunch lectures in the series ‘Digital Urbanism’.

As Urbanism students we see an emerging use of digital, experimental instruments for research, design and planning of cities. Although people have been developing urban simulation and computer aided design instruments for decades, these methods and tools are still hardly applied in our education. That is why we invited Frank Werner (KCAP) and Ekim Tan (TU Delft/INTI) to present their experience in this field.

Frank Werner presented his project ‘Kaisersrot’. First he introduced us to the concept of parametric design i.e. the process of choosing appropriate parameters for a design problem and setting up the model definition that then can be used to explore the solution space (Gane 2004).

He showed us how, by definition of several parameters in simulation software a basic urban ground plan was constructed. Lastly he presented how this method was brought into practice in the newly build neighbourhood Schuytgraaf (Arnhem, the Netherlands). Frank Werner: “This parametric design, geometric elements (of CAD Models) are connected with parameters (usually out of a database). By changing the parameters, design changes can be performed much faster than by redrawing by hand. Furthermore, interaction between multiple complex parameters can be objectified and tested in the design.”Central in Ekim Tan’s presentation was the concept of the ‘self-organizing city’. She presented simulation games as a means to facilitate self-organization. She showed research on how the interaction between stakeholders can be simulated in these games. Furthermore she illustrated the application of simulation games in several urban development projects. Lastly she emphasized the importance of interaction between all stakeholders, including inhabitants and the role that social media play in the current revival of bottom-up planning.

One of the main conclusions from both presentations was that the traditional role of the urban designer will change. This role will increasingly be setting the relevant design parameters and describing the rules for interaction rather than delivering detailed designs. So we should stop modelling buildings and start modelling relations.

After the summer holiday, Polis will organize more inspiring lectures by people from both the academic world and the urban planning and design practice. We are looking for new members of the Lecture Comity. If you are interested in organizing lectures, have ideas for lectures or topics that you think are relevant, please contact us at lectures@polistudelft.nl

Further readings:

Alexander, C., Neis, H. & Anninou, A., 1987. A New theory of urban design, Oxford University Press.

Landa, M.D., 1997. A thousand years of nonlinear history, Zone Books.

Portugali, J., 2000. Self-organization and the city, Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer.

Stolk, E. & te Brömmelstroet, M., 2009. Model town : using urban simulation in new town planning, Amsterdam: SUN.

http://www.kaisersrot.com/

http://www.kcap.eu/en/projects/v/kaisersrot/

http://www.theresponsivecity.org/

http://www.facebook.com/theresponsivecity.org?ref=ts&sk=wall

http://www.giveaminute.info/

http://www.verbeterdebuurt.nl/

What makes INDESEM [INternational DEsign SEMinar] special is the cooperation between students of different nationalities and renowned architects and theorists. INDESEM was organized for the 1st time in 1962 by a group of students [Wiek Röling among others] directly connected to Stylos. In 1986 the workshop was reinitiated by Herman Hertzberger and an independent group of students. Since then it has been held frequently [annually or bi-annually]. Each edition of INDESEM is guided by a particular theme, which is intensively explored during a week-long workshop.
The final results of the workshop, as well as the content of lectures and debates will contribute towards a publication. More than just a memorabilia for participants, this book is a focused effort to contribute to the architectural debate.

Our 12 students return from a week intensive field work on Istanbul’s northern peripheries. The group was engaged in a 4-day Istanbul workshop.
Day 1: The ‘Managing the Unmanageable’ Conference
Day 2: DIY Arnavutkoy Tour by Muge Yorganci
Day 3: Workshop at the Bilgi University briefed by Ekim Tan and Cem Caliskan
Day 4: City Tour with Orhan Esen; writer of Self-service City Istanbul.

The ‘Managing the Unmanageable’ conference hosted well-respected speakers such as Murat Guvenc, Wouter Vanstiphout, Ayse Cavdar, Ulas Akin and Asu Aksoy amongst others. For this conference, Guvenc presented his in-depth mapping work on Istanbul with unique socio-economic and geographic insights. As a response to Ekim Tan’s question: What if government’s ambitious development driven plans turn into real-estate failures as we observe in Shanghai’s new towns? Guvenc replied: ‘Typically societies do not learn from the codified knowledge but their experiences. I can only hope that our politicians won’t experiment with Istanbul’s invaluable forests.’

Bahar Aksoy shared her research on the sprawling northern peripheries of istanbul, from Formula 1 to gated communities to the Olympic Stadium to informal settlements. Asu Aksoy presented her opinions on the power and powerlessness of local governments in a globalizing city.
Ulas Akin focused on Istanbul’s Urban Strategic Plan dating 2008, by mapping both visible and invisible [f]actors of Istanbul’s urban developments.

The symposium ended by Ayse Cavdar’s research on Islamic Ghetto. Cavdar lately lives in Basaksehir for her sociological studies.

Symposium lecture movies soon on TReC’s vimeo account!
We would like to thank the architecture department of Bilgi University [Cem Celik, Emre Alturk], Cezayir Culture Center, Arnavutkoy Municipality [Gulnur Kadayifci] and Orhan Esen for their support.

photos by Willem Velthoven & Ekim Tan

TReC TEAM: Ekim Tan, Muge Yorganci, Ulas Akin

The interactive design game was tested 3 times with a wide participation of ULI [The Urban Land Institute], neighborhood organizations of Kartal, Sariyer and Arnavutkoy, IMP [Istanbul Metropolitan Planning and Design Center], private planning and design companies, activist NGO’s, city’s Urban Transformation Center, interested academics and Istanbul Planners Association during 27 September-02 October at Amber Platform.

While YAPYAŞA did prove itself to be the right interactive format to playfully negotiate/design on a very painful subject such as urban transformation in Istanbul, we found the chance to finetune the rules of the game, the time frames and our strategies to collect the right players around a ‘game table’. 3 game sessions were accompanied by a rich selection of lecture series on Istanbul and interactive design by Pelin Tan, Demet Mutman, Yasar Adanali, Burak Arikan and Erdem Dilbaz, Willem Velthoven and Ekim Tan.

During and after the week YAPYAŞA met a satisfying interest of the media such as Radikal, Yeni Mimar and Akbank Sanat Haritasi as well as planning and cultural organizations such as IMP [where the YAPYAŞA game can be played currently], Alan Istanbul as well as Depo. In Spring 2011 YAPYAŞA will travel back to TU Delft, [to the base where its first ideas were born 2 years ago.]

At the end of the week, TReC carried YAPYAŞA to the public space to play with Istanbul’s citizens.

YAPYAŞA was made possible by
BKVB [Art Beyond Borders]
SFA [Stimuleringsfonds Architecture]
Dutch Consulate in Istanbul

The future of city-making is human-centric. With failed topdown schemes of Le Corbusier, Cornelis van Eesteren and others, we witnessed downsides of the state-driven urbanism. With vastgoedfraude, we witnessed downsides of the market-driven urbanism. While cities in reality are made for and by people, city technocrats and bureaucrats never made the real peace with human-driven city-making. It is time for us city designers to identify this and re-define our role before it is too late. We think, in the 21st century, the future of city-making is human-driven and games* are the right medium of such urbanism.

For the clarity of term game, by World of Citycraft, we as TRecC, do not refer to video games such as ‘Simcity’, or not to city simulation games such as ‘Specefighter’ or not to board games such as ‘Settlers of Catan’. World of Citycraft is an interactive real-time real-agent city generation game. World of Citycraft is the medium to craft a city besides decision making and designing. Citycraft is dependent on the individual agents and evolving local decisions based on real urgencies and needs more than the artificial and stylistic obsession of designers and/or planners.
How are games the right medium for city-making?
1.Games can be used as constructive participation tools.
Games provide players an open platform to generate cities in an interactive and negotiative way.
However, traditional participation tools we have today such as inspraakavonden are destructive more than they are constructive. They carry negative vibes as people get together as they oppose to a future plan where they feel under-represented. Just as spraakavonden many participation tools carry the paradox of trying to become bottom up, but they mostly are initiated by top down bodies. 
Games can bring bottom up and top down bodies together and facilitate them to create together.
2.Games can allocate thousand of agents [people as city-makers].
Not only limited number of city planners, investors and private developers but also every citizen who wants to have a say on his own environment can be part of the city-making.
3.Games allow decision-making and physical designing simultaneously.
We believe games are the new drawing boards and conference rooms of the urban planning profession. Playing the game is designing and deciding the city at the same time.
4.Games stimulate and facilitate the collective intelligence.
The creativity in city-making can only emerge from the open effective interactions of vast amount agents. No genius designer or group of designers can draw a plan from their drawing table. The rules to generate a city however can be developed via the game by bottom up and top down players, or better from their collective intelligence.
5.Games suggest a system of dynamic rules and orders as opposed to frozen building rules and regulation.
Games provide the right interface to test new rules or abolish old rules that strangle changing urban dynamics. For example one can question why in Almere the city does not get more densely built along the bus line or bus stops if the city has ambitions to become the most sustainable city of the Netherlands, or just as it happens in Curitiba. Games can give the possibility to simulate what would happen in Almere if her inhabitants were allowed to re-densify their cities.
6.Games are the right medium to connect the virtual world to real and back to virtual again.
We are in an era where our virtual world is becoming as rich as our ‘real’ life. Most of the city agents are active in populating the virtual worlds such as facebook, linkedin, foursquare… While games are perfect tools to links those worlds, existing city planning tools are blind to the virtual worlds and the possibilities they offer.

What will World of Citycraft achieve? And Why?
World of Citycraft will bring an informal quality to the public domain in a time where the formal, image-driven quality cannot be sustained anymore. It also enables a more direct relationship between private parties, entrepreneurs and their desire to realize real estate in a time where processes seem to be endlessly long and opaque. The most important reason to introduce a participatory urban planning is the creation of a transparent planning process that enables citizens to react on early initiatives instead of leaving them to protest at “inspraakavonden”.

Who is World of Citycraft’s target groep?
Everybody involved in urban generation. In other words every citizen who wants to have a say on his own environment, every project developer and entrepreneur with an idea, and all municipal urban planners.

What makes World of Citycraft innovative?
The idea of applying such a direct, open and interactive tool as World of Citycraft into official policy making processes is the innovative dimension of this project. Games have been used as a way to channel competition, to find thrills, to educate and or to simulate situations. We propose to use games to influence the official procedures of city-making.

Why is 2.0 important for World of Citycraft?
To ensure that The World of Citycraft is not a toy for city planners, developers and investors but an open city-making tool that can be played, evolved and utilized by everyone who feels responsible for the environment they inhabit. Web 2.0 will help us involve such responsive and responsible inhabitants in the game.

According to the UN, Accra, Ghana’s capital -1.8 million- is growing at 2.3% annually. In other words, everyday 120 newcomers arrive in the city with no proper dwelling options offered by the city. The last masterplan, dating from 1958, is the only document which tries to address urgencies such as obsolete infrastructure, over-densification and poor housing stock in low-income residential areas, inadequate sanitation in residential and quarrying poor drainage contributing to flooding of residential areas.
While Accra’s urgencies address questions on an urban and regional scale, we think it is indispensable to think a sustainable process at the urban scale before zooming in on the sustainability of one suburban home. As such we decided to add to the open source house an open source city, hoping that, when all O.S. houses are being built, they will profit from a greener, healthier environment.
Areal photos we studied in bing and googlemaps were evidence for:
1. a fast and uncontrolled urban sprawl
2. a repeating pattern within this urban fast growth
The second evidence has been also our inspiration/tactic to evolve a seemingly sporadic growth into a self-sustainable development. Basic patterns we recognized were a repetition of residential districts around a patch of green space left unbuilt. These green spaces are topographical entities such as a river bank or a steep hill which new settlers find rather difficult or unsafe to built on. This urban sprawl pattern could be witnessed for groups of all income levels in both planned and unplanned neighborhoods.
What you see illustrated in following pages is an optimistic scenario of how a sustainable city can emerge based on the urban colonization behaviors of the Ghanese urban immigrants applied to Accra and its region. This same scenario can also be valid for Cape Coast.
Main rules and minimum constraints to realize such a scenario are:
Basic Constraints for a Sustainable Informal Growth
1. Already empty green areas turn into structural spines of the new neighborhoods in the urban sprawl.
2. Minimum public infrastructure in the form of a decentralized sewage system is to be introduced.
3. Public infrastructure used a network of open spaces, which in the future allocate programs such as open markets, sports fields, schools, health centers, churches…
Simple Rules for the Citizens
1. Locate your home in reference to your neighbor as shown in diagram X [the given emptiness needed for future growth]
2. Your house is elevated on columns. In case of need you may expand your home vertically.
3. Minimum public infrastructure [for water sanitation and sewage] and open spaces for future use such the market, school, health center… is indicated in your neighborhood scheme, please take care not to place your home on these indicated spots.
We deliberately refrained from any further architectural elaboration, because we want to focus attention on this immediate and immense problem of the Ghana urbanization.

“ Ciddi oyunlar ya da birlikte canlandırma yolu ile kent tasarım projeleri öncelikle iki şeyi aynı anda yapabiliyor:
1. Ortak karar alma,
2. Alınan kararların anında fiziki mekanda görüntülenmesi.

Alıştığımız kent oluşturma pratiklerinde insanlar bir araya gelip tartışırlar. Bu sürecin farklı aktörlerinin gidebildikleri en ileri nokta, bir atölye çalışması olabilir ve burada birlikte sözel kararlar alınmaya çalışılır. Ancak çıkan kararlar görselleştirilemez. Diğer bir deyişle aktörler, alınan kararların fiziksel mekana tercümesini çoğu zaman yapamaz. Birlikte kararlar verilir, kağıtlara yazılır ancak bunun uygulamaya dönüşmesi noktasında, yapılan tartışmadan çıkan sonuçların nasıl plana aktarılacağı tasarımcının yorumuna bırakılır, ki tam da bu yüzden katılımın önemli unsurları olan açıklık ve karşılıklı güvende sarsılmalar olur. Yapyaşa ile yapmaya çalıştığımız, çok daha birebir bir çalışma. Öncelikle beraber karar veriyoruz. İkincisi de verdiğimiz kararların nasıl bir fiziksel çevre üreteceğini de 1/100 ölçekli bir kent maketi etrafında berabarce deneyerek üretiyoruz.

Elbette kent simülasyonunun planı ürettiğini, bunun sonucunda çıkanın birebir uygulanacağını iddia etmiyoruz. Oyunun sonuçları (ki farkettiyseniz Yapyaşa’nin sonsuz olasılıklı sonuçlar üretme kapasitesi var) aktörlerin önemli buldukları parametreleri ortaya çıkarmak. Bu parametreler bina yoğunluğu, kamusal mekan ya da kat yüksekliğiyle ilgili olabilir.

Yapyaşa’yı yaratmaya aslında bundan bir yıl önce proje ortağım ve aynı zamanda TreC üyelerinden Hans Vermeulen ile, katıldığımız İstanbul Inura Konferansı sırasında karar verdik. Konferans programında dönüşümün tüm aktörleri bir araya geliyormuş gibi görünse de aslında pratikte biz, bariz bir iletişimsizlik ve hatta kutuplaşma gözlemledik. TOKİ’den mahalle derneklerine kadar tüm dönüşüm oyuncuları diğer aktörlerle bir araya getirilmeden monolog halindeki mesajlarını verip salondan ayrılıyorlardı. Ve gerçekten de konferans gibi eski moda ve dolaylı ortamlar bu aktörlerin etkileşimi için doğru platformlar değiller. Doğru ve verimli iletişim icin karşılıklı etkileşmenin çay aralarındaki tanışmaların ötesine geçebildiği bilinçli ve tasarlanmış metodlar gerekiyor. Ciddi kent oyunları tam da bu amaç icin ideal ortamlar, Biz ayrıca oyunda olabilecek kutuplaşmaları kırabilmek için, rol oynamayı daha ileriye götürerek, katılımcıların normal hayattaki pozisyonlarının tam tersi bir rolü oynamalarını istedik. Farklı rolleri oynayarak, birbirilerini daha iyi anlayıp, karşı tarafın şart ve argümanlarını anlamalarını istedik. Örneğin bugün dönüşüm geçiren bir mahallenin sakini olan katılımcımız, belediye başkanı rolünü üstlendi ve evi yıkılacakken dönüşümü savunur, gerekçeler üretir oldu. Bizim için bir kerelik diğerinin rolüne bürünmesini, örneğin bir belediye başkanının kısıtlı bir sürede bir işi gerçekleştirmek zorunda olduğu vb durumları düşünmesini sağlamak önemliydi.

Tabii bu projenin amacına ulaşabilmesi için planlama sürecinin tüm aktörlerinin bir arada olmasıyla gerçek bir buluşma sağlanması gerekiyor. Bu noktada ben katılımı tam kadro olarak gerçekleştiren özellikle yerel aktörlere buradan yeniden teşekkür etmek istiyorum. Arnavutköy Merkez mahallesi, Kartal Yunus Mahallesi ve Sarıyer mahalleler platformu yerel belediye temsilcileriyle oyuna katıldılar. Ancak İBB Kentsel Dönüşüm Müdürlüğü, TOKİ ya da İMP gibi sürecin başından beri bizimle iletişimde olan, böyle bir projeye ihtiyaç duyduklarını ve ellerinden gelen desteği vereceklerini belirten taraflar ne yazık ki oyun zamanı masalarındaki işleri bırakıp gelmediler. Bu anlamda umarız Yapyaşa, İstanbul ve Türkiye için bir başka kaçırılmış fırsat olmaz.

Umarız artık dönüşümün aşağıdan ve yukarıdan hareket eden tüm aktörleri bu davanın hepimizin ortak davası olduğunu ve beraberce ortak akılla hareket etmemiz gerektiğini, birbirimizden ürkmeden defalarca deneyerek doğru iletişim yolunu bulmamız gerektiğini ve hepimizin aynı gemide olduğunu farkederler.

Biz, TreC olarak diğer taraftan Yapyaşa’nin Hollanda ayağı ‘World of Citycraft’i üretmekle meşgulüz. Türkiye’den farklı olarak orada ürettiğimiz ciddi oyunlara belediyelerden talep geliyor, çünkü orada uzmanlar planlamayı insanlarla beraber yapmak zorunda olduklarının farkındalar. Orada yapılan planlarda kentlerin cansız, sıkıcı olması gibi sorunlar olduğu için kentlerin daha organik olmasına çalışıyorlar. Kenti sakinlerinin üretmesinin öneminin farkındalar. Aralarında belediye çalışanlarının da olduğu katılımcılar tüm aktörlerle önce yüzyüze gelip anketler yaparak, ardından oyundaki aktörleri biraz da kendileri modelleyerek, bu işe ciddi bir zaman yatırımı yaparak bunu hayata geçiriyorlar. Araştırmadan planlamaya, aylarca devam eden bir süreci, biz İstanbul’a da getirmeye çalışıyoruz. Bizim için önemli olan bundan beş sene sonra da olsa, birilerinin bu projenin hassasiyet ve önemini görmeye başlaması.

YAPYAŞA,
Istanbul için uretilmis alternatif bir etkilesimli kentsel dönüsüm modelini simüle eder:
tüm aktörlere karsi tarafsiz kalir ve Istanbul’un toplumsal ortak cikarlari belirlemek için tüm aktörleri etkilesmek üzere bir araya getirir,
Istanbul’un DNA’sinda, kentin %70’ini temsil eden, depremden kentsel sürdürülebilirlige, yogunlastirmadan yasallastirmaya kadar çesitli nedenlerle dönüsüme konu olan jenerik (genel) kentsel yapi adasinda yer alir,
2012’ye kadar Istanbul- Hollanda temelli bir program olan PLAY the CITY’nin bir parçasidir, demokratik sehir uretme alanina odaklanmaktadir,
TReC -The Responsive City’nin bir urunudur. www.theresponsivecity.org
Yapyasa hakkinda daha detayli bilgi icin lutfen www.yapyasa.org ‘u ziyaret ediniz.

Published alongside established theorists such as Alain de Botton, Aaron Betsky, Saskia Sassen and ‘A’A’ guest editor Winy Maas, TReC discusses the emergence of a new urban collectivity under the umbrella of ’Uncertainty’, the theme of ‘A’A’s # 378 issue, guest edited by MVRDV and The Why Factory.

TReC hopes to foment the ongoing discussions around the theme of democratic urbanization and new forms of collective action through PLAY THE CITY - a series of ‘urban simulation games’ to be launched in Istanbul during September 2010.