#TraditionAsaMakingTool
How can we use traditions as a tool to shape a new culture to create a more inclusive community through public space design?
What
‘Tradition as a making tool’, an initiative of Cross Change and Space Crafters, sheds light on new possibilities for multifunctional and shared public spaces in the densely populated city of Istanbul, to give meaning and offering alternatives to constructing new spaces and spatial elements in the already scarce public areas.
After in-depth research and visiting reference projects in the Netherlands and Turkey with partners, we came up with the idea of designing Rollable Gardens. These mobile public space elements serve as a tool to stimulate new dialogue between inhabitants, their city, and (re) connecting nature, based on culturally embedded traditions to create a more livable and inclusive city. The design has various functions and can be used for training, communal dinners, and as an edible plant garden. In addition, the team designed a guide for inhabitants to take care of their edible plants and an awareness workshop for primary school students to teach the importance of green in the city.
Process
We positioned an important Turkish tradition is eating together around a table, as a gathering tool to stimulate interactions between residents. We organized a dinner event, invited selected inhabitants from different backgrounds to be part of this social experiment.
We designed and produced 12 gardens with 9 different food-related concepts. Together with the team of “Kokopelli Şehirde” who work as designers and consultants on horticultural implementation in small areas in the city, we came up with the idea of connecting the gardens to specific Turkish cultural food traditions.
All the gardens were designed to be a conversation starter. We had, for instance, the “Tea Garden”. In this garden tea plants are growing and you can take your cup of hot water, pick a leaf from the tree and add it to your water for e fresh cup of tea. This is based on the rich Turkish tradition of drinking tea together. Turkey has a lot of tea houses where people come together to drink tea, we used this idea of gathering but moved it from inside the tea houses to outside in the public space. Other gardens, like the “Menemen Garden” or the “Türlü Garden” are based on traditional Turkish recipes. The garden supplies the ingredients which you can use to make the dishes.
Result
We designed and produced rollable gardens. After the event, we gave adoption to ;
-3 of rollable gardens to Karaoğlan Youth Center,
-2 of them to Yeşil Düşünce Association,
-7 of them to Büyük Esma Sultan primary school.
These rollable gardens are functioning in;
Karaoğlan Youth Center as a placeholder on street, a communication element, an attraction point for the inhabitants, an example of how we can merge new way of thinking methodologies with traditions in a creative way, a promoter of the value of green in the city and also show how to open Beşiktaş municipality is for new, innovative and young approaches.
Yeşil Düşünce Association as a communication element which represents their mindset and values in a creative and sustainable way, a catalyst between residents of the neighborhood where they recently moved in and an experiment tool to grow their food in the city in such small places as they suggest to their followers.
Büyük Esma Sultan Primary School as a by doing learning tool to teach how they can grow their own food in limited places in the city and create awareness about the value of engagement with nature and importance for children.
