Başka bir gelecek üzerine spekülatif yaklaşımlar: Mimarlığı ya eğer sorusu ile düşünmek
Speculative approaches to another future: Thinking architecture with the question what if
Yazar: SERENGÜL ŞARLI
Danışman: DOÇ. DR. TAN KAMİL GÜRER
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Lisansüstü Eğitim Enstitüsü / Mimarlık Ana Bilim Dalı / Mimari Tasarım Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2024
Konu: Mimarlık = Architecture

Özet:
Başka türlü mümkünlüklerin altını deşme niyeti ile geleceğe yüzünü dönmüş
"spekülasyon" kavramı, alternatifleri düşleyebilmek için potansiyel bir anlatı zemini
oluşturmaktadır. Geleceğin olası yaklaşımları üzerine pratiklenebilmek adına adeta bir
düşünce egzersizi olan spekülatif düşünce, kesin olmayan durumları varsayımlar
üzerinden konuşabilme olanağı sağlayan aracı bir pozisyon edinmektedir. Burası ve
var olmayan yer arasında bir köprü konumu edinen bu kavramsallaşma, alternatifler
evreni üzerine düşünebilmek için "ya eğer" sorusunun, alternatiflere kapı aralayan
potansiyeline sığınmaktadır. Nitekim koşulların lineer bir düzlemde kalamadığı zaman
aralıkları, dinamik düşünceyi harekete geçiren ve alternatifler üzerine düşünmeyi
gerekli kılan bir zemin tanımlamaktadır. Bu noktada mevcudun yetersizlikleri ve
içinden çıkılamayan zamansallıkları karşısında "kriz" kavramına sığınmak ve içinde
bulunulan kriz durumu karşısında alternatif olana ilişkin bir arayış geliştirmek,
geleceğe yüzünü dönmüş anlatıları keşfetmek için bir eşiktir.
Gezegenin mücadele ettiği durumlardan biri olan ve buna bağlı olarak mimarlık
disiplinin de ilgi odağı haline gelen "Antroposen Çağı" kavramsallaşması günümüzde
yeni kriz anlatısı zemini oluşturmaktadır. "İnsan Çağı" olarak açılımının
gerçekleştirilebileceği bu yaklaşım, insana odaklanır tutunumu ile problematik
durumların merkezine insan olan özneyi almaktadır. Nitekim bu yaklaşım
çerçevesinde, 21. yüzyıl kriz anlatılarını iklim senaryolarının, küresel ısınmamın,
biyoçeşitlilik kaybının, türlerarası eşitsizliğin meydana getireceği düşünülmektedir.
Problemin insan olan öznenin tahakkkümünde, hiyerarşik bir ontoloji olduğuna
yönelik geliştirilen kabul, spekülatif senaryolar ile incelenebilecek heterarşik bir
yapılanmanın gerekliliğini ortaya koymaktadır. Bu noktada özneye ilişkin sunulan bu
eleştirel tavır, geri plana alınan nesneye yönelik düşünce zemini kayganlaştırmaktadır.
Nitekim insanın kurucu özne olmadığı, geleceğe bakan 21. yüzyıl spekülatif
senaryolarının temel motivasyonu, insan ve insan olmayan tüm türleri aynı ontolojik
düzlemde ele alabilme amacıdır. Bahsi geçen ontolojik kabul ise ancak spekülasyonun
tanımladığı boşluklu, aralıklı, alternatifli, olasılık içerikli anlatılar ile mümkünlük
kazanabilir. Öznenin nesne ile eş güdümlü bir hiyerarşide okunduğu bu yaklaşım,
nesne üzerine şekillenmiş anlatıların önemini arttırır. Nitekim spekülasyon yapmanın
nesne ile kurduğu ilişkiselliğe kuramsal bir zemin kazandıran Graham Harman'ın
açtığı yerden Nesne Yönelimli Ontoloji kavramsallaşması, ilişkiselliklerinden arınmış
bir nesne çerçevesi çizme gayesi taşımaktadır. Harman'a göre ilişkisellikler nesneleri
indirgemekten başka bir tanım ortaya koymamaktadır. Bu bağlamda ilişkisel
fazlalıklarından arındırılmış bir nesnenin buradan doğan boşlukları üzerine ancak
spekülasyon yapabiliriz.
Spekülasyon yapmanın nesne üzerinden sahip olduğu anlamlar geleceğin tasarım
pratiklerine ilişkin alternatif bir yaklaşım geliştirme niyeti taşıyan mimarlık disiplini
için de önemli yaklaşımlar içermektedir. Nitekim bu kavrayışı odağına alarak
geliştirilen mimari terminoloji, geleceğin anlatılarına spekülatif bir kavrayış getirme
çabasını ortaya koymaktadır. Nesneyi odağına alır bir tavır ile Nesne Yönelimli
Mimarlık çatkısı altında toplanan spekülatif tasarım yaklaşımı, geleceğin mimari
düzlemine ilişkin kavramsal bir takım sözler söyleme çabasını ortaya koymaktadır.
Mimarlığın 1990'lar sonrasında alan söyleminden metinsel söylemlere geçişinde
pratiklenen süreksizliği benimseyen bu kavramsallaşmayı, yeniden gün yüzüne
çıkaran yaklaşım, ilişkisellikleri bertaraf edilmiş provakatif bir mimarlık çerçevesi
çizme niyeti barındırmaktadır. Çünkü Nesne Yönelimli Mimarlık yaklaşımı,
ilişkiselliklere hapsedilmiş bir mimarlık tasvirinin, ileri atılımlı zamansallıklar üzerine
düşünmesinin mümkün olmadığını savunmaktadır. Bu bağlamda mimarlığın mevcut
koşulların getirileri üzerinden okunmasına meydan okur bir tavırla, indirgemeciliği ve
ilişkiselciliği reddetmektedir. Geleceğin zamansallıkları üzerine eğilen mimarlık
nesnesinin keşfedilmemiş potansiyel anlatılarını ortaya koymak adına ilişkilerinden
arınmış bir mimarlığın yeni anlam kümelerini açan, boşluklu yapısını inceleme niyeti
taşımaktadır.
İlişkiselliklerin bertaraf edildiği, insan olan öznenin tahakkümünden sıyrılmış, nesne
ile aynı ontolojik kabul düzlemine sahip bir mimarlık yaklaşımı Tom Wiscombe'nin
terminolojik kazanımı ile "kopuk mimarlık" olarak tasvirlenmektedir. Spekülasyon
yapmanın dinamik anlatı zeminini kullanan bu yaklaşım süreksiz, aralıklı, açık uçlu,
eklemlenebilen, merkeziyetsiz bir bakış geliştirerek yeni bir mimarlık tanımlaması
yapmaktadır.
Çalışma, bahsi geçen kopuk mimarlık kavramsallaşmasını merkezine alarak, yüzünü
geleceğe dönmüş spekülatif bir mimarlık kavrayışı geliştirme gayesi taşıyan SCI-Arc
Mimarlık Okulu akademisyenlerinin bu bağlamdaki yaklaşımlarının, projelerinin ve
söylemlerinin incelenmesi ile sonlanmaktadır. Bu bağlamda mimarlara mimarinin
sınırlarını yeniden keşfedebilmek adına spekülasyon yapmayı öğretmeyi hedef edinen
okullardan biri olan SCI-Arc Mimarlık Enstitüsünün, teorisyen ve pratisyenlerinden
Tom Wiscombe, Peter Trummer ve Gilles Retsin'in spekülatif, kopuk mimarlık
kavramsallaşması ile geleceğin mimarlık anlatıları üzerine söylemlerini incelemek ve
bu anlatıların mimarlık pratikleri içerisindeki konumlanışına bakmak, araştırmanın
önemli bir merakını oluşturmaktadır.

Abstract:
The concept of 'speculation', which turns its face towards the future to undermine
other possibilities, creates a potential narrative ground for imagining alternatives.
Speculative thought, which is almost a thought exercise to be able to practice on the
possible approaches of the future, adopts an intermediary position that enables us to
talk about uncertain situations through assumptions. This conceptualisation, which is
a bridge between here and nowhere, takes refuge in the potential of the 'what if'
question that opens the door to alternatives in order to think about the universe of
alternatives. As a matter of fact, time intervals where conditions cannot remain in a
linear plane define a ground that activates dynamic thinking and makes it necessary to
think about alternatives. At this point, taking refuge in the concept of 'crisis' in the
face of the inadequacies and inextricable temporalities of the present and developing
a search for an alternative in the face of the current crisis situation is a threshold for
discovering narratives that face the future.
The conceptualisation of the 'Anthropocene Age', which is one of the situations that
the planet is struggling with and accordingly has become the focus of interest of the
discipline of architecture, constitutes a new crisis narrative ground today. This
approach, which can be expanded as the 'Human Age', puts the human subject at the
center of problematic situations with its focus on human beings. As a matter of fact,
within the framework of this approach, it is thought that climate scenarios, global
warming, loss of biodiversity, and interspecies inequality will constitute the crisis
narratives of the 21st century. The acceptance that the problem is a hierarchical
ontology under the domination of the human subject reveals the necessity of a
heterarchical structure that can be analysed through speculative scenarios. At this
point, this critical attitude towards the subject lubricates the ground of thought towards
the object that is put in the background. The main motivation of the 21st century
speculative scenarios looking to the future, in which human beings are not the founding
subject, is the aim of addressing all human and non-human species on the same
ontological plane. The ontological acceptance can only be possible through narratives
with gaps, intervals, alternatives, and possibilities defined by speculation. This
approach, in which the subject is read in a hierarchy coordinated with the object,
increases the importance of narratives shaped on the object. As a matter of fact, the
conceptualisation of Object-Oriented Ontology from the point opened by Graham
Harman, who provides a theoretical ground for the relationality of speculation with the
object, aims to draw an object framework free from relationalities. This approach,
which aims to reveal the expansions of scenarios in which the object can be considered
on the same plane of existence as the subject with a flat ontology description, emerges
as a good tool for speculation. The attitude of the approach, which puts relationalities
in the background, allows all actors to achieve an equal distance. At this point,
differentiation from relationalities is an important conceptualisation. Because,
according to Harman, relationalities do not reveal a definition other than reducing
objects. In this context, we can only speculate on the gaps arising from an object that
has been purged of its relational excesses.
The meanings of speculation through the object contain important approaches for the
discipline of architecture, which intends to develop an alternative approach to the
design practices of the future. As a matter of fact, the architectural terminology
developed by focusing on this understanding reveals an effort to bring a speculative
understanding to the narratives of the future. In this context, it rejects reductionism
and relationalism with an attitude that challenges the reading of architecture on the
basis of the returns of current conditions. In order to reveal the unexplored potential
narratives of the architectural object that deals with the temporalities of the future, it
intends to analyse the hollow structure of an architecture free from its relations that
opens new sets of meanings. The fact that the object, which offers such an important
potential for developing a speculative perspective, can also be a good speculative tool
for architectural productions has brought about the discussions on Object Oriented
Architecture (OOA). As a matter of fact, Object-Oriented Architecture constitutes the
final theoretical basis of the study since it deals with the 'free' attitude of the NYO
conception, which is sceptical of any relational model. The speculative design
approach gathered under the umbrella of Object-Oriented Architecture with an attitude
that focuses on the object, endeavours to say some conceptual and practical words
about the architectural plane of the future. The approach that resurfaces this
conceptualisation, which adopts the discontinuity practiced in the transition of
architecture from field discourse to textual discourses after the 1990s, has the intention
of drawing a provocative architectural framework whose relationalities have been
eliminated.
Because the Object-Oriented Architecture approach argues that it is not possible for
an architectural depiction imprisoned in relationalities to think on forward leaping
temporalities. In fact, it can be said that this approach, which wants to bring
architecture to a flat ontological ground on the axis of the NYM opening, is an attempt
to de-layering architecture. It can be said that this approach, which is free from the
domination of the subject figure, has an abstentionist approach to relationalities, does
not accept any hierarchy, and depicts the unions they establish among themselves as
extremely fragile, really has no concern for other than putting everything (the object)
in a sack from where Tristan Garcia opened. It has been observed that this architectural
approach, which deals with the object on an axis that is unrelated, disconnected,
discontinuous, and open to new associations, prepares the ground for a speculation-
based understanding of architecture to a significant extent. An architectural approach in which relationalities are eliminated, which is freed from the domination of the
human subject, which has the same ontological acceptance plane as the object, is
described as 'disconnected architecture' with Tom Wiscombe's terminological
acquisition. This approach, which uses the dynamic narrative ground of speculation,
defines a new architecture by developing a discontinuous, intermittent, open-ended,
articulated, decentralised view. The study concludes with an examination of the
approaches, projects, and discourses of the academics of SCI-Arc School of
Architecture, who aim to develop a speculative conception of architecture with its face
turned towards the future by centering on the conceptualisation of disconnected
architecture. In this context, it is an important curiosity of the research to examine the
discourses of Tom Wiscombe, Peter Trummer, and Gilles Retsin, the theoreticians and
practitioners of the SCI-Arc Architecture Institute, one of the schools that aims to teach
architects to speculate in order to rediscover the limits of architecture, on the conceptualisation of speculative, disconnected architecture and the architectural
narratives of the future, and to look at the positioning of these narratives within
architectural practices.
Tom Wiscombe, the first of the architects to produce under the conceptualisation of
detached architecture, argues that the architectural object has a hidden approach that
goes beyond the meanings attributed by the subject. To reveal this approach, he aims
to analyse the object's state of being left independent and free from its relationalities.
It investigates the heterarchic associations of 'disconnected' elements in which each
sub-parameter constructed or experienced by the subject can be considered as an
essentially equal object. As a matter of fact, he is interested in the possibilities opened
to architecture by the 'flat ontology' of the NYO and the desire to treat all small, large,
human, non-human, natural or artificial objects equally. According to Wiscombe, the
object's attainment of freedoms is possible through the 'disconnection' it has in the
face of the continuities in which it exists. With the conceptualisation of disconnection,
he seeks to get rid of the subject-oriented sub-meanings attributed to the object of
architecture. The approach, in which each parameter constructed or experienced by the
subject is accepted as an essentially equal object, intends to reveal the heterarchic unity
of the disconnected elements. In this ontological structuring, there is no vertical
hierarchy between independent architectural elements such as mass, interior space,
surface articulation and floor. None of the elements has a superiority as the constituent
elements of space and this situation cannot be attributed by the subject. Just like the
analogy of the sack we encounter in the conceptualisations of flat ontology. Wiscombe
depicts a dynamic architectural narrative regarding the scenarios of the coming
together of discrete, disconnected, discontinuous architectural elements as if they were
placed in a sack. The sack is a loose outer shell, while the elements inside are floating,
disconnected objects that can change according to the conditions. In this way, the form
sometimes pushes the objects away from each other, sometimes sticks to each other.
Therefore, the objects lack a certain static behaviour and can change according to the
current conditions.
Gilles Retsin, another designer that the research focuses on, takes the concept of parts
to the center from Wiscombe's point of view. Rejecting the view that the building,
which is accepted as a static object, is a 'whole object', he aims to reveal the potentials of the parts that 'resonate' within themselves. In this way, he thinks that an open-
ended, dynamic, speculative architecture can be defined. Retsin sees the line as a multifunctional speculative tool for architectural production. He argues that in order
to develop an open-ended, dynamic design practice, it is necessary to explore the
potential of the line and utilizes its ability to be fragmented and discrete. During the
formation of mass, he discusses the association of the concepts of part and whole with
the line. Because, according to him, the relationships in which each part takes place
form a whole through the line. As a matter of fact, in the mass, which Retsin considers
not as a whole but as a collection, a series of lines are in a position where the parts turn
into a whole by centralising from place to place. Retsin's use of line in this approach,
in which he defends the potential of discontinuity in the face of continuity, suggests singularity in return for continuity, just as we see in the discussions of non-
parametricism. In this context, he sees the digits, which are the singular units utilised by the non-parametric approach, as lines. In his architectural understanding, he accepts
the columns, floors and walls as a line identified with the digit and tries to reveal the
potential of dynamism without attributing an autonomous meaning to the elements.
The coming together of the mass from uncharacterised, discrete parts, that is, the autonomy of the parts, which paves the way for new associations, reveals a dynamic,
speculative definition of architecture.
The last focus of the study is Peter Trummer's approach to disconnected architecture.
Trummer mentions that each object has a special coordinate axis of its own and that
the whole conceived as a collection cannot have a center. In this context, Trummer
focuses on the possibility of a description of objects that can establish their own
domination with stacked mass objects, position themselves with their individuality,
and contribute to the continuity of space with kinetic approaches such as intertwining
or adhesion and detachment, in contrast to the object approach created to access the
whole. The main purpose of creating a collective, collection-orientated object stack is
to create a new set of objects that will trigger another object unit. Because the designed
stack mass is a new construction and ground element in order to access the next object
mass. The intertwined, decentralised, subjectless collection objects in Trummer's
approach exist in the stack with their individuality and spontaneity. As a matter of fact,
his construction of discrete objects through approaches such as 'creating a collection',
'creating eccentricity', and 'creating transitivity' reflects an effort to create dynamic
stability for the whole.