A Non-Schismogenic Approach to Housing Policy in İStanbul

Abstract

This article aimed to develop a new, experimental approach to housing by investigating dwellers’ perceptions in Turkey through an experimental art project called Okkito, which is a parody of TOKI (Housing Development Administration). Using artistic and transdisciplinary research methodology, Okkito revealed a non-schismogenic pattern in housing, a term derived from the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, which refers to asymmetrical and non-complementary modes of social practice. The project investigated the contradiction between the dynamics of urban life and the static structure of current housing corporations through two symbolic houses installed on a 1:1 scale in Sefaköy, a small district in İstanbul. To understand the close relationship between dwellers, housing, and the beliefs of housing corporations, a survey that enabled a platform for in-depth interviews was administered to two participant groups of dwellers. When administrations or corporations do not have a rooted understanding of or stance in relation to existing housing policies, this creates an in-between situation, which results in problems of articulation and disconnectedness of the dweller with the home environment. Therefore, Okkito aimed to adopt a more holistic research strategy and a hermeneutical understanding of life, opening up new potentials for future housing in the context of assemblage thinking.