Vol :37 Issue No.1 2012 - Open House International

Figure 16. B2 House (photo by Cemal Emdem).
ferent presence. They adapt to the place and
belong to the locality; they are local. But at the
same time, they use a language which is not
strange to someone in the other part of the world.
They are universal in this respect. While the place
and context concepts taken from the approach of
critical regionalism give meaning to the relations
these two house form with what already exists, the
tectonic-poetic and defamiliarization concepts
assist us in reading the sensuous aspects of these
two house, like traditional materials, methods and
values that have been used in different forms, thus
gaining different qualities. For Tümertekin, it was
not enough to let these two houses exist with just the
local values. Rather, Tümertekin strived for the users
to have experiences unique to these buildings.
As an idea based on human experience,
experimentalism reminds us that architecture is not
merely a visual phenomenon. The stone walls of the
B2 House have revealed that the building is alien
from the daily practices of the village with its tense
location on a slope at the edge of the village. The
natural light that is filtered through the reed screens
into the interior causes a perception of space that is
in continuous movement. Similarly, the SM House
unfolds different experiences in each season due to
the light filtered through the stones in between wire
grids and the stone walls. Place is hidden in the site,
and it comes out only when meaning is attached to
the space. Architects should be aware of the limitation
of the place. Limitations are defined as land-
scape, topography, climate, economy, and user
which are associated with context in all aspects.
Using stone as the local material and by relating to
the landscape and village, the B2 and SM Houses
prove that they are aware of the limitations of the
place.
The poetic construction and tectonic
expressive force of the shell gives a poetic quality to
a building. Poetry is a unique art and it is hard to
replicate. However, each reader gets a different
feeling out of it. Discussing poetry and architecture
together is one of the most important ideas which
oppose the uniformization in the built environment.
In both houses, the architectural elements, the load
bearing materials and light came together in an
impressive way like the words in a poem and went
beyond their literal meaning. The combination of
concrete and stone in the B2 House, and steel and
stone in the SM House, create a tectonic expressive
force.
When repetition is mere replication, it leads
to monotony. Each repetitive action turns into activities
performed unconsciously in time. In architecture
as well, repetition gives rise to monotony.
Nevertheless, an architectural product that raises
risks questions every architectural element. It challenges
the existent, re-uses it in other forms, and in
the end re-discovers it. In other words, the existent
becomes alienated and opposes unconscious repetition.
The merely passed by, the unnoticed, the
accustomed, and the invisible comes into view. In
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open house international Vol.37 No.1, March 2012 A Reading in Critical Regionalism: Analysis Of Two Houses By Han Tümertekin Hilal Aycı & Esin Boyacıoğlu