La définition d'une stratégie d'intervention. La ... - RehabiMed

La définition d’une stratégie d’intervention.
La definición de una estrategia de intervención
Defining a strategy for intervention
Examining the coherence of the diverse
patterns
Murat Şahin
Murat Şahin has been working as an assistant professor at the Faculty
of Engineering of Yeditepe University in İstanbul. He earned his Ph.D.
in Architectural Design from Yıldız Technical University in 1997. His
research interests and architectural studies include vernacular-rural
education, children and practice.
Address:
Yeditepe University, Kayışdağı 34755 Maltepe-Istanbul,Turkey
E-mail address:
shnmrt05@yahoo.com
Telephone:
+90 0216 578 0440
Introduction
Gökçeada (Imroz), as a result of coherent relationships of its geographical,
socio-economic and architectural characteristics, has become an entity
in which cultural and natural features exist for long years in unity.
The main objective of this paper is to re-define and evaluate diverse
patterns of the cultural and natural forms on the island in terms of unity
and cohesion.
The interrelated meanings of the term coherence can be defined as
(Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 1987), in which ‘the
whole’ hold together firmly its congruent components within a
meaningful frame;
that shows respect or ‘fitness, propriety and congruity leading to
appropriateness.’ (Johnson, 1994, p. 226);
and form-context adaptedness- ‘internal coherence’ (Alexander,
1966).
In architectural terms, coherence is a place which has a ‘distinct character’,
in which all the parts of the whole mesh together representing and
strengthening a peculiar identity. To be more specific, it has to do with
‘the organization of space’ based on different purposes and different
designing the space and represent the congruence between social and
physical space.’ (Rapaport, 1977, p.10). Spatial organization has been,
generally, as in this study, interpreted in various schemes through
the Gestalt grouping principles such as ‘figure-ground differentiation’,
‘proximity’, ‘similarity’ ‘continuity’ and ‘closure’ (Norberg-Shulz, 2000)
Palladio identifies beauty as ‘...an entire and complete body, wherein
each member agrees with the other...’ (Johnson, ibid, p.99). Possessing
inherently authentic beauty, vernacular settlements are, in fact, open
ended and naturally growing entities similar to organisms in a way,
not absolute wholes; yet, they are often perceived as complete wholes
in terms of realization of a plot or materialization of one identity
constructed through correspondence and agreement of the elements.
Gökçeada is a place, a peculiar whole, wherein dwells a series of
interrelated cultural and natural patterns in its ‘interior space’. ‘The
island presents a barren appearance when viewed from the sea, but
its green and fertile ‘interior space’ contains historical - traditional
settlements...’ (Sahin, 2004). In architectural level, the basic character
of these patterns has been embodied through a coherent system
from the design principles to the essential elements of construction
integrated within the environment (ibid).
New settlement patterns, which contain both urban and rural
settlements with new building types of contemporary production and
consumption process, appear to have a very different character from
the old ‘village-based’ patterns, causing the loss of coherence.
Pattern Language Revisited
‘The environment is a series of relationships among elements and
people, and these relationships are orderly, i.e. they have pattern. The
environment has a structure and is not a random assemblage of things.
people and physical elements of the world.’ (Rapaport, 1977, p.9)
Examining the early Turkish carpets, Christopher Alexander indicates
that ‘Buildings, like carpets, are multi-centered structures which
achieve unity, through the interlocking of multiple centers, each one
reinforcing the others, until they become beings- just as it happens in
carpet.’(Alexander, 1993, p. 350). Alexander’s analogy perfectly fits in
with the establishment of the island’s multi-centered structure in which
separate villages have the same principles reinforcing the identity of
one another, creating centers on the natural base, and combining a
colorful composition of a ‘deep and significant unity’. The relationship
of every part to the whole and the reciprocity between everyday life
and the spatial composition are in evidence in the long-term survival
of the villages in spite of the harsh windy climate and the isolated
environment.
In environmental sense, a ‘coherent pattern’, sustaining a system
of significance in a spatio-temporal dimension, is comprised by
interrelated patterns-units embraced by a larger whole “with the
human in the center, with its natural and cultural values which creates
strong Gestalt-quality” (Sahin, 2007b).
‘Patterns are those arrangements or systems of internal relationship
which give to any culture its coherence or plan, and keep it from being
a mere accumulation of random bits.’ (Kroeber, 1962, p.119). A coherent
pattern displays such a consistent relationship between its different parts
and their configuration that one can easily comprehend the meaning of
the whole. Such patterns generally have spatio-temporal roots and apt
patterns have been proven to be the representation of social-culturalphysical
cohesion, and the spirit of the place (Kostof, 1991).
Traditional patterns might be evaluated in terms of coherence by
means of the terms, ‘Gestalt quality’, ‘unity’ and ‘integration’. Having
reviewed Lynch’s conception of urban image (Lynch, 1960), it is possible
to state that composition of a vernacular settlement, which represents
a visual -organizational unity based on internal coherence, external
responsiveness and fitness (Alexander, 1966), is a sort of communal
art of creating visual unity for each component of a settlement out of
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