Glasgow Mackintosh School of Architecture MSA Stage 5

Dilara Kuran (she/her)

I am an architect in the making eager to become part of collaborative design practices which reconcile history, theory and building. Firmly believing in the incorporation of lived experience to processes of architectural production, I consider research and observation the basis of my design reasoning. Alongside my studies in Glasgow and work experiences in Istanbul and Tokyo, I have continually experimented with ways of documenting cities which I wish to pursue further through participatory platforms led by alternative approaches to mapping. My growing interest in design as a vehicle to generate new material cultures and economies stems from my ongoing research on vernacular architecture and emerging approaches to urban planning which operate at the intersection of tectonic and climatic.

Completing my Diploma studies, I am pursuing to lean on these interests further and strengthen my professional skills as a designer who can mediate between multiple parties involved in the production of space.

Contact
kuran.dilara@gmail.com
d.kuran1@student.gsa.ac.uk
Works
Situated Approaches to Urban Regeneration

Situated Approaches to Urban Regeneration

All across Glasgow’s post-industrial landscape, vital structures of the past are decaying and new ecologies are flourishing. Existing at the intersection of dereliction and deprivation, the regenerative potential of these landscapes is left underexplored in the face of widespread development pressures. Echoing Bruno Latour’s call for generating alternative relationships of dependency and care with the Earth as a response to the new climatic regime, my thesis pursues situated approaches to urban regeneration fuelled by a heightened sensorial engagament with the environment and a strengthened social interdependence amongst diverse communities.

Taking a route connecting the River Clyde and Bellahouston Park situated in Govan, one of the most deprived and historically rich areas of Glasgow, my thesis proposal begins with Govan Imaginaries, derived from historic and current readings of three sites. Introducing new buildings as well as infrastructural interventions, the proposals aim to work with the existing environmental qualities of the sites relating to
movement, pollution and materiality to trigger a simultaneous regeneration of landscapes and people.

To support the existing activities of communities based in Govan such as the Govan Folk University and the Showpeople and to introduce new channels of building identity for disadvantaged and unoccupied inhabitants of the area, a community base in Water Row, the river edge of the route, is explored in greater detail as a place of gathering, recording and reflection. Anchoring an indeterministic urban regeneration proposal, the Water Row base becomes the architectural manifestation of both programmatic and technological explorations carried out through the thesis, bringing together thatched roof and hempcrete wall construction within a layered structural framework which can be inhabited at all times.

Reading the City

Design Drivers

Govan Imaginaries

Long Section Through Water Row Proposal