WORKSHOP: Human Rights Based Design Studio

SOCIAL FORUM OF ARCHITECTURE 2010 

21-23 Oct. 2010 - Ankara TURKEY


HUMAN RIGHTS BASED DESIGN STUDIO

Sen. Lect. Dr. Hossein Sadri

Assist. Prof. Dr. Senem Zeybekoğlu Sadri

Architectural practice and its harms to human being and environment has become a broadly discussed issue during recent years. Architectural education constitutes the foundation of this practice and is meant to create a deep understanding of and sensitivity for human life and environment. However, most of the time, this understanding and sensitivity remain at the level of following the latest trends and cannot go beyond a hunt for designing spectacular, hi-tech buildings. Consequently, we think that architectural education should be reconsidered and design studios play an important role during this process. 

With this motivation, we have designed a workshop that aims at questioning the formal design studio system in architectural education and bringing up the ethical responsibilities of profession of architecture, through its theoretical background, methodology and results. Within this framework, we are going to realize “Human Rights Based Design Studio” workshop under the Social Forum of Architecture program. Sharing the background, methodology and results of the workshop will give us the chance to discuss alternatives to current approaches in architectural practice and education.

Our Critics to Contents of Design Studio

Today, our cities are changing rapidly through great urban projects that are created and executed by states, municipalities or great investors. According to Henri Lefebvre, state and capital try to homogenize spaces by creating hegemony on spaces, therefore produce absolute spaces which exclude differences and social life and which is focused on consumption.  Architects and planners play a crucial role in these hegemonic processes as designers and representatives of institutional knowledge[1]. These urban projects tend to protect the benefits of state and capital, rather than serving people and society: historical sites become tourist attractions; natural resources of the city are occupied by private investments; luxurious housing areas separate themselves with high security walls from their poorer neighboring communities; formerly public areas become privatized and city space become more fragmented and polarized each day. As a result, vulnerable persons and groups become more excluded from the city life, a condition which is paralleled by the deprivation of these people from their basic human rights as well. In addition, it is not only the vulnerable groups that are affected by these urban processes. Each and every inhabitant of cities gradually loose their right to equitable usufruct of their cities and participate in its design and development.

Awareness of these human rights violations in cities and attempts to prevent them and restore their devastating results as much as possible are the points that we see lacking in architectural education so far. Therefore, we will deal with what should be done and what should not be done by architects and students of architecture during our workshop and discuss duties and responsibilities of profession and education by a human rights based approach to design studio.

Our Critics to Methodology of Design Studio

To be able to raise an awareness of human rights issues in architecture, we think that the methodology should also be reconsidered. By inspiration from Paulo Freire’s “The Pedagogy of Depressed” we tried to apply techniques that render education more egalitarian and libertarian. According to Freire, the formal education system is based on teacher-student and subject-object relations, a system in which one side dominates the other side with the power of knowledge. To eliminate this situation, it is needed to build up a system based on subject-subject relations instead of subject-object and moderator-participant relations instead of teacher-student relations[2]. By this approach, the process of learning goes beyond a one way transformation of information from teacher to student and it becomes a personal experience in which knowledge is discovered by both sides through research, discussions, group studies, simulations, role playing activities, case studies and other creative modules. This kind of education which emphasizes participation in learning breaks the domination of one idea and absolute knowledge and brings sharing and diversity of ideas and experiences. In addition to that, participation turns learning into an enjoyable process, thus keeps motivation of students in a high level. We find this kind of learning crucial in creating a real understanding and sensitivity in architectural education, and generating activism especially in human rights area.

Human Rights Based Design Studio Workshop

Under the light of these discussions, we have developed our workshop in the interdisciplinary area of architecture and human rights. Our workshop is going to be a 3 day activity, aiming at learning human rights and their spatial dimensions; creating awareness of human rights violations and their reasons; preventing these violations and developing ways and methods to restore the consequences of these violations through architecture and design. To be able to reach these aims, we are going to use modules which are based on participatory education methods. Some of these modules are adapted from human rights education books such as Compass[3], Making Rights a Reality[4] and Service Learning[5], and other modules are designed by the workshop organizers. We expect to have 20 students from different disciplines, including but not limited to architecture, urban design and planning areas.

       

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[1] Lefebvre, H. (1991) “The Production of Space”, translated by Donald Nicholson Smith, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.

[2] Freire, P. (2006) “Ezilenlerin Pedagojisi”, çev: Dilek Hattatoğlu ve Erol Özbek, Ayrıntı Yayınları, İstanbul.

[3] Brander, P. Gomes, R. vd. (2008) “Pusula: Gençlere İnsan Hakları Eğitimi Kılavuzu”, çev: Burcu Yeşiladalı, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, İstanbul.

[4] Amnesty International (2005) “Making Rights a Reality: Human Rights Education Workshop for Non-Governmental Organizations”, Amnesty International Publications, London.

[5] Belisle, K. ve Sullivan, E. (2007) “Service Learning: Lesson Plans and Projects”, Amnesty International USA, New York.

Panel - Call for Papers: Urban Transformation & Human Rights in the City

International Conference on

Mega-Urbanisation and Human Rights:

Emerging Challenges and Opportunities

Commission on Urban Anthropology and Commission on Human Rights, International Union of Anthropological & Ethnological Sciences; in collaboration with West Bengal StateUniversity

CALL FOR PAPERS

Session Convenors:   

Senem ZEYBEKOĞLU SADRI (Assist. Prof. Dr. The American University – Girne CYPRUS)

Hossein SADRI (Sen. Lect. Dr. The American University – Girne CYPRUS)

Title of Session:

URBAN TRANSFORMATION & HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CITY

Within the last thirty years, world cities have been confronting massive transformations under the impacts of neo-liberal economy policies. There is a strong competition between cities to attract global capital, which leads to urban restructuring of cities around the world. This competition is manifested in urban transformation programmes, which require privatization of vast urban areas and construction of glamorous projects for business, tourism, consumption and luxury living. Catering an upscale portion of the society, these urban transformations generally tend to ignore poorer populations within the city and result in evictions, devastation of natural resources, loss of jobs, social security, education opportunities and last but not least, loss of social networks of people. The more urban areas are subject to the demands of trans-national flows of capital, investment and people, the more they become places of inequality and polarization.  

Growing conditions of inequality are paralleled by violations of human rights in the city. As people are forced to leave their homes due to urban transformation and development programs, their basic rights including right to housing, employment, education, healthy environment, recreation, privacy of family life, participation in political processes, etc. are being violated. These rights are basic human rights, which are clearly defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and states are responsible for protection and fulfilment of these rights.

With these concerns in mind, this session aims to discuss the relationship between urban transformation programs and human rights in the city through raising several questions:

·  Urban transformation programs, how do they impact the lives of inhabitants of cities?

·  What are the sources of inequality, exclusion and human rights violations in cities?

·  What are the human rights issues in cities, how can they be achieved?

·  What are the changing roles of local governments, what are their duties and responsibilities?

·  What is the condition of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in cities (minorities, people living in poor conditions, people with disabilities, immigrants, women, children and elderly people, etc.). Are there ways to empower these groups?

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 31th of October 2010

Please send your abstracts to senemzeybek@yahoo.com and hosadri@yahoo.com

Abstract of My Ph.D. Thesis: Architecture and Human Rights

Today, one can observe that the capital oriented power relations have transformed the process of formation of space into a sphere of production; therefore space has also been transformed into consumption good and a means for obtaining surplus value. Space that is formed as a result of this understanding of production-consumption does not contain diversity and exclude vulnerable groups.

To prevent these exclusions and to guarantee free and equal life for all people in dignity, principles which include everybody during production and utilization of space should be determined and these principles should manifest human rights and minimum standards concerning those rights.

Based on Henri Lefebvre’s idea of the right to the city, this dissertation attempts to explain in detail the right to appropriation and the right to oeuvre through rights of human beings regarding their living spaces in order to determine above mentioned minimum standards. A comparative analysis looks at different documents of human rights in the city in order to achieve norms of human rights regarding space.

All actors taking part in the process of production and utilization of space are responsible for protection of these rights. Among these actors, the architects’ role is vital, since they can affect the process of production and utilization of space both directly by their personal practices and indirectly by their collective activities. Therefore, an ethical code illustrating the ethics of the profession of architecture as well as the responsibilities of architects could guarantee the protection of norms of human rights regarding space.

It is possible to classify the documents of ethics of architectural profession into two categories in terms of their binding force. One category consists of codes of ethics that are binding, and the other includes declarations that are not binding.

The dissertation examines four different ethic codes and 12 different declarations that were published by the American Institute of Architects, the Royal Institute of British Architects, Architect’s Council of Europe and the Union of International Architects as case studies and evaluates these documents in terms of human rights related with space.

This evaluation illustrates that declarations in contrast with codes of ethics are sensitive to norms of human rights. However, it is observed that, human rights norms which are related to public space are not covered within these declarations due to apolitization of architecture in recent years.

The conclusion discusses the results of those evaluations on codes of ethics and declarations in terms of human rights norms related to space. It also suggests recommendations for developing codes of ethics sensitive to human rights related with space. 

City and Human Rights Design Studio

Collaboratively with Dr. Senem ZEYBEKOGLU SADRI, we participated in the wokshop of "the City of Kyrenia" and we conducted a design studio about Human Rights in the City. This workshop was held on June 7-15 2010 in The American University - Girne (Kyrenia) Cyprus.

Iranian architect fellow designs for human rights, public spaces

Friday, February 5, 2010

Justyna Szewczyk

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Uninterested in designing hi-tech architectural projects for big companies, Hossein Sadri, an Iranian fellow at one of Turkey’s leading research facilities, instead focuses his work on the relation between human rights and public spaces.

The social dimension of architecture has long been Sadri’s main interest. His master’s thesis, which he defended back home in Iran, was concerned with democracy and public space. He has investigated the role public spaces have played in democratic processes in Iran and in post-communist countries. For example, in Ukraine, Georgia and Romania there are many large public spaces that can be used as places for assembly, providing opportunities to demonstrate dissident opinions.

Public space and democracy

Democratic revolutions that took place in recent years, both in Ukraine and Georgia, seem to confirm the relationship between space and democracy. In Iran, on the contrary, public spaces are not big enough to allow protesters to gather and feel the power of the crowd. Even when big demonstrations take place, with hundreds of thousands of participants, they are often marching through narrow streets. This makes it difficult for demonstrators to assess their own numbers, which can have a very empowering effect, and makes them easy targets for police forces.

Public activities brought to private spaces

In Iran, Sadri said, “public space is limited” through a number of rules, which has changed Iranian life as public activities have been brought into the private space of homes. Both traditional celebrations as well as civil activism have sought refuge in private houses, a situation that contributes to the scattered nature of Iranian civil society. Since it is very difficult to register a nongovernmental organization, or NGO, activists meet in homes, where they are exposed to potential police raids. Furthermore, such private/public organizations lack the international links that could provide protection or help in the event of police persecution.

This raises the question of whether public space is necessary for democracy. Sadri’s answer is that “private space can do some work temporarily, but it can be easily attacked by the government and no one will know.”

Capital, government and professionals

Sadri’s doctoral fellowship at TÜBITAK focuses on economic and social rights in relation to space. He listed human rights related to space as follows: the “right to participate in the production of space and the right to change it” and the “right to appropriation.”

The Fatih Municipality’s recent decision to evict the Roma population of Sulukule is an example of a case where capital, government and professionals such as architects and city planners have decided to change space without consulting these changes with the people inhabiting the space in question. In Sadri’s opinion, people’s right to produce and change space has been violated by these actors, which he calls the main “enemies” of the poor.

The problem is that the government failed to empower members of the Sulukule community so that they could decide about their own neighborhood. The situation of the district would be different if people were able to ask for some educational or work facilities, Sadri said.

Taksim Square in Istanbul is another example Sadri provided in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review to illustrate the disregard of government and capital for people’s right to space. Plans in recent years to build a mosque or redesign the Atatürk Cultural Center have ended in an impasse. No one has been able to change it, but also no one is able to use the square. It is not a place of activity, as if it has been taken over by the police. While the police presence in Taksim Square is a problem related to the government and its policy of controlling potential locations for mass gatherings, capitalists have overtaken neighboring İstiklal Avenue.

‘People should be the center of change’

Architects and urban planners work for government and capital rather than for the benefit of the wider public, Sadri said. He believes contemporary architecture is focused on bettering standards instead of being concerned with providing minimal housing standards for everyone. This is partly due to the way architects are educated, he said. Unlike sociologists, who come across readings about poverty or disadvantaged groups in society, architecture students receive no such education. Only recently have some universities included, for example, courses on handicapped-accessible architecture in their curricula.

“If architects were aware of these problems, they could change many things. If they knew, they have no right to change space,” Sadri said, calling on architects to “go to people and ask them what they want to do.”

Zaha Hadid’s recent project for the Kartal-Pendik waterfront regeneration in Istanbul is an example of such arrogance, Sadri said, noting that she flew over the city in a helicopter to design solutions for this vast area. Instead, Sadri said, “people should be the center of change.”

Housing, a human right

The right to appropriation, or, simply put, the right to dwell in a space is a second category of rights related to space. Unlike property rights, which are exclusive by their very nature, the right to appropriation allows citizens to freely use a space and settle in it if necessary. The increasing privatization of public space that started in Turkey in the 1980s has led to the marginalization of large numbers of people. As education and health care are privatized, people’s rights to access these spaces have been increasingly violated.

“You have a right to use facilities [i.e. health care] if you are not rich; if you are homeless, you have a right to dwell in a place; poor men without social security have a right to adequate health or education services,” Sadri said, adding that the right to appropriate land extends, for example, to the shantytown developments known as gecekondu. “You cannot demolish people’s houses – it’s a basic human right,” he said.

The first category of rights Sadri talked about – namely, the right to participate in the production and change of spaces – is more about political rights. People should be able to decide about their lives and destinies as they have the right to participate in power and decision-making. The second category, the right to appropriation, is related to social and economic rights. Nevertheless, human rights are indivisible and therefore must be equally protected.

A Human Rights Based Design Studio

Collaboratively with Dr. Senem ZEYBEKOGLU SADRI, we organized a human rights based design studio from 8th to 13th day of November 2010. This was a part of Kayitdisi organization, an architectural winter school, in Yildiz Technical University Istanbul. The programme of the workshop contained human rights education exercises, case studies and design projects for vulnerable groups. The final presentation of the studio was produced as a short video which was uploaded below.

Birgun, a Turkish daily newspaper, published an interview with me and some of participants on 23th day of February about this workshop. The full text of this interview is available here.

(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTIONS OF CITY AND SOCIETY: TRANSITIONS FROM SOVIET TO POST- SOVIET ERA IN BAKU CITY

I attended the 4th International Conference of Livable Environments & Architecture in Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Architecture. The theme of this conference, which was held on July 9-11, 2009 in Trabzon - Turkey, was stated as "(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE". I had a speech about transitions from Soviet to Post-Soviet era in Baku city, collaboratively with Dr. Senem ZEYBEKOGLU SADRI. The conference program can be reached from the conference website and our speech text is below. Our full paper is published in conference proceeding (ISBN:97897501716-2-8) from page 435 to 448.

(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTIONS OF CITY AND SOCIETY:

TRANSITIONS FROM SOVIET TO POST- SOVIET ERA IN BAKU CITY

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the relationship between the political reconstruction of society and transformation of city through investigating the changes of concepts such as public and private spaces after the transition from a planned socialist economy to a free market economy in Baku city, Azerbaijan. First, I will give a brief background on the urban development of the city, and then my colleague will talk about re/deconstructions of city and society.

URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITY

In general, Baku’s urban development can be examined under four major eras; Medieval, Oil Boom, Soviet and Post-Soviet eras. Geographically, the traces of the first three eras can be observed in three concentric circles which surround the same core: the inner core was shaped during the Medieval period, and is contained within the massive citadel walls of the "Inner City"; the Oil Boom era characterizes the next, middle orbit; and the third circle, which surrounds the middle orbit was shaped during the Soviet era.

The impacts of the Post-Soviet era cannot be defined by exact geographical borders. These appear in all of these three circles and cover the traces of the previous eras.

Medieval Era - The Inner City (Ichari Shahar), located at the centre of Modern Baku, inside the fortress walls, constitutes the medieval image of Baku. This area is included in UNESCO’s list of protected sites.

Oil Boom Era - The rapidly growing oil industry during the 19th century brought about a sudden growth in Baku. During the 19th century the city extended its limits to an area of 1300 hectares and the rate of the growth of the population outran all of the big cities in Europe.

Starts with the Soviet Era - Architecture and urban planning in Baku city can be categorized under four different styles: constructivist architecture, national architecture, architecture of Stalin and architecture of Khrushchev eras.

Constructivism put an impact on the architecture of Baku especially between the years 1920-1935. Reconstruction of the city in order to improve the living conditions was the most important issue during this period. Numerous housing projects and public buildings including hospitals, educational, cultural and entertainment buildings started to be constructed especially in the suburban areas.

With the establishment of the Union of the Architects of Azerbaijan, the national style appeared. Azerbaijani architects started to use the national architectural language of Azerbaijan in their buildings and this period is called as Azerbaijani architecture of Soviet era.

The architecture of the period between 1930s and 1950s is defined as architecture of Stalin’s era. During this period the central part of the city was reconstructed. Old buildings were destroyed and buildings with unordinary heights were constructed in their place, several projects of town building were regulated in suburban areas for dwelling of inhabitants living in demolished buildings.

After 1950s the period identified with Khrushchev started. In 1958 a general plan entitled as the Decree of the Soviet Ministers of the Republic was prepared. This plan marked the development of the city for the following 20 years and aimed to improve the quality of living conditions of houses and decrease the outgoings of constructions. This period witnessed the construction of large scale mass housing projects, application of new construction methods and the use of new materials such as concrete, metal and glass.

POST-SOVIET BAKU

In the last decade of the 20th century, USSR collapsed and Azerbaijan opened its borders to free market and international economic organizations such as IMF and WB and rapidly transformed into capitalist system. The first stage of the economic development of the country was marked by a great oil contract signed in the year 1994 in Baku known as “Contract of the Century”. Later, especially after the second Gulf War, due to increasing oil prices, Azerbaijan became one of the fastest growing economies of the world.

This “Oil Boom” was paralleled by a “Building Boom”. Numerous high-rise buildings have “sprung up like mushrooms after rain”. This fast construction without depending on any plan or strategy presented a chaotic development in the city. In addition to its disorder, especially in the central part of the city with its historical value and diverse architectural styles, this stream was disruptive. With Goltz’s sentence, “the Baku which was built by the First Oil Boom was being destroyed by the Second Oil Boom”.

In addition to its damage on city’s architecture and urbanism, this fast economic development and transition caused crucial social effects especially resulting from the war with Armenia and its continued effects; the country’s poor social programme and inequitable development plan, and lack of coordination in planning of local scale.

The Post-Soviet Baku has two faces because of different powers affecting the city at the same time. On the one hand, luxurious and splendid buildings are being constructed by using the latest architectural technologies, in order to create an image for the city that could attract global capital. On the other hand, many people who had lost their jobs and social securities after the collapse of the Soviet system and others who had come to the city in search for job opportunities. In other words, it is possible to see the two faces of the city at the same time: the glorious face of the global city and the catastrophic face of deprivation and poverty.

(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTION OF CITY AND SOCIETY

Baku is a good example of reconstruction of society and city with immense changes that it went through in a short period of time. In this sense, looking at contradictions of the society and the built environment will give us the opportunity to grasp changing values during transition from soviet system to free market system.

Property ownership constitutes the most important of these changes. Encounters with the idea of property ownership for the first time through the programs of privatization of public housing agitated the urge of property ownership. The demand of having quantitatively more houses rather than liveable houses originated a new construction sector. According to this new system, contractors finish the construction work of a house at the level of rough construction, without doing any installations or finishing such as doors, windows, coating and floor covering. After that, clients buy the houses in the form of rough construction, with prices half as much as completed houses, and do the fine works according to their own will. This new system, in which clients can buy two houses with the price of one single house, increased the purchasing power and consequently boosted profits in construction sector.

In an open letter of journalist Sultan Sultanoghlu to First Lady of Azerbaijan, the relationship between capital and construction sector was reported. The part which was quoting Karl Marx states that:

“Capital is happy with a 20-percent return, delighted with a 50-percent return, ecstatic with a 100-percent return, delirious with a 200-percent return. And with a 300-percent return, Capital becomes insane. And the return rate in the building boom in Baku is 300-percent”.

Another issue related with property ownership is the maintenance of buildings. One can easily observe that communal sense did not progress in Baku city due to deprivation of people from sense of ownership during the Soviet era. As a result, people did not feel any responsibility for taking care of public spaces of their home environment such as entrances, stairways, courtyards or facades and all public spaces are in poor conditions. In addition to this lack of communal sense, the contradictions between strong wills of the property owners are also apparent on the facades of the buildings. Each apartment owner paints his apartment’s facade with a different colour. And these colourful facades show the lack of common mind in decision making even in the neighbourhood scale.

The existence of private property has also put an impact on traffic in the city. During the Soviet era, automobile ownership was strictly limited and if a person wanted to buy a car, he had to enrol in a long list. This limitation had enabled a control over motorized vehicle traffic in the city. However, streets of Post-Soviet Baku are full of European cars, which can be easily purchased. But the maintenance of streets did not come along the same way with the increase in car ownership. In addition to that, there has not been any improvement in public transportation since Soviet period and metro and public buses are in poor quality.

Furthermore, population growth in the city centre has also augmented motorized traffic and this has increased the number of cars. For that reason, the streets and wide boulevards which used to serve pedestrians during the Soviet era are now dominated by cars and full of traffic jam and noise. Traffic problem also complicated access from one place to another in the city, and this has led to the creation of polar zones and inequality within the city as centre/periphery, high quality/poor quality areas (Khanlou, 2005).

This inequality does not only exist between different parts of the city, but also between families living in the same apartment building. The construction of interiors of apartments by apartment owners resulted in different interiors depending on the economic conditions of owners.

The concept of order provided by the central government has also changed. With the disappearance of the central authority, efforts of producing long term urban development strategies have also vanished. Moreover, the pace of growth of the city does not allow such kind of planned development. The lack of a metropolitan municipality which can govern the city as a whole brings the lack of planning and this results in inadequacy in areas of infrastructure, development and heritage policies (Khanlou, 2005).

This lack of perspective and long term approach has also affected people. Architectural make-up has replaced fundamental solutions. Embellishing old buildings through wrapping their facades is not only a way of covering their problems, but also declares a good image of the building and provides good income for their owners. However, this practice and in addition to it, construction of low-standard and weak buildings to reduce expenses in an earthquake area like Baku threatens the safety of two million people living in the city.

CONCLUSION

In Post-Soviet Baku, the decisions between old/new, historical/contemporary, social life/individual benefits and motorized vehicles/pedestrians are given according to economic values, rather than human values. As a result, a fragmentation among the inhabitants of the city in terms of economic conditions has appeared.

Nevertheless, this fragmentation does not entail physical borders, but, as Peter Marcuse states clearly, it sets social, cultural and economic borders within society. “Iron curtain” was destructed but is being reconstructed again as perceivable borders among people, putting heavy impacts on living conditions of people.

City and Human Rights Symposium

Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Centre is organizing a symposium on "City and Human Rights" (KENT VE INSAN HAKLARI SEMPOZYUMU) on the 13th and 14th of November 2009 at Dolapdere Istanbul. You can reach the conference programme from the website of Bilgi University. Some of the speakers and their presentation titles are listed bellow:

Hossein SADRI (Gazi University) From the Right to the City to Human Rights in the City (Kent Hakkından Kentte İnsan Haklarına)

Senem ZEYBEKOGLU SADRI (Dogus University) Urban Transformation and Rights in the City (Kentsel dönüşüm ve kentte insan hakları)

Murat Cemal YALCINTAN (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University) Urban Opposition from an Right to the City Viewpoint (Kentsel Muhalefeti Kent Hakkı Kavramı Üzerinden Düşünmek)

Ezgi TUNCER GURKAS (Yıldız Technical University) Housing Right in the City: for whom? Place Making Practices of Forced Migrants in Samatya Streets (Kentte barınma hakkı: kim için? Samatya sokaklarında “zorunlu” göçmenlerin “yer-kurma” pratikleri)

Korhan GUMUS (Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture) Anonymity, Subjectivity and Publicness (Anonimlik, öznellik ve kamusallık)

Ayten ALKAN (Istanbul University) Gender-Based Urban Right Violations (Yerim mi dar yenim mi?” Cinsiyete dayalı kentsel hak ihlâlleri ve ötesi)

Dikmen BEZMEZ (Koc University) Sibel YARDIMCI (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University): The Right to the City as a Citizenship Right: Rights of the People with Disabilities in Istanbul (Bir Vatandaşlık Hakkı Olarak Kent Hakkı: İstanbul Özelinde Sakat Hakları)