Thesis Defense - Sıddı Zeynep Yılmaz Kılıç (MSARCH)

Sıddı Zeynep YILMAZ KILIÇ - M.Sc. Architecture

Prof. Dr. Hülya TURGUT – Advisor

Date: 10.06.2021

Time: 10:30

Location: This meeting will be held ONLINE. Please send an e-mail to gizem.bakir@ozyegin.edu.tr in order to participate in this defense.

THE JOURNEY BETWEEN HOMES:

The multilayered meaning of home from the perspective of identity, belonging and memory

Thesis Committee:

Prof. Dr. Hülya Turgut, Özyeğin University

Prof. Dr. Orhan Hacıhasanoğlu, Özyeğin University

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pelin Dursun Cebi, Istanbul Technical University

Abstract:

The economic, technological, scientific, political, cultural, and social changes in the transition to the 21 st century cause to the transformations of concepts and meanings in architecture as well as many different disciplines. All these changes are reflected to home, which is the main place of daily life practices, and lead to a transformation in the meaning of home. The aim of this thesis, which develops a suggestion for reading of the meaning of home in today's conditions, is to examine the meaning of home over time and to discuss the future conceptual expansions of the home.

The thesis consists of five chapters. In the introduction section, the problem, purpose, scope and research method of the thesis are defined. The second chapter is the section where the general area of the subject is introduced, and the concept of home is reviewed in the literature. In this chapter, the differences between house and home are revealed, while theoretical approaches are examined to address the home. As a result, it is discovered that the home is consisting of multilayered meaning and each layer of meaning of home affects their formation of another while intertwining such as a "palimpsest". It is also seen that this layered structure is made up of the culture, place, time, and mobility that reflects the dynamics of this era from the existence of the home.

In the third chapter, the conceptual scheme, beginning with the interaction of culture, space, temporality, and mobility, is formed and the layers of meaning of the home are shown. The hypothesis is based on these layers that identity, belonging, and memory are the fundamental stones, so when the changes in these concepts are analyzed, the change of meaning of home are being well-understood as well. This chapter shows the conceptual framework of the thesis and all stages of conceptual expansions in this process.

In the fourth chapter, a research method is being developed to examine the change of meaning of home. Therefore, quantitative and qualitative research methods are used: observation of home behavior with plans, views, field drawings, photographs, questionnaire, in-depth interview technique, and participant observation. Within the scope of this thesis, which aims to investigate the change of the meaning of home with mobility, the developed method is tested with a case study in this section. For the case study, a group of people who displaced from rural to urban context are selected because they still continue to experience the homes in the rural context and built their homes in both contexts conceptually and spatially. In this context, homes of 20 selected households in contarary contexts (38 houses) are examined and their users are deeply interviewed. The results obtained are described as the conclusions of the chapter.

In the conclusion chapter, the outcomes of the theoretical section of the thesis and the results of the case study are combined to answer the main questions of the thesis and discuss the possibility of a new paradigm for the home in the future.

Bio: 

Siddi Zeynep Yilmaz entered Eskisehir Osmangazi University in September 2012 and received a BSc degree of Architecture as top-scoring student in June 2017. In September 2017, she entered the Graduate School of Architecture at Özyeğin University in İstanbul. She wrote her thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hülya Turgut. During one year at Özyegin University, she worked as a teaching assistant. Then two years, she worked as a research assistant at Bursa Technical University. Since April 2020, she has been working as a research assistant at YOK.