Post-anthropocentric Landscapes: Unoccupied Military Lands in Ankara

Date

2024-7-16

Author

Yawer, Mohammad Najdat

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As the world struggles with climate change and its destructive effects on the planet, our global urbanization processes that are largely responsible for further exacerbating the crisis also need to be reformulated. In fact, combatting the environmental crisis in a meaningful way necessitates a radical paradigm shift that moves away from the human-centered urbanism practices and adopts instead a post-anthropocentric approach to urban design. This study speculates on the role of unoccupied urban lands in this shift. As sites that exclude the human agent by definition, their different spatial conceptions, scales and ecological values are examined and instrumentalized to reframe them as post-anthropocentric landscapes. The unoccupied military lands in Ankara are investigated as the study focus of this thesis. Since the 2016 coup attempt, decommissioning and relocating military installations has become a part of the government’s urban transformation program. Large tracts of unoccupied urban lands are thus emerging in various cities of Türkiye as a new urban design challenge. In this regard, Ankara’s post-military lands are examined in terms of their ecological performance, urban significance and redevelopment potential. Based on this research, three main design principles - Embracing natural processes, Creating hybrids, Establishing connections- are suggested to guide alternative, non-human-centered approaches of redevelopment. Thus, the unoccupied military lands in Ankara are reframed as post-anthropocentric landscapes that can transform the entire city and help it mitigate the local effects of the climate crisis.

Subject Keywords

Post-anthropocentric landscapes, Unoccupied Lands, Post-military lands, Post-antroposenik peyzajlar, Kentsel boşluklar, Askeri alanlar

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/110338

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis