children in cities: participatory action with children in understanding ...

Children, Youth and Environments 16(2), 2006

The Children and Architecture Project in Turkey Tulin Sener

Faculty of Educational Sciences, Ankara University Ankara, Turkey

Citation: Sener, Tulin (2006). “The Children and Architecture Project in Turkey.” Children, Youth and Environments 16(2): 191-206. Retrieved [date] from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye.

Comment on This Article Abstract

This field report focuses on one of the largest participation projects in Turkey, the “Children and Architecture Project.” This initiative is organized by the Ankara Chamber of Architects in cooperation with Ankara University Centre for Research on Child Culture (CRCC). The Chamber runs “meetings” and “activities” for children and youth in the city in which the children discuss and work to solve the problems they face in their daily living environments, including the lack of playgrounds and access to recreational parks, traffic congestion, and concerns about personal safety. The Chamber has also initiated the “1000 Architects in 1000 Schools” program to introduce young people to the main concepts of architecture.

Keywords: children’s participation, youth participation, urbanization, architecture, child-friendly city, Turkey

© 2006 Children, Youth and Environments

The Children and Architecture Project in Turkey

192

Introduction This field report focuses on the “Meetings” and the “1000 Architects in 1000 Schools” programs implemented in Ankara, Turkey by the Ankara Chamber of Architects as part of their Children in Architecture Project. Since 2002, the Chamber’s Children and Architecture Study Group has implemented various projects with children from different backgrounds in Ankara. All the architects taking part in the projects are volunteers. Only a few activities are carried out in cooperation with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or institutions. While the underlying goal of the Children and Architecture Project is to introduce the basic concepts of architecture to children, in all the projects, children have also found an opportunity to have a voice and tell about the things they like and dislike. As Turkey is predominantly a collectivist culture, the autonomy of the child is not usually a goal, as discussed below. Authority figures such as parents and teachers usually have power and control over children. On the other hand, children are valued and the young generation is seen as the vanguard of the country’s future. Thus, the general view is that children should be protected, valued and be given good opportunities. The following section examines the context of children’s participation in Turkey. Children and young people as a group are given little voice in Turkish society in general and within the family in particular. Extended families are very common, particularly in rural parts of Turkey and in the Eastern region. The family rules are generally established by the oldest member of the family, usually a grandparent. Being part of a collectivist culture, Turkish family structure is authoritarian, and children’s self-assertion and expression of opinions is discouraged, especially when these expressions may produce conflict with the family or society. The notion of reciprocity may be the most significant factor that interferes with participation. Kagitcibasi's (1991; 1996) traditional family prototype explains that there is reciprocal dependence between the generations. In the reciprocity model, the autonomy and freedom of the child is not desired as interdependence within the family is considered more important than individual needs. By making decisions “for their children” to ensure their care and control them, parents are presenting obstacles to children’s participation. This notion is supported by the findings of several large-scale studies undertaken over the past three decades (e.g., Kagitcibasi 1982; Kagitcibasi, Sunar and Bekman 1988; Bekman 1997; 1998; Sener Demir 2002). Children have little voice in most social settings, including in the extended family, schools and other institutions. Children are expected to obey the rules as defined by adults, and teachers are not used to asking children’s opinions. Nevertheless, in recent years, educational reform has led to expanded attempts to include children in the decision-making processes in schools. The National Ministry of Education has adopted an increasingly child-centered approach. There are student representative boards in many schools, particularly in most of the private schools. However, they do not promote full inclusion through child-initiated agendas. On the contrary,


193

these boards usually operate at the third level on the ladder of participation (Hart 1992, 13), namely tokenism, where successful and charming students are usually selected or encouraged by teachers to be selected. Turkey’s participation in European Union programs has significantly influenced the development of educational activities concerning civic engagement and children’s rights. There are many EU Youth Programs and NGO initiatives focusing on the issue of participation. Civic institutions and NGOs run most of the participatory projects and they are usually focused on youth rather than children. The International Children’s Festival adds a further dimension to children’s participation in Turkey. The Turkish Parliament was founded on April 23rd, 1920 and its anniversary was declared a National Children’s Holiday in 1929 by Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. It was turned into an International Children’s Festival in 1979, UNESCO’s World Children’s Year, and since then, every year it has brought hundreds of children to Turkey from all over the world. At the Children’s Festival, national leaders plan many activities for children, and children have the opportunity to make statements about their wishes and complaints. However, nothing changes the next day, so this “one-day pretending” cannot be considered true participation. To summarize, Turkish children are generally cared for very attentively and valued; on the other hand they do not have much power over the issues that concern them. Strong traditional values continue, but modernization and globalization processes are beginning to take the lead. Turkey is the only secular country among all the Islamic countries in the world, so both Islamic rules and secular-democratic principles shape their development. Thus, Turkey’s history, mixed politics, and regional and urban/rural differences combine to create a complex and colorful culture.

The Children and Architecture Project

The built environment, especially in the world’s big cities, is not built upon the needs of children. Social and economic changes have dramatically affected the lives of urban children in Turkey as in many other countries. Urban kids are facing heavy traffic that makes city streets more dangerous. Lack of safe playgrounds is also a major problem, and there is little opportunity to experience the natural environment in urban life. At the same time, the increase of families with two working parents and single-parent families have produced new demands for out-ofschool places where children can spend time having fun safely. However, neither public resources nor private sector services currently meet the new challenges of supporting the developmental needs of urban children. Instead, upper- and middleclass children usually stay at home or spend their time at day care centers, while lower-class children take care of their younger siblings or help with the housework. In Turkey, there has been growing interest in children and youth participation issues for the last decade, and particularly in the last few years. For the past three years, the Ankara Chamber of Architects in cooperation with the Ankara University Center for Research on Child Culture (CRCC) has carried out the “Children and Architecture Project” with great success. Much of the work of this project is being


194

carried out under the initiative, “1000 Architects in 1000 Schools,” which aims to introduce young people to the main concepts of architecture. However, there is a broader aim behind the project: making cities more understandable and predictable for children and youth, in furtherance of their right to live in more child-friendly places. In addition to the 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools initiative, there are two types of supportive programs that also work to achieve the goals of the Children and Architecture project. The first are called “Meetings,” and these aim mainly to gather children and architects in out-of-school settings (Figure 1). The second type are called “Activities” which include events such as conferences and seminars (Figure 2). Before describing the 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools project, the following section will give a brief summary of the “meetings” held from the start of the project. Figure 1. Summary of the “meetings” of the Children and Architecture Project Meeting Clay Workshop

Dates July, 2002

Ceramics workshop at a museum

August 17, 2002

Room in the Room Workshop

August 18, 2002

Meeting with children in Halfeti

May 17-19, 2003

Children and Architecture Summer Camp City and the Handicapped Workshop

June30-July 6, 2003

October 11-12, 2003

“Shelter Design” Workshop

September 23-25, 2004

“Water, Sand and Dreams”

September 16-18, 2005

Participants Children of different ages 20 elementary school children from Ankara 20 elementary school children from Ankara 80 children from Halfeti and 20 children from Ankara of different ages with the accompany of eight architects from Ankara 25 children of different ages and ten adults 21 children from a private institution of mentally handicapped and children without any handicap 32 children from 7-11 years old ten children from Ankara, 20 children from Bartin, three architects from each city.

Place Beypazari Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara Ankara Chamber of Architects Halfeti Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara Ankara Chamber of Architects Ankara Construction Fair Bartin-Inkumu


195

Figure 2. Summary of the “activities” of the Children and Architecture Project

Activity

Dates

Participants

Place

Members of the Chamber and 15 children

Ankara Chamber of Architects

April 23, 2004

Children of different ages

Ankara

World Disarmament Day

June 17, 2004


Ankara Chamber of Architects

Children’s Day Festival

April 23, 2005


Ankara

World Disarmament Day

June 17, 2005


General Assembly (Newspaper Rainbow)

February 2, 2004

Children’s Day Festival “I play with the city, I play in the city”:

Do you play with me, do you read with me?

November 14-20, 2005

Many children and architects accompanied by many other NGOs.

Ankara Chamber of Architects Ankara Chamber of Architects

Meetings The original idea emerged in May 2002: architecture needs to include a special place for children and youth, and architects need to consider children’s culture in order to understand their special needs. Starting with this idea, a group of architects and children met in Beypazari, an area close to Ankara, for a clay workshop (Figure 3). After this first step, in March 2003, architects met with 20 children at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. The children and architects discussed certain objects that connect past Anatolian civilizations with the present day through the theme of “space and life,” such as the Catalhoyuk settlement and its houses, the tomb of Midas, the Hittite Sun Disk, food protection jars, and a statue of a mother goddess. Through these activities and by playing a game, the children had an opportunity to think back about the history of Anatolian civilizations (Figure 4). Then, in the garden, they tried to create houses made of mud in which they would like to live.


196

Figure 3. A sample from the clay workshop in Beypazari, 2002

The following day, there was a workshop named “Room in the Room” held at the Chamber of Architects. The children spent time walking in the building in groups, and they chose places they wanted to transform. They designed a "Bright Corridor" since the existing ones were dark and only for passing through; a “Painting Tent" for the office; a "Problem-solving Room" with its own rules in the library, and an “Exhibition Tent" in which to present their projects in the meeting room. At the end of the day, the children were proud to have transformed, in their words, this “ugly, adult-made” building into a “colorful and more functional” place. The architects were surprised by the children’s abilities and that their needs and concerns were totally different from those of adults. While the children were walking in the


197

Chamber, for example, they noticed little details that the members had never thought about: the corridors were very dark, the office was boring and full of papers and office equipment, and the library was not functioning well. The children’s problem solving room in the library was intended to be a place to “to relax, to sit, to lie down or to draw.” The children wrote out the following rules for the space: “It is open to everyone. There is no director here. It is a good place to stay alone, think and dream. You can play here, listen to the radio or even watch TV.” Children recognized the need to play or relax, or just to lie down and think or dream even in a library. Neither children nor adults spend much time in libraries in Turkey, as they do not function well as sources of information or “fun places” to hang out. The children in the workshop explained that they would love to hang out in libraries if they were as interesting and amusing as the one they had built themselves. Figure 4. “In the museum garden, we played hide-and-seek, smelled the soil, and hugged the trees. It was wonderful.” —12 year old girl

These experiences inspired architects to work with children and provided a richer perspective than before. In March, 2003 the Bulletin of the Chamber of Architects published a special issue entitled, “Children and Architecture.” Two months later, in May 2003, children from Halfeti (a small town by the Euphrates (Firat) River in Eastern Turkey that is half under water because of a faulty dam construction) and children from Ankara met in Halfeti with a group of architects. Focusing on the concepts of “nature” and “built environment,” the children shared their expectations, dreams and hopes and described their feelings through drawings and


198

ceramics. The children are still in touch with each other, which can be considered an additional developmental outcome. A month later the Chamber organized a one-week summer camp in Ankara at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations for 25 child participants who were accompanied by ten adults. The theme was “Build Your Own City” and the children were encouraged to work with different materials on different topographies in order to construct their dream city. They ended up constructing a city made of sugar (Figure 5). Figure 5. “This is our sugar city!”—Summer Camp, 2003

In October 2003, the Children and Architecture Study Group organized a “City and the Handicapped” workshop. Students with learning and visual disabilities attended this workshop together with students from a mainstream private school. Despite the fact that the architects who planned this event had no background in working with disabled children, it can be seen as an example of an “Inclusion Program.” The children animated Italo Calvino's (1978) fourth invisible city called “Sofronia” that consisted of two half cities. They planned a street festival at the end of the day and


199

tried to find an answer to the question of "where does the road end?” The answer was simple for the children with a visual disability: "at home!" This questioning should be considered a successful result of a one-day participation by children— including disabled children—in adult-oriented city designing. A “Shelter Workshop” was held at the Ankara Construction Fair in September, 2004. The workshop was based on the idea that a shelter is the simplest form with which to test a new way of construction. Children worked to construct a “shelter” for the two main elements of nature, sun and water. They learned about the materials used in construction and thought about the meaning of “structure.” The adult facilitators of enjoyed playing with the materials perhaps even more than the children. While fun and participatory for children, this activity could be considered to be “adult-mediated.” Figure 6. Shelter constructed at the Shelter Workshop, 2004

The last meeting was held a year later, in 2005. Children from Ankara met with children in Bartin. Working with water and sand, they again built their dream cities and discussed the obstacles and challenges they face in each city. They all said they dream about cities where there are healthy and safe streets, green parks, playgrounds and colorful buildings.


200

In February, 2004, during the General Assembly of the Chamber of Architects, some of the children participating in the project asserted that because they were also members of the Chamber, they needed to be in the Assembly. They argued that there should be some children’s representatives at the meetings, and some of their work should be presented to the other members of the Chamber. The Chamber accepted the suggestion, and children from different schools exhibited the best examples of their own work including clay pieces, models, maps, charts, drawings and paintings. Children spoke about their projects and discussed issues with other children and adults. During the discussions, the children made the decision to publish a newspaper called Rainbow where they could tell about their expectations, hopes and dreams. On April 23, 2004, the Ankara Chamber of Architects organized a “festival” for the Children’s Holiday in cooperation with some other NGOs and child centers. The festival was called, “I Play in the City, I Play with the City, I Participate in the City” and it focused on children rights and the place of children in the city. The festival started with a parade, including a children’s band, and the activity continued into the Modern Arts Center where there has never been such a noisy, joyous and playful day. Children created various items during the day that were exhibited in the galleries of the Arts Center. A group of children documented the activities and questioned issues of children’s rights. In the evaluation meeting, the children decided to work on a documentary film about Ankara. They said, “We live in a city. We know that cities have various problems. We also have a viewpoint and a voice about the city. We must share our views through our documentary film; we must attract attention to the problem of children’s rights.” The documentary group kept working on the history of the city and children’s perspectives throughout the year, and they created a film about Ankara. The Chamber continued to organize children’s festivals for the next two years. 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools Along with these meetings and activities, the Chamber has kept working on the main project, 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools. Advisors at the Ankara University Centre for Research on Child Culture (CRCC) trained the participating architects on developmental issues, children’s rights and participation via a series of seminars and one-to-one consultations before the project got started. The architect volunteers had come up with ideas for projects, but almost all of the proposed projects changed after the seminars and particularly after meeting with the children. The adults—e.g., facilitators, teachers, and coaches—let the children shape the projects by themselves rather than giving them a pre-planned outline. Throughout the 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools project, architects meet with children in one or two particular classes at several schools. They go into the classrooms and introduce themselves and the proposed project. They ask children about the things that they like and dislike in their environment, about the things they see on the way to school, and which of those things are good or bad for them. The children also talk about the things they want to change. Together, the


201

architects and children talk about the city, architecture, and urban life, and architects listen to children’s hopes, expectations, problems and desires. The main aim is to demolish the distance between the children and the city, so one objective is to translate specific architectural concepts into children’s worlds. Sometimes the architects form an education team with students from university architecture departments and education faculties, who find out about the project via CRCC and the Chamber. The architects usually plan medium to long-term projects (eight weeks to three years), each guided by the specialists of the CRCC. The core concept of these projects is participation. The children discuss the problems concerning the environment they face in their daily lives. These challenges include important issues such as the lack of playgrounds and access to recreational parks, as well as traffic congestion and personal safety. At the time of writing, 120 schools and almost 3600 children have participated. They arrange exhibitions and presentations to share their products with others (Figure 7). This process of looking critically and responding to their environments helps children to become responsible citizens. Figure 7. Children’s exhibits


202

Youngsters can make positive contributions to society in many ways, such as protecting the natural environment, paying attention to their brothers and sisters, or taking care of a specific park in their neighborhood (Hart 1999), and these efforts can turn into community-wide projects. For example, at Kalaba Primary School, a group of students came together for the 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools project in 2003. They met for one hour a week in an “architecture class” facilitated by an architect where they discussed their daily environment and the concepts of architecture. They focused on the big garbage dump just in front of their school. Nothing had been done to remove it and the offensive garbage caused serious health dangers for the students and the teachers, as well as neighborhood residents. The students recorded their peers’ views through interviews and began working on ways to remove the garbage. The project came to the attention of the office of the president of the municipality, and a week later, all the garbage was removed. This action represents full participation as children began the project and it was conducted in cooperation with adults. Other examples have also focused on the conditions of school environments and schoolyards (e.g., Figure 8). Most schoolyards, for those schools that have them, are limited spaces. However, there are many inexpensive and simple ways that they can be improved to serve as places for physical exercise and sports, play and informal learning with peers, environmental studies, and as valuable resources for their communities (Bartlett and Hart 2002). In most of the projects at schools, students have been enthusiastic about improving and renovating their schoolyards. Figure 8. Schoolyard Project at Tevfik Fikret Private Schools, 2005


203

The “1000 Architects in 1000 Schools” project has continued with work on a project kit and an education program produced with guidance from the Center for Research on Child Culture and the Board of Education in the Ministry of Education. An important outcome of this project is that the education program was accepted by the National Ministry of Education to be implemented in first, second and third grade Life Sciences classes in primary schools beginning in 2005. (Work is still underway to develop the program for other grades and other classes.) In 2006, the 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools initiative has turned its focus toward children’s dreams about Ankara. At schools in different districts, children draw and paint their dream Ankara and exhibit these images at the Chamber. Finally, this project has been presented at several national conferences and was represented in several ways at the World Congress of the International Union of Architects in 2005 in Istanbul, including a paper entitled, “New Ways of Discovering Architecture: Children and Architecture Project;” a seminar on architecture entitled “At What Age?;” a discovery workshop entitled “Seeking for Dreams;” and an exhibition of both Turkish and international “Children and Architecture” studies. The work of the Ankara Chamber of Architects represents excellent examples of real children’s participation. Real participation involves children as active decisionmakers and actors throughout the activities. This kind of participation contributes to the sustainable development of the community. When youngsters work on a project, they develop a feeling of “ownership” over it that increases their sense of responsibility and motivates them to invest in subsequent actions.

Lessons

It would be an overstatement to claim these projects have changed the status of children in Turkish society and have caused social change. However, just getting architects to start looking at the world from another perspective can be considered a big step. At the start of the Children and Architecture Project, the architects’ intentions were not to involve children in a participatory way. They wanted to share their knowledge of architecture and they planned various actions. However, the seminars given by the professors of the Ankara University Center for Research on Child Culture helped architects to reevaluate their projects. When they began working with children, they realized that the children’s capacity for creating and building things was greater than they expected. Over time, the projects turned into action research projects where children found the topic and started the process themselves. Because the children decided on the issue they wanted to work on and discussed it in detail, these projects can be considered participatory implementations. However, most of the “Meetings” were planned by the Chamber; the architects decided and initiated these gatherings. Nonetheless, they are still valuable in terms of participation as the children were totally involved in the process. Because children and youth perceive the world differently from adults, their participation in planning, evaluating, and completing the projects is very important. While it is very common to think that children should only take part in the conceptual process and leave the


204

technical details to adults and professional engineers or architects, the Chamber of Architects did their best to let children “construct” their own “structures.” This was important in order for children to feel that their participation was not merely symbolic but that their ideas were important for the adult world. The initiative is still in its early stages but the evidence so far demonstrates that children and young people can transform their environment physically and personally. There is the potential for hundreds more schools and thousands of students to become involved. UNICEF has recently started a child-friendly city project in Turkey in which the Ankara Chamber of Architects is engaged, and all the products and outcomes from that project will give further feedback, courage and different perspectives to architects and other adults. It can be argued that children’s participation is a precondition for effective strategies of working with young people at all levels of society. From families to schools, communities and governments, youth participation presents a radically different and progressive perspective on the role of young people in society. Through participation, young people cease to be passive recipients of services or victims of indomitable social and political forces. It forces programmers and policymakers to think beyond the provision of targeted services and integrating a relatively small number of young people into a social mainstream. Children are experts in their own subjective experience, perceptions and lives and this notion is increasingly being accepted by the adult world. Within this progressive perspective, young people are seen as stakeholders with distinct and legitimate interests and therefore entitled to share in the exercise of power at all levels. City planners and policy-makers do not usually consider the necessities and desires of children. It is difficult for these adults to understand the huge effects of their job on children. The Children and Architecture projects alone will not solve the problems of children’s involvement in society. This can only be achieved by adopting the view that children have special needs, perspectives and thoughts and by implementing this perspective throughout the country. Projects and research should encourage children and youth to play an active citizenship role in order to enhance both their personal development and their sense of belonging to their communities. Also, they should help create a new model of leadership for participation and democracy that values the contributions that young citizens can make to urban management and governance. Fundamentally, children’s participation is about making sure all young people, especially those who are outside the social mainstream, have access to opportunities. In this context, participation is not simply about giving young people a voice in organizations and institutions. It is about making sure that such groups of young people can access the skills and opportunities they require to have autonomous and sustainable livelihoods—to become part of society in a full and real sense. In conclusion, although there is growing interest in young people’s involvement, Turkey is still behind other European countries with respect to participation. Taking part in EU education and youth programs has enabled Turkish practitioners to reevaluate their practices and change their goals toward more civic issues. For the


205

last five to six years, youth participation has been an important issue for all governmental institutions, but there is still a lack of organization. There are many projects and initiatives going on around the country, but there remains a big gap in cooperation and collaboration. The governmental institutes and NGOs are not necessarily aware of what the other parties are doing. Strong coordination or bringing together of existing projects is necessary in order to share information and achieve better programs. The biggest problem facing Turkey in this regard is the lack of supportive policies. Although the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Education are working hard to change the existing understanding of childhood and youth, more needs to be done. There is a strong need for more research and development work into the participation levels of children in Turkey that will bring together all interested parties, including institutions, NGOs, universities and research centers. Tulin Sener teaches at Ankara University, Faculty of Educational Sciences, in Ankara, Turkey. Her research interests include participatory research methods, children and youth, civic engagement of young people, children’s rights and children’s culture. She has been selected as the European Knowledge Center on Youth Policy Correspondent for Turkey by the Youth Research Partnership between the Council of Europe and the European Commission. She is on the Editorial Board of THEN Journal. She has been a member of the advisory boards of most of the participation projects in Turkey and she is advising the 1000 Architects in 1000 Schools Project with the Center for Research on Child Culture. She has translated into Turkish the book by Roger Hart, Children’s Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development and Environmental Care (in press).

References Bartlett, Sheridan and Roger Hart (2002). Children’s Environmental Rights. Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden. Bekman, Sevda (1997). “Evde destek programının okul öncesi dönemdeki etkileri.” Eğitim ve Bilim 106: 35-51. Bekman, Sevda (1998). Eşit Fırsat: Anne-Cocuk Egitim Programinin Degerlendirilmesi. İstanbul: Anne-Cocuk Egitim Vakfi Yayinlari. Calvino, Italo (1978). Invisible Cities. Translated by William Weaver. Florida: Harvest/HBJ. Hart, Roger (1992) Children’s Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship. Florence: International Child Development Care. Kagitcibasi, Cigdem (1982). “Old-Age Security Value of Children: Cross-National Socio-Economic Evidence.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 13: 29-42.


206

Kagitcibasi, Cigdem (1991). İnsan-aile-kultur. İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi. Kagitcibasi, Cigdem (1996). Family and Human Development across Cultures: A View from the Other Side. Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kagitcibasi, Cigdem, Dianne Sunar and Sevda Bekman (1988). Comprehensive Preschool Project: A Final Report. Canada: IDRC. Sener Demir, Tulin (2002). Ilkogretim ogrencilerinin kulturel etkinlikleri ile ozerklikleri arasındaki iliskinin incelenmesi. Yayınlanmamis Doktora Tezi. Ankara: A.U. Sosyal Bilimler Enstitusu.