Dogma

Gardens

The city of Diyarbakir, located in the South East of Turkey, is not only one of the biggest cities of the region (with 1.4 million inhabitants), it is historically one of the richest, yet presently economically one of the poorest of the country. It is also the place where the effects of social and political conflict that have afflicted the region over the last twenty years – directly tied to this being a majority-Kurdish region – are most tangible and visible. The urban growth that followed the forced migration of a rural population to the city completely altered its urban structure: if on the one hand new neighborhoods of a modern appearance were quickly developed for the middle class, on the other hand this relatively modern image has been heavily countered by the presence of big pockets of precariousness and hardship.
In the city, the area of the train station represents not only a large urban vacancy, but also a physical divide between two of the districts where the migration waves of the last 20 years mainly found refuge: the walled city – Surici – and Baglar, a very dense neighbourhood hazardously built and deprived of sufficient social facilities. In between these two districts, the area of the train station is today a large urban vacancy, mostly unused, which both the Turkish railway company and the local metropolitan municipality would like to redevelop.
Our proposal aims at establishing a settlement principle that combines flexible development with clarity of form. The main form around which this proposal has been developed is the garden. The garden is a generous space allowing multiple activities and uses, in which all citizens of Diyarbakir can finally acquire a clear consciousness of their social and political belonging to the urban space. The project consists in a sequence of gardens framed by buildings. While buildings are flexible in terms of program and circulation, they allow a strong relationship between the two parts of the city, now physically divided by the railway tracks. The scheme is designed in order to make the urban form of this place independent from possible changes in terms of function that could eventually occur over the years. Yet, at the same time the form of the buildings and their relationship with the open space make their character and image very specific and contextual.
The gardens are made of generous paved spaces flanked by buildings and accessible through steps, terraces and ramps, solving the difference in height between the two parts of the city. Each garden is accessible by a sequence of steps that from Baglar descends to the other side of the city passing through the new underground station.