Architectures of Care

The world is currently dealing with crises that have led to social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities. These crises, whether human-induced (such as wars) or natural (such as earthquakes), result in displacement, dispossession, homelessness, damage, collapse, violence, trauma, injury, and similar issues for all living and non-living systems (human or non-human). Human activities disrupt natural systems, leading to resource loss and a significant decline in biodiversity. Unsustainable practices such as land, water, energy use, pollution, and climate change are the primary drivers of these crises.

Living in a country like ours plagued by disasters, natural or human-made, such as earthquakes, floods, fires, coal mine explosions, transportation accidents, and the like, we must consider political theorist Judith N. Shklar’s thought-provoking question, “When is a disaster a misfortune, and when is it an injustice?”[1] This question becomes critical, especially when we think about how what begins as a natural disaster escalates into, in its full effect, a public injustice.

After the disaster, what then? That is a call to reflect on the theme of “care.” Care, for whom, what for, and how?

Care, a term often associated with protectiveness and responsibility, close attentiveness to avoiding danger, involves reconstruction, repair, restoration, conservation, and mending practices. Care also involves the practices of archiving, documenting, and displaying that shape collective memory (e.g., museums and archives). However, it should be noted that all these practices carry the risk of control over the body and erasing some of the spatial, social, and historical layers. So, care may fail; in that case, it must be criticized and reconsidered.

After all, that said, the design research studio invites architecture graduate students to reflect on care as an architectural issue. Architectures of care are expected to be searched for from various perspectives by considering the term’s political, social, and historical implications. Promoting situational, relational, and systemic design approaches, the studio explores how the ethics of care, a position cultivated by social justice activists and eco-feminists, can inspire alternative social, spatial, and environmental futures. The studio’s critical stance advocates going against the grain with a vision of a future that prioritizes inclusive, participatory societies valuing equity, justice, creativity, and cooperation, respecting our interdependent living and non-living ecosystems, and accepting different voices, behaviours, views, and cultural and gender expressions.

The concept of care as an architectural question that embraces a new understanding of hospitality toward all living beings is explored in the context of Turkey. During the first semester of the graduate studio (Arch 501), we aimed to understand the concept of care and consider it as an architectural concern by studying the works of scholars such as Joan Tronto, Donna Haraway, María Puig De la Bellacasa, Elke Krasny, and Anna Tsing. Students were asked to define their research subject and focus area and gather and examine related research documents. The students explored care as a practice in the second semester (Arch 502). We aimed to practice care through architecture in response to various intertwined crises.

The graduate design and research studio ended with an exhibition. We aim not to find ways of representing trauma, spatial injustices, loss, and human-caused disturbances but to bring critical and creative attention to them. Each piece of display is a research method addressing architecture as a form of care.

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[1] Judith N. Shklar, The Faces of Injustice (Yale University Press, 1990), p. 1.