ANACHRONıSTıC CıTY
2016
Waterfront Research explored the coastline as a dynamic ecological and geographical system rather than a fixed boundary between land and water. Through comparative studies of different waterfront typologies, the studio examined how geography, climate, infrastructure, settlement patterns, mobility and historical transformation shape the relationship between cities and their edges.
The research developed through mapping and case studies, considering parameters such as coastal form, scale, climate, geopolitical significance, transportation networks, historical change and biodiversity. The aim was to construct an ecological reading of the waterfront and to question how these territories might transform under future environmental and urban pressures.
From this framework, my final project imagined Istanbul in 2084, using climate change, rising water levels, migration and access to resources as drivers for a speculative future of the city’s waterfront.
Istanbul 2084 — Project Abstract
Istanbul 2084 is a speculative waterfront project imagining how climate change, migration, technological transformation and access to natural resources could reshape the future coastline of Istanbul.
Rising temperatures, extreme rainfall and fluctuating water levels have submerged much of the reclaimed shoreline, while controlled ecological zones have emerged beneath large protective domes. Between these protected territories, abandoned buildings and uncontrolled areas accommodate increasingly precarious forms of urban life.
The project uses this future scenario to question how the waterfront might evolve when the boundary between land and water becomes unstable, and when access to environmental resources begins to define new forms of spatial and social hierarchy.
As water levels become unpredictable, architecture and infrastructure adapt to both land and sea. New ports, enclosed passages and amphibious vehicles create a mobile network between protected settlements, while artificial habitats provide controlled environments against increasingly hostile climatic conditions.
Within this new geography, mobility becomes a form of power. Those who control water and infrastructure are able to move freely between territories, while others remain dependent on the protected environments of the domes or survive within the uncontrolled zones between them.
The project therefore explores amphibious urbanism not only as an environmental adaptation, but as a new political and social structure.
Future Waterfront
By 2084, climate change has radically transformed Istanbul’s coastline. Sudden storms and extreme rainfall can raise water levels by up to two metres, leaving much of the reclaimed waterfront permanently vulnerable.
The former coastline becomes a shifting territory of water, infrastructure and occupation. Domes contain artificial ecological environments, while new amphibious ports connect them through protected routes. Outside these controlled zones, abandoned buildings are appropriated by communities displaced by migration and environmental pressure.
The waterfront becomes a fragmented landscape where ecological systems, infrastructure, migration and social inequality overlap — no longer a line separating the city from the sea, but a continuously changing zone of negotiation.
University Bilgi University Istanbul
Course Master Design Studio
Team Emre Ergin, Aysegul Karaman
Visiting Professors Mehmet Kutukcuoglu, Omer Selcuk Baz
Dates 2016
The city smells of rotten eggs. Southerly winds carry hydrogen sulphide across Istanbul, covering the city in an invisible layer of toxicity.
The construction boom that began in the first quarter of the century never truly ended. Temporary construction sites gradually became permanent landscapes, while the machines that once built the city evolved beyond human control. They now roam the waterfront as an autonomous, almost android species — remnants of an endless cycle of construction.
Climate change has radically altered Istanbul’s coastline. Sudden storms and extreme rainfall can raise the water level by as much as two metres, submerging the reclaimed land that once extended the city into the sea. Rising temperatures have made much of the exposed urban environment increasingly difficult to inhabit.
In response, autonomous districts have emerged across the city. Artificial habitats are enclosed beneath large domes that can open and close according to sudden climatic changes or movements of population. Inside them, controlled ecological environments provide some of the most desirable and protected places to live.
Along the waterfront, new ports have formed in front of these domes. Enclosed passages protect amphibious vehicles from violent storms and allow a privileged mobile population to move continuously between land and water.
Beyond the domes, another city has taken shape.
Increasing migration from the south has led to the occupation of abandoned buildings within the uncontrolled zones between protected districts. Governmental authority has largely disappeared from these territories, leaving behind fragmented spaces where informal communities struggle to survive. As environmental conditions worsen, the social divide continues to deepen.
Those who hold power live an amphibious life. Able to move between territories and remain almost permanently mobile, they control the city’s most valuable resource: water. They are the administrators of the Water Banks, institutions that regulate its collection, distribution and value.
The middle classes have secured a place inside the controlled environments of the domes. Outside them, those living in the free zones survive under increasingly difficult conditions, working for the same system that controls their access to water.
The story follows Aphex, a banker in his thirties working at a Water Bank beneath the Galata Dome. His routine is interrupted when his life intersects with Professor Linux, a water scientist developing a new formula while being pursued by the water mafia.
Through their encounter, the project explores a future Istanbul in which the waterfront is no longer simply the boundary between land and sea, but a contested territory shaped by climate, migration, technology, mobility and access to natural resources.
Scene 1
Aphex is in his thirties and works as a banker at the Water Bank inside the Galata Dome. Every morning, he stops at the same kiosk to buy his coffee.
As he waits, a sound rises from the sea.
It is Nommo...