[Philosophical and Conceptual Perspective]
The “in-between” theme of INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL BIENNIAL OF ANTALYA (IABA 4.5) focuses on ambiguous states of transition—stretching from the familiar to the unforeseeable—by centring the question, “Where are architecture and the city evolving within the new world order?” This installation seeks an answer to this question through the lens of the “coexistence of the architect and the digital environment”. The second digital paradigm shift occurring in the field of architecture, brought about by Industry 4.0, marks a new threshold in the search for human–machine symbiosis that has continued since the 1960s. This threshold transforms the digital environment from being merely a tool into an active partner participating in the architect’s creative process. Within the design process, the architect and the digital environment now jointly define problems, generate variations, and explore possibilities. This collaboration enables the emergence of unforeseen designs and diverse perspectives. The installation is grounded in the idea that architecture and the city are evolving towards a future in which the human and the non-human coexist. Within this conceptual framework, the carpet fields of Döşemealtı in Antalya offer a metaphorical example. Each summer, traditional carpets brought from all over Turkey are laid out randomly across the fields to set their colours and to be cleaned, creating an unpredictable yet powerful spatial pattern. This unplanned coexistence, born within the familiar topography, becomes an inspiring analogy for the work. Drawing on this pattern, the designer poses the following question: How might a carpet be reinterpreted through the collaboration between the architect and the digital environment?
The random display in the metaphor of carpet fields presents a structure parallel to the growth logic of the differential growth algorithm. Just as the irregular arrangement of carpets laid out in the field creates new spatial relationships, algorithmic growth establishes its own internal rhythm and spatial order. In this context, this installation investigates the reinterpretation of the traditional Turkish carpet within a digital environment through the use of a differential growth algorithm. Mimicking the varying growth rates observed in plants and organisms, this algorithm generates rule-based yet unpredictable, organic, and complex geometries. The traditional ‘bereket’ (abundance) motif was modeled parametrically; spring and repulsive forces were defined between the points that constitute it. Through the forces applied at each iteration, the motif gradually evolved into a structure that grows and transforms within itself over time. In this way, a meaningful bridge is established between the intuitive nature of tradition and the computational world of the digital.
The reason for selecting this algorithm lies in its potential to generate unpredictable forms within rational rules. This characteristic enables the controlled production of randomness and variation. In this way, the defined and symmetrical structure of the motif is reinterpreted through the organic and continuously evolving forms offered by the algorithm. Parametric modeling allows the production of multiple variations from the same input; intuitive decisions are comparatively tested among these variations, leading to a process grounded not in a singular design outcome but in a network of multiple possibilities.
The fundamental idea behind this installation is to render visible—both conceptually and physically—the creative partnership established between the architect and the digital environment. The language, materials, and techniques employed are not merely tools representing this collaboration; they are, in themselves, expressions of this togetherness. In the production of the installation, three-dimensional printing is used to make the coexistence of the architect and the digital environment tangible on a physical level. The mode of representation—what is familiar (the traditional motif)—is transformed through its encounter with the digital; it is reshaped not by losing its meaning, but by acquiring new layers of meaning. The preference for contemporary production technologies such as plexiglass and 3D printing constitutes the material manifestation of this transformation.
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