Architecture Between Craft and Computation
This project is a research-by-design proposal that approaches architecture not merely as the production of objects, but as a field of inquiry in which knowledge, craftsmanship, and technology are transformed together. Rather than treating tectonics as a fixed construction language, the study aims to redefine it through computational thinking, digital fabrication, and human–machine collaboration. This approach is directly related to modes of production that reinterpret traditional materials through digital design and robotic manufacturing. The project focuses on where tectonic knowledge is produced and how it is transmitted. In traditional architecture, tectonics is shaped by the craftsman’s embodied knowledge, material resistance, and local building culture; in this project, tectonic knowledge is expanded through parametric models, performance simulations, and fabrication data. However, this expansion does not propose an automation that replaces craftsmanship. Within this context, the project addresses digital tectonics not as a formal aesthetic, but as a mode of thinking intrinsically linked to production. Material selection—stone, brick, iron, or wood—is not merely a contextual reference, but a set of “data carriers” that can be redefined within the digital environment. While proposing digital craftsmanship as a new layer within the context of Mardin, the project aims to preserve and render visible the knowledge of local craftsmen. Digital tools are not considered a “foreign” intervention here; rather, they are approached as a practice that evolves together with local production culture, and that is learnable and capable of localization. Ultimately, this study establishes the reinterpretation of traditional materials and construction methods in the digital age as a field of research that encompasses both the material and cognitive dimensions of tectonics. In this project, architecture is neither a nostalgic practice of preservation nor a technology-centered spectacle. Instead, architecture is redefined as a productive interface established between craft and algorithm, hand and data, local knowledge and global technology.
VISITOR CENTER DESIGN CONCEPT
The Visitor Center considers the moment of arrival at Dereiçi as a threshold. This building is not the first gate through which one enters the village; rather, it represents a contemporary intensification of the village’s already existing circulation logic. The structure is conceived as a cellular system based on Mardin’s traditional 4×4×4 meter spatial modulation. Rather than forming a singular building object, these modules come together to create a spatial fabric that generates public voids, passages, and semi-open spaces.
Abbara at Ground Level: A Public Passage
The most critical spatial decision of the project is made at the ground level. Here, the abbara—which in Mardin’s traditional architecture connects streets and functions as the shaded backbone of everyday life—is reinterpreted as a contemporary public space. Instead of a closed lobby, the ground floor of the Visitor Center is designed as a continuous passage that can be entered from multiple directions.
This abbara is not merely a circulation route; it is a public interior street intersecting with paths coming from the village, the routes of the open-air museum, and the programmatic units of the Visitor Center. Cool during the day and filled with light in the late afternoon, this space becomes a place where people pause, wait, and encounter one another. The abbara begins before the museum’s ticket office; thus, the museum experience emerges not from a closed threshold, but from a public circulation space.
OPEN-AIR MUSEUM DESIGN CONCEPT
Dereiçi is not merely a settlement composed of abandoned structures; it is a multilayered landscape where everyday life, modes of production, and collective memory have left traces in stone, earth, and void. This project does not aim to restore or complete the village, but rather to transform the existing remains into an open-air narrative. The Open-Air Museum is conceived as the spatial interface of this narrative.
The proposed museography consists of continuous yet multiple routes that transform wandering through the village into an exhibition experience. Rather than following a linear path, these routes offer choices to the visitor; they are conceived as spatial sections that at times rise, at times narrow, and at times pass through, over, or within the voids of structures. Here, the path is not merely a connective element, but a trajectory—a spatial narrator.
All interventions of the Open-Air Museum are realized through corten steel and iron structures that evoke Mardin’s traditional architectural elements while employing a contemporary language. These structures are produced through the digital reinterpretation of geometries derived from local architectural references such as flat roofs (dam) and selsebilli eyvans. While iron represents the new in this context, it gradually rusts and undergoes an aging process similar to stone, thereby becoming part of the landscape.
The Open-Air Museum is organized around thematic stops that represent the village’s past everyday life practices. Spaces such as the laundry, dairy, vineyard house, and tandır are reread through installations placed within existing structures with minimal intervention. These spaces are approached not as proposals for functional reuse, but as spatial representations of rituals. The aim is for the visitor to move beyond being a mere “spectator” and become a witness encountering the traces of everyday life.
At certain points, the path widens and transforms into observation terraces, projection areas, and stepped seating arrangements. These spaces are used for nighttime film screenings, oral history narratives, and performative events. In this way, the open-air museum becomes not only a space experienced during the day, but a living stage that transforms over time.
Observation towers and platforms are designed not to impose a new hierarchy onto the village silhouette, but as temporary vantage points that enable a rereading of the existing topography. Meditation platforms, on the other hand, are defined more by void than by structure, transforming silence and landscape into experiential elements.
Rather than producing a singular architectural object, this open-air museum operates as an open system composed of paths, structures, installations, and voids. The system does not present a finished final product; instead, it proposes a framework open to change, addition, and reinterpretation over time.
Ultimately, the project rethinks Dereiçi not as a “ghost village” frozen in time, but as a living open-air exhibition that brings together the aesthetics of decay, the knowledge of production, and the narrative tools of the digital age. The Open-Air Museum here is not a showcase representing the past, but an interface where past and present are jointly produced.
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