25 January 2020
Istanbul, Turkey
The dedicated aim of the first workshop of Working Group 1 (WG1) was to develop a shared repertoire in order to launch the period of the 4-year collaborative work. To develop the possible circulation of strategies and practices of urban placemaking and digitization and to further progress the networking regarding the specific focus of WG1, the meeting had two broad objectives:
- Introducing the issues, concepts and cases with regard to the focus of WG1.
- Discussing the common lines of current work by the working group members and developing a work plan.
Friday morning session consisted of short presentations by each participant, introducing their interests and their cases in and relating them to the focus of WG1. The afternoon session was devoted to the discussion of future plans and strategies for the group. The program included a field trip to Beyoglu district on Saturday, further expanding the various contextualisations and contestations with regard to placemaking in the urban center. The meeting also involved a public talk organized in collaboration with Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. In this artist talk, Osman Bozkurt and Didem Özbek discussed their work concentrating on placemaking in the urban context.
The meeting made it possible to get acquainted with the different terminologies and methodologies of various disciplinary backgrounds of group members and to find frame for transdisciplinary research. The group decided to establish a platform for internal communications with different channels, to develop and disseminate the case studies of each participant and allocated various tasks to members, including further research on grants, digital tools and resources.
