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TOBI (Toplu Bostan Idaresi)Kitchen garden Development Administration Project by Sinan Logie and Saadet Sezer


“The truth is more important than the facts’’ Frank Lloyd Wright


TOBI hacking the void in between TOKI


TOBI (Toplu Bostan Idaresi)Kitchen garden Development Administration

With the impulse of Urban Renewal projects in Turkey, more and more Gecekondu settlements (informal construction neighborhoods) have been demolished and their inhabitants, when they had the economical power to support, have been relocated into TOKI buildings (TOKI=Social housing development administration).

These operations made in the name of progress are, unfortunately, social disasters in many ways: Expulsion of the lower income families to the outskirts of the Cities, cutting them from their original economical networks and in some cases cutting them the possibility to sustain themselves via Kitchen gardens, which are very commonly used in Gecekondu areas.


Kayasehir (Istanbul) as seen from the West Side


A Byzantine tradition

Historic documents are showing us that urban farming is an old tradition in Istanbul. Already in the 4th Century A.D., the area between the Constantine Wall and the Theodosius Wall was dedicated to Military zones and large kitchen gardens, guarantying to sustain the inhabitants during the long sieges that the City was facing.

These areas kept their agricultural function during the Ottoman period, as shown by Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi’s map, tracing the Historical Peninsula’s state during the 19th Century.

Walking around Yedikule and Samatya, nowadays, is allowing us to witness the perpetuation of this tradition, by Anatolian migrants in Istanbul. An important amount of families are sustaining their selves cultivating those historic lands, and selling their products in the central market places of the City, for decades, long time before urban farming became a trendy vision in western cities.


Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi’s map of the Historical Peninsula during Ottoman period, showing the Kitchen Garden areas


Unfortunately, these historical kitchen gardens are under the pressure of real estate developments and other low quality landscaping projects led by Municipalities.

In fact, summer 2013 was marked by the destruction of one of those ‘’Bostan’’ (Kitchen garden in Turkish and Arabic) filled by a ridiculous landscaping project commissioned by Fatih Municipality Mayor, pushing urban farmers towards an uncertain future.


Summer 2013 - Kitchen Gardens facing the Theodosius wall under process of destruction


Hacking the void

The TOBI project is a Guerrilla farming project, to be developed within the Kayasehir TOKI settlement on the west side of Istanbul’s edges.


Kayasehir aerial view of the test zone


This area already housing 300.000 inhabitants has a master plan envisioning a final 1.500.000 people in TOKI towers, on this part of the city, surrounded by mega projects like: Kanal Istanbul, the Olympic stadium and ancient functions such as farming, military zones and Industry.


100sqm of Kitchen Garden can feed two persons a year


The particularity of TOKI housings such as Kayasehir is of course poor architecture but also an undefined void, called ‘’green space’’, creating an inapropriable space, where inhabitants can’t connect to each other.


Kayasehir aerial view of Kitchen Garden pattern


TOBI envisions the reuse of rain water and grey water in order to sustain the kitchen gardens and the more and more problematic water issues of Istanbul


Water strategy for TOBI


TOBI aims to offer a piece of recreational land to each family in an organic pattern where a new way of Urban farming and socialization can led to new economical nodes and relationships.


A saturday afternoon in TOBI


Check out more urban utopias to come on: http://sinan-logie.blogspot.com/p/the-book-of-transformations.html

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Documents

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bostan kitchen garden

historical kitchen gardens

urban farming

large kitchen gardens

urban farmers

ottoman period

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