The City as Design Agency: Integrating Design Thinking with the Political Form of Architecture

Abstract

This study investigates the political dimension of architecture and urban design, focusing on their potential to act as instruments of critical resistance within contemporary governance structures. The research problem centers on the tendency of architects and planners to operate within neoliberal frameworks, which reduces design to a technical and managerial function, limiting its capacity to foster solidarity, social justice, and environmental responsibility. In response, this study examines how design agencies -emerging institutional actors in urban governance- can reposition architecture as a form of political action rather than merely delivering projects. To address this problem, the study hypothesizes that architectural and urban design practices must be reframed through principles of ethics, solidarity, and social repair. It argues that design agencies can develop transformative models that prioritize public benefit and spatial quality, thereby challenging the homogenizing logic of neoliberal urbanization. Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative and comparative approach, analyzing global examples of design agencies to examine the relationship between spatial form production and modes of political representation. The theoretical framework draws on Ungers’s “City within the City” and Pier Vittorio Aureli’s notion of “absolute architecture.” These theories provide a lens for understanding how formal autonomy and antagonistic resistance can be institutionalized through design agencies. Ultimately, the study interprets these agencies not as administrative instruments but as urban apparatuses capable of generating political consciousness through spatial form.

Keywords

• Absolute Architecture
• Design Agency
• Design Thinking
• Dialectic City
• Urban Design.

Tasarım Ajansı Olarak Kent: Tasarım Düşüncesini Mimarlığın Politik Biçimiyle Bütünleştirmek

Abstract

Bu çalışma, mimarlık ve kentsel tasarımın politik doğasını, Ungers’in “tipo-morfolojik” yaklaşımları ve Aureli’nin “mutlak mimarlık” kavramları çerçevesinde yeniden düşünerek analiz etmektedir. Çalışma, tasarım ajanslarının, Ungers’in rasyonel biçimsel sistem anlayışı ile Aureli’nin kentsel antagonizma ve özerklik teorilerini uzlaştırarak, çağdaş kentte mimarlığın kamusal ve eleştirel rolünü yeniden tanımlayabileceğini iddia etmektedir. Bu çalışma, kent planlama ve mekânsal yönetim alanlarında mimarların ve planlamacıların genellikle neoliberal kural setleri içinde çalışmasının tasarımın dayanışma, toplumsal adalet ve çevresel duyarlılık üretme potansiyelini sınırladığını savunmaktadır. Mimarlık giderek araçsallaştırılmış teknik proje üretim ortamı haline gelmişken, bu çalışma mimarlığın tasarım ajansları ile radikal bir politik eylem biçimi olabileceğini savunmaktadır. Araştırmanın hipotezi, mimarlık ve kentsel tasarım pratiklerinin etik, dayanışma ve toplumsal onarım kavramlarıyla yeniden düşünülmesi gerektiği ve kentsel tasarım alanında özerk fakat kamusal sorumluluk taşıyan tasarım ajanslarının neoliberal sınırlara karşı kamusal faydayı ve mekânsal niteliği önceleyen bir dönüşüm modeli geliştirebileceğidir. Bu çalışma, uluslararası literatür taramasıyla birlikte dünya genelindeki tasarım ajanslarının mekânsal biçim üretimi ile politik temsil biçimleri arasındaki ilişkiyi karşılaştırmalı olarak ele almaktadır. Yöntem olarak niteliksel analiz ve karşılaştırmalı analiz benimsenmiştir. Kuramsal çerçeve Ungers’in “City within the City” metninin analizlerinden ve Aureli’nin “The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture”metninden türetilmiştir. Sonuçta çalışma, tasarım ajanslarını yalnızca yönetimsel araçlar değil, mekânsal biçim aracılığıyla politik bilinç üreten çağdaş kent aygıtları olarak yorumlamaktadır.

Keywords

• Diyalektik Kent
• Kentsel Tasarım
• Mutlak Mimarlık
• Tasarım Ajansı
• Tasarım Düşüncesi

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