Considering Sidewalls as an Architectural Ground: Parasitic Architecture Approaches in Design Studio

Approaches mimicking nature constitute a biopolitical specific area in architecture. Today, what is called parasitic architecture is also accepted as one of these biopolitical approaches. Parasitic architecture follows the path of parasitism in nature in terms of biomimicry. And parasitism is accepted as one of the symbiotic lifeforms, others being commensalism and mutualism. They all consist of the biological relationship between distinct organisms where parasitism specially defines duality between a harming parasite and a vulnerable host. Talking in architectural terms, here the parasitism defines an additional structure that can only exist via clinging to a preexisting one. These clinging mechanisms or reflexes can be listed as “sticking”, “climbing”, “holding”, “fixing”, etc. This study aims to evaluate the architectural parasitism phenomena as a case study for the design studio. As known, the design studio is the backbone of architectural education, which is carried on with unique themes each semester. Hence, such a theme was programmed in İstanbul Topkapı University, Interior Architecture and Environmental Design department in the 2021-2022 Spring Semester, to handle the surrounding idle walls in an ad hoc way as hosting structures for parasitic design ideas of the students. As a result of the works, the idle walls were converted into fruitful public backgrounds for creating a large variety of design ideas with distinct functions and structures as well.