Architecture was once shaped by government investments in public spaces, defining the identity of cities and nations. Today, it is largely dictated by corporate interests and capitalist dynamics, reducing architects to service providers in a market where profit drives decisions more than public benefit. In the 21st century, some architects have become mass producers of fashionable yet disposable designs, much like the clothing brands that dominate malls, while others remain as tailors, crafting highly specific and thoughtful work. As artificial intelligence begins to absorb the repetitive tasks of drafting and design production, the future of architecture will belong to those who engage critically, think independently, and expand their role beyond traditional commissions.
Architects today face instability and diminishing influence. The work we produce is often visually striking and widely shared, yet there is little reward or meaningful critique. Architecture remains distant from the public—rarely discussed with the same confidence as music, sports, or film. People live in buildings and navigate urban spaces daily, yet their vocabulary to critique them is severely limited. Responses are often reduced to clichés: “It looks like a UFO,” or “It doesn’t fit its surroundings.” Meanwhile, other creative industries—film, music, sports—are financially compensated for engaging with public interest, while architecture, despite its vast production, is frequently archived, rejected, or left unrealized.
Uncommissioned work is an alternative. It is independent, self-initiated, and strategic—an approach to architecture that exists outside of the conventional client-architect relationship. With the accessibility of advanced rendering software, digital platforms, and rapid prototyping, architects no longer need permission to share ideas, provoke discussion, and infiltrate the public imagination. Uncommissioned work is not simply about speculative proposals; it is about finding ways to insert architectural ideas into mainstream discourse, influencing urban decisions before they are made, and ensuring that architecture remains a cultural force.
In this landscape, Forensic Studies on Istanbul emerges—not as a strategy, not as a manifesto, but as an instinctive response. It is less a defined practice than a reactionary mode, an architectural investigation into the transgressions of the city. It does not operate within the framework of permissions or approvals but instead reveals, dissects, and reframes. It does not construct buildings; it constructs evidence.
Forensic Studies on Istanbul is not about building per se. It is about exposing architecture—in its broadest sense—by exploiting every tool, medium, and moment available. Architects, armed with democratized technologies, can now operate like investigators: mapping urban anomalies, extracting overlooked patterns, and wielding ideas with precision. Renderings become signals. Models become artifacts. The unbuilt acquires permanence in its very refusal to conform to conventional processes.
This is architecture as evidence. Architecture as a whisper—or a testimony—that amplifies itself through circulation. Forensic Studies on Istanbul thrives in the tension between the physical and the speculative, tapping into the cultural subconscious, challenging expectations, and compelling the public to reconsider their assumptions about the built environment—whether through revelation or provocation.
There is no manifesto for Forensic Studies because it rejects the notion of permanence. It exists in flux—equal parts analysis, satire, and speculation. It is architecture that survives on its accuracy, not its weight; its ability to interrogate, not its ability to stand. It operates laterally, aligned not against power but alongside it, exposing the ambitions of publics, investors, and politicians alike. Its projects may critique the city, but they also seduce it, offering glimpses of futures both possible and impossible.
Forensic Studies on Istanbul does not seek permanence, yet it lingers. Like the Tower of Babel, it inhabits the collective memory, as though you’ve walked through its corridors, felt its weight, without ever setting foot in it. Yet unlike such monumental myths, Forensic Studies is rarely grand or important—it is often insignificant, modest. Still, it endures through the same methods: embedding itself in the subconscious, provoking thought, and inviting speculation.
Architects produce drawings, images, and models—artifacts of precision measured in millimeters. Yet these representations are never fully realized in the physical world. Construction, with its tolerances and compromises, alters the architect’s intent, transforming it into something imprecise, something other. The building, then, is not the architect’s product but an approximation of it. If the building is not truly the product of architecture, as commonly assumed, what is? Forensic Studies embraces this ambiguity, existing not in the final form but in the processes, provocations, and spatial manipulations that ripple beyond the material.
Like the Japanese rebuilding their shrine every twenty years, transience is embraced not as a flaw but as an inherent quality of the architectural product—the building. Forensic Studies learns from this acceptance, understanding that permanence is not in materials but in memory, in the way ideas infiltrate culture. In a world obsessed with preserving the past out of paranoia, it asks: what happens when we accept that nothing lasts?
In a landscape where anyone can claim a piece of architecture through modular systems, prefabrication, or speculative prompts, Forensic Studies on Istanbul explores what remains. Can a single image ripple through the public subconscious, shifting opinions without explanation? Could a model, stripped of its context, incite longing for a new typology—or sit forgotten on a shelf as an artifact of another failed experiment? Could it disgust, provoke, and seduce simultaneously? And might an unbuilt project—humble, temporary—leave a greater imprint than something monumental?
Uncommissioned is a call to action. It is about reclaiming the architect’s influence by operating independently, speaking directly to the public, and inserting architectural ideas into conversations that shape our cities. The future of architecture lies in our ability to innovate outside conventional systems, provoke discourse, and redefine the relationship between architecture and the world.
