FOREWORD

 

fac.to.tum i.[Lat. fac totum, the doer of everything; fac, from facere meaning to do, and totum, from totus meaning everything, all] A person who does all the unqualified work that needs to be done in a job, butler, footman.

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It is also the title of Charles Bukowski's book. The book recounts ten years of his teenage years taking up his cardboard suitcase and taking countless second- and even-third-rate jobs to cover board rent and liquor. With Bukowski's impressive and plain style, we can see the life of 3.5 million seasonal agricultural workers in Turkey, regardless of male-female, old-young, Turkish-Kurdish-Syrian-Roma. A thousand sighs are no longer heard when one is asked. The lives shaped by the spiral of helplessness, poverty, poverty, debt have one-word answers to a question and return to work.

 

 

The internal migration created by the conflicts in the southeast of Turkey (which is defined as the war by the workers who migrated from there) has created a gap for seasonal agricultural workers. Workers living in their tents on the periphery of the fields have also become permanent rather than seasonal and temporary. Workers excluded from the surrounding neighborhoods, this time, try to hold on to life in the cross sections of the fields and village neighborhoods. The regions where seasonal agricultural workers go are deprived of healthy shelter, clean water, adequate food and necessary hygiene conditions. The weakening of the agricultural structure and the change in the product price system in Turkey make it impossible for the producers and agricultural workers to come to a better position than they are in. Seasonal agricultural workers, who cannot vote during the election, naturally cannot receive any help from the municipalities of the places where they live. In order to break the vicious circle they are in, they are fighting to continue their lives with all the risks in the inhumane and inhumane conditions brought by these working conditions, where the whole family, child-adult, woman-man, works together.

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DATA

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When we look at Turkey in general, two provinces attract attention among the provinces that attract seasonal worker migration. The first of these is Malatya with 50.000 people and Adana with 45.000 people. Adana province, where greenhouse vegetable growing, pepper and cotton are intensively made, was chosen for the location of the project.

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The average household size in the "nuclear family" structure, which is the most common family structure, is about 8. While the average household size is 10 in the "vertical extended family" structure with grandparents, it is 9 in the "horizontal extended family" structure. Even in the "incomplete family" structure without one of the parents, the average household size is 4.6. Therefore, the population that we can analyze as children constitutes 52 percent of the total population of the households interviewed. The average age of the people living in the households is 22, so we can say that we are talking about a young population.

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The main age concentration is 25 years and under. The ratio of the population under the age of 25 to the total population is 68 percent for both men and women.

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Material deprivation forces all families, including children, to work as mobile and temporary workers in agriculture, mostly under inhumane conditions, but the existing conditions are not enough to break the vicious circle of poverty and debt, even if they work more than 11 hours 7 days a week. According to the data, 65% of the families interviewed have debt. Seasonal agricultural worker families usually solve their housing problems with their own savannah, plastic cover or tent made of cloth.

 

In very rare cases, the employer can provide accommodation for workers. It is rarely seen that workers rent houses in the regions they go to; however, local people are generally not willing to rent houses to foreigners. In some regions, there are METIP camps with a maximum capacity of 1000 people established by the state. The average size of the tents, which is the most common form of accommodation, is around 16 m2 and 7 people, in other words, a single family live on average. The 9 percent of people who say that they live in houses live in an average of 9 square meters, so it can be said that while these people stay at home, they use only one or a few rooms of the house and share the space with other families. The width per person is around 2 m2 in all accommodation spaces.

 

As in the example of Adana, they must constantly carry water for cooking, washing, washing dishes and laundry. Families that do not have a portable hose are required to carry water in drums from a distance of 20-50 meters; Since the fountain is not enough for everyone, there are long lines at the fountain. Some women also explained that their children's illnesses were related to water. The average distance of seasonal agricultural worker households to drinking water is more than 100 meters. This figure is 112 meters among those living in tents, and the average distance of those living in prefabricated houses is around 80 meters.

 

The most commonly used bathroom is the family bathroom next to the tent with 56%. 11% said that they use a shared bathroom, but the majority of these households reside at home, so they share the bathroom with other families in the house where they use one or more rooms. The rate of those who use the bathroom provided by the state is 9%. 21% use other bathroom facilities. Among the other bathroom facilities, the most common is that families use their tent as a bathroom. Families take a bath in a large tub-like bowl in the tent with water that they heat outside.

 

The fact that the dates of leaving home come when the schools are open and the return is after the schools are opened is an important reason for the high dropout rates we mentioned before.

 

The absence of electricity is a factor that makes life very difficult in many respects. Most of the time, illegally drawn electricity is cut off as in Adana Doğankent. Again, it is not possible to charge phones, as a 14-year-old girl in Adana reported: "My brother got up and took the phones to the city to charge them."

 

Seasonal agricultural workers work more than 9 hours a day, and they work almost every day of the week. Nearly 70 percent of the interviewees work 7 days a week, while 24 percent work 5-6 days.

 

In the field, a discrimination can be observed in seasonal agriculture, which is reflected in the wages of workers who migrate from other provinces. However, in addition to this, some prejudices and social exclusion practices were observed between families of Arab origin and Kurdish origin, between families of Roman origin and families of Kurdish origin, and for all these different groups. Most of the Syrian workers were found in Adana. Çukurova emerges as a more accessible destination for most Syrian workers, as it is close to Syria and has easier communication networks, and workers are needed almost every time of the year.

 

LIFE AT THE CHANNEL - FIELDS - VILLAGE INTERCEPT

 

Hundreds of kilometers of canals connecting the geometric patterns of vast fields define the region between the south of Adana and the Mediterranean coastline. It is artificial, but its dimensional supremacy overwhelms the lives around it. It is so dominant that villages and tents of seasonal agricultural workers are lined up along the canals. Although dominant, channels are also ruthless. Drowning events curb daily life. The location of the neighborhood design is exactly the place between these fields and the canal coastline passing through the village of Karagöçer. The tents are already dry in the area measuring 60*420 meters, and the construction in this narrow area is like a symbol of exclusion, marginalization and out of place. The form is also holistic with its circular shape and gains meaning with the totus. The circular units can be articulated as needed and extend in an axial direction along the channel. In the Çavuşlu village (neighbourhood), which we come across along the canal after Karagöçer village, the seasonal workers' quarter can be built with this system.

 

SUSTAINABILITY – DAILY FLOW – MAKE-UP

 

The aim of the buildings to be designed for seasonal agricultural workers is to make those living there feel sociologically belonging to the fields or neighborhoods they work in. As a sustainable design, the project was designed on 3 main factors [ecological-economic-sociological]. In order to exist ecologically, socially and economically, it is envisaged that various structural units will be formed in the project area in the context of linear circular masses. These units can be broadly classified as housing, socialization, energy production and infrastructure. A people-building group that is self-sufficient, accumulates surplus and takes its own decisions and takes the lead to act as an independent community defines the neighborhood. It is aimed to ensure and spread this unity along the channel prospectively.

 

A working day of seasonal agricultural workers starts at 5:30 – 6:00 in the morning. The neighborhood is divided into 6 square units of 60*60 meters. Inside each of these units are circular structures with a radius of 29 meters. Workers leave the housing units and cross the bridge to the fields where they will spend their days. Evenings are spent by the canal or socializing in the circular building block. In line with the relations established with the neighborhood from outside, volunteers work these fields when requested, reducing the burden of agricultural workers and creating the chance to meet them in a social environment. Thus, the neighborhood ceases to be a closed living space of a certain mass. The 17-meter-wide transportation axis, consisting of pedestrian, vehicle and bicycle paths passing through the blocks, connects the circular structures at ground level.

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At first glance, reeds and rugs are striking, but a forward-looking modern interpretation has been sought. Tent forms and their derivatives are considered together. In order for the tent to show itself in the new design, the roofs and the openings in certain parts are covered with reed elements. Rugs and carpets are the most important elements that define the space on the floor.

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FACTOTUM NEIGHBORHOOD & THE FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASS

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At the end of the 19th century, they learned to see themselves as a single working class, and to see this fact as the most important factor in their situation in society, in developed countries rather than homogeneous communities. They belonged overwhelmingly to a community of poor and economically insecure people. Their achievements and expectations from life were modest and below the expectations of the middle class. They unite in huge numbers under the umbrella of social discrimination. Finally, their lives were united under the main element of unity: the supremacy of 'We' over 'I'. The social equivalent of this unification was embodied by the working class living their lives mostly in public spaces. Because private areas were not enough.

 

With the Factotum neighborhood design, a balance between public and private spaces was tried to be established and a campus that pioneered today's modern working class was designed. Integrity is ensured by the circular form of 6 units, and at the same time, it is aimed that each unit has enough private space within itself. In the future, this type of campus may be established in other places with these units. The combinations obtained as structural settlements by combining different units are rich. Building blocks can change numbers by function as needed. Bad medical conditions and lack of education can be prevented by placing more than one health education block. The neighborhood, as a sub-unit of the society, has a design that can improve the public with its flexible solutions.