Fluid frontiers: Mapping the visible and invisible spatial traces of conflict and care in the Aegean Sea

This thesis reconsiders the Aegean Sea and its waterscape between Türkiye's western coast and the eastern islands of Greece within the context of political, geographical, and social transformations that took place between 1923 and 2023, through the representational forms and research tools of architecture. In this study, the border is not treated as a fixed and linear division, but as a multilayered spatial condition shaped by historical events, everyday practices, and relations of mutual dependency. The thesis invites a rethinking of the notion of care within the architectural discipline, not only through intervention or design, but also through spatial tracing, constructing narratives, and producing visual representations. Care is approached as a spatial mode of relation that encompasses not only human needs but also attentiveness and commitment to geographical, ecological, and cultural continuity. In this context, architectural care practices are understood not as the physical production of structures but as means to render the concealed visible, to bear witness, to foster solidarity, and to recontextualize what remains unspoken or overlooked. Critical cartography is adopted as a representational strategy that shapes the methodological framework of the research, suggesting that the border can be interpreted not only as a site of political division but also as a zone of encounter and commonality. The maps produced aim not only to represent what is present, but also to uncover what has been suppressed or marginalized; they consider vulnerabilities, silences, and absences as representational spaces for their own right. Accordingly, the study examines the spatial consequences of contemporary irregular migration, ecological discontinuities, and the enduring injustices rooted in the post-exchange period by developing a layered mapping practice that reveals spatial operations, including displacement, misplacement, and replacement. In doing so, it proposes an alternative spatial reading of the border region that expands the representational capacities of architecture and rethinks the disciplinary boundaries that shape its engagement with contested territories.