Family photos and architectural representation: Using photo-collage sketchbook to understand behaviour patterns in family apartment buildings

This article presents a three-step process of collecting, deconstructing and reconstructing family photos in ethnographic research investigating the sociocultural aspects of behaviour patterns in family apartment buildings. The first author conducted the study for her Ph.D. thesis in architectural design, supervised by the second and third authors. As an architect, the first author created a photo collage sketchbook, combining various representational techniques of her profession with family photographs. While observing the family apartment building and trying to understand the “gecekondu” where the participants lived before the family apartment building, the researcher realised that the interviews were insufficient, and this problem forced the use of a photo collage sketchbook. To synthesise ethnographic knowledge, research started with obtaining family photos. After extracting and grouping, the deconstruction process began. Deconstructed layers are then reconstructed by using various architectural representation techniques and text. This photo collage sketchbook has helped us understand various aspects of the family apartment buildings related to architecture and culture. While doing this, the sketchbook prepared with visual contents combined with short notes represents the data collecting, organising, analysing, interpretation, knowledge-making, and presentation stages. In working with a photo collage sketchbook, obtaining family photographs and overlapping the photographs and interviews’ narratives appear challenging. Therefore, collective interviews have been a critical move to compare and verify the memories recalled by the participants. While interviewing, it is vital to show the photos to every participant from a particular age group because they contribute differently to the photo components because of the place experience. So, this study is not about a set of instructions or tools but experiences about the process or approach to constructing ethnographic knowledge.