IN-PERSON ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Contemporary urban housing increasingly accommodates creative practices such as music rehearsal and digital content production. Across many global contexts, these activities now occur predominantly within compact dwellings under rental or non‑permanent tenure, where fixed spatial modification is constrained. Within this condition, acoustic drumming represents a particularly contested domestic practice: an embodied cultural activity grounded in resonance, vibration, and spatial response that cannot be fully substituted by electronic instruments, yet one that often conflicts with shared acoustic comfort in dense residential environments. Historically, domestic interiors were more spatially permissive, allowing musical practice to be absorbed within the home. As contemporary housing contracts, this relationship destabilizes, requiring new forms of spatial negotiation. Responding to this condition, this paper proposes a transportable, modular micro‑acoustic interior: a reconfigurable, non‑permanent sound compartment designed for seated acoustic drum practice within residential settings. Conceived as a room‑within‑a‑room system, the enclosure can be assembled during practice sessions and compacted or repositioned when not in use, allowing everyday domestic activities to resume without permanent spatial loss. The study advances three perspectives: reversible interior adaptation without fixed alteration, modular reuse as a sustainable design strategy, and sound as a spatial and cultural parameter mediating creative practice and domestic coexistence. Using a research‑through‑design methodology, the study combines contextual analysis, prototype development, comparative sound pressure level measurements, and qualitative evaluation of usability and spatial endurance. Rather than presenting a finalized acoustic solution, the paper contributes a design framework for reconfigurable micro‑acoustic interiors supporting cultural practices within compact urban housing.