Final Jury (Harsh) Review

The final jury of Arch301 Culinary Center in Gaziantep project had come to an end. The process that started with initial ideas with group work, continued as individual projects. After the main initial ideas were inserted into the project as the main concepts, the studies for facade articulations, landscape arrangements, and technical requirements were fulfilled and problems were solved in the lights of critiques.

The main approaches that the culinary center project settles within were based on the conceptualized initial ideas. As an overall project, it was all affected by the features of the existing context of the site. Meaning that the locations of program functions were determined in accordance with the functions scattered around the site. In order to be able to determine the possible locations of the masses or the blocks of different functions, the functions were tried to be matched and similarized with the existing functions. The kitchen lab was matched with the function of sewing ateliers since they meet at the point that they both include the activity of providing and serving to the other functions surrounding them. The accommodation function was matched with the dwelling function of İmam House. The Auditorium function was similar to the function of the Hacı Nasır Mosque since the activities of public gathering and spending a specific time and then leaving together were highly parallel with the one of the auditorium. And clearly, the dining hall was located considering the distribution of food restaurants around the site. The shops were located and arranged in a way that they will support the general flow of the main axis that is intentionally designed in the site. In the upper level, the education part was connected to two different parts which are kitchen lab and auditorium.

The main idea of the project was to create the existing urban fabric and its patterns on a smaller scale in the defined site. So the project was going to include a smaller fabric of the whole historic area. So it was determined from the beginning that the project was not going to be a small mass, but a group of masses in comply with the surrounding fabric. In order to insert the main features of the circulation network of the area to the project, the circulation components were categorized into 3 as main axes, secondary roads, and dead ends. While the main axes were clearly and recognizably designed in the site in a way that they will provide a continuation between existing roads, dead ends were benefited for creating entrances for different blocks. The other pre-existing connection road that comes from the courtyard of the Hacı Nasır Mosque was kept and connected to the newly-created main axis. The secondary roads were tried to be expressed by the interconnectedness of masses and their volumetric flow into each other.

Both the main axis and the mass articulations decisions were connected with the referenced alignments and angles of the existing roads.

In order to highlight the existence of different volumes of different functions in the level of mass articulation parapet-like extensions of the inner walls were reflected intentionally on the flat roofs. It was also mentioned that some of the roof articulations may fall into the category of overdesign, especially the ones on the roof of the accommodation block. (The block which is located at the north-east side of the site).

The free public space that was initially left in the north-east part of the site matched itself with the courtyard of Şeker Khan and contributes to the flexible flow, to the definition of the entrance and to the aim of directing people to Şeker Khan.

As an overall concept and appearance of the project in the context area it was found successful by the jury members. The connections and the sensitivity of the contextual inputs were highly evaluated and used in the design. However one of the most reasonable critiques was the notification of the requirement for the separate and intentional design of the parts where the different masses touch each other. So the further explanation was “You can not just glue these masses to each other without designing the interaction surfaces, volumes, masses, and facades of them.” ” Bu kütleleri böyle pat diye yan yana koyup birbirine yapıştıramazsın, etkileşimin ve birleşim kısımlarının bilinçli olarak atasarlanması gerek.” in Turkish. So, even if the passive interactions of different buildings to each other in the area were just putting them side by side the truth was that they were poorly designed or even undesigned. So the urban contextual dominism on the project was somehow disproportionate by considering the basic design principles.

Blue triangles: Entrances to the site / Yellow triangles: Entrances of different parts

The other suggestive critique and also a missed opportunity was providing the entrance of the auditorium part directly from the Hacı Nasır Mosque’s courtyard. The idea was not to disturb the people while they are in a religious environment. However, by proposing such an entrance would provide the project to achieve another level of flow and contextuality. The foyer area of the auditorium block would be matching with the son cemaat yeri of the mosque. The repetitive columns of these two complementary spaces would create the sense of being a very natural extension of the mosque in spatial manners. The proposed entrance point id denoted with the red triangle in the plan above.

The jury stated that the facades would be better if I had enough time to study them (Yeah, exactly, thank you). But it was also mentioned that there is a balanced openness/opaqueness proportion that based on the functions.

Library In Reference Prejury I

After we had many panel discussions on quotation, the way we quote buildings, referencing and implications of them, the studio was ready to the first preliminary jury. Additionaly we were introduced three different sites without any kind of information than topography lines.

Basically there were three different references which are Seattle Central Library, The Sir Duncan Rice Library and Aloni House. The quality that I chose from The Seattle Library was the shifting platforms of different programs inside and the reflections of this operation in the outer facade as a strict, mass-like and changing surface. The facade articulation of the whole building is based on the function-aimed inner operations.

In The Sir Duncan Rice Library there was an atrium implication different than the ones with ordinary atriums. The atrium was not stable; its shape, location and rotation was changing in each floor. The amorphous shape of ethe atrium is shifted from a bottom edge to an upper one and creates an uninterrupted view through all the floors. The atrium is flexible, able to provide rich visual relationships and floor organisations for each floor.

The combination between these qualities were dteremined and tried by asking “What if?” questions. The first proposal was to imply the atrium idea of The Sir Duncan Rice Library to the shifting platforms and facade articulation of The Seattle Central Library. The second alternative was to do opposite.

In the proposal, the whole building was interpreted as the atrium of The Sir Duncan Rice Library. The floor shapes are amorphous and are shifted and rotated in the horizontal axis. That creates spaces with different qualities in each floor. The atrium was designed by referencing to The Seatte Central Library and has mass-ive qualities. The atrium voids in each floor were connected and closed with a semi transparent glass in order to provide continuous visual relationships in the floors. The vertical circulation system is attached to and organized considering the behavior of the atrium. Briefly, we see a small scale Setlle Central Library placed inside the atrium of The Sir Duncan Rice Library, flexibility in the outer, sharpness in the inside.

At the entrance level the idea of creating a continuous street through the building tried to be applied. But the relationship of the building need to be improved and studied more, the jury said. Since the level of individuality increases from the entrance level to the upper levels, the flexible skin of the building needed to be controlled well ina way that it will create vertical relations in the lower levels and will limit that in the upper floors. Also the structural system of the proposal need to be solved. Rather than columns, the outer skin of the building and the atrium can be the load-bearing elements of the whole design.

Jury Buddy-ing

As a very similar but also quite different project one of my close friends Gülce had the wall and separation idea too. Her huge orange wall divided the building and created two units; one is for habitation and the other for events. These two parts connected and their transition is provided by the eating and cooking area, with the help of an opening in the main wall. The other thing is that by the help of a second orange wall she squeezed wet spaces between these walls. Hierarchically, the first huge and orange wall was dominant than the second one with its height and function.

After her oral presentation, the jury said that they really liked the project, but the thing that was discussed more was the orange walls. It was said that she needs to consider the design of the main orange walls, their relationships, shapes, and sizes. Since they are the main components of the whole design they have some sort of holiness so they need to be intervened carefully. The other suggestion was that two walls can be one as a whole because having the second less dominant wall may become unnecessary if it is just for creating wet spaces.

Since she had used many different angles and geometries in her project the jury said that rotating the mass in order to manage with different geometries may help her more. One of the jury members stated that the relationship between the whole building is successful but it would be better if the continuity of the topography is more legible.

In the end, the jury members thanked her so much for her efforts and having brave steps. It was a good jury after all and if you want to read more about her project you can visit her blog. Here is the link; gulcehalici.wordpress.com

GAPS | Final Jury

The habitation environment project has came to an end last week with a final jury. After the second prejury, all of us continued to improve our project by focusing on plans, sections, and models more. The end products were quite impressive considering the very first state of them. So now, as a complete project, I can explain the habitation environment project of mine.

The main idea was to have a large dominant public space at the entrance level of the building. This space was going to include both office part and presentation hall for outcomers. And these two spaces of two different but not completely separated functions were separated with the presence of a thicker and dominant blue wall. A mezzanine floor for both eating/cooking/dining and livingroom activities was located over the working area. In the second floor, two sleeping rooms/areas and a private bathroom for the people who live in the habitation were located two edges of the building. The second floor is designed as a junk space which means it was not strictly divided by separating walls but left as it is as a whole floor for different hobbies of people like yoga activities and playing piano. As an addition, a terrace part was created from the second floor for gardening activities. All the private and public bathrooms and toilets are put in the same vertical mass.

The very significant element of the whole design is the blue wall that divides the whole building into two part. This thicker structural wall not only divides the building into two but also allow penetration and transition between these parts by having some openings/slits on them. Also, two vertical volumes rise from the mezzanine floor and presentation hall separately and these volumes located two sides of the main wall. For the bigger picture that huge wall also defines the main entrance axis of the building and with its outer extensions it becomes the most dominant axis of the whole design. By the help of height differences of two parts, the presence of that wall makes itself legible with the masses. All the circulation system including narrow corridors and staircases are attached to and organized by the wall. Sleeping rooms’areas and toilet on the second floor are pushed two edges of the building and a narrow corridor is created between them due to the presence of this wall.

After the critics that I got in the second prejury, the relationship between the building and the topography needed to be improved and focused more. In order to prevent the building to sit on a completely flat site nearly half of the ground floor was buried to the topography and other parts of the topography were used for supporting the creation of outer gardens. So there are three outer gardens; one of them in the entrance part of the building, another one belongs to the office part and the third one opens from the presentation hall.

Nevzat Sayın|Başlangıçlar

A few weeks ago the famous architect Nevzat Sayın came to our university to have a speech/seminar with a title of “Başlangıçlar” translated to English as “Startings”. It was a very impressive speech for, especially architecture students and he exampled/supported his speech with his realized projects. Here are some notes from the speech.

Starting and finding something to start is the thing that challenges architecture students most. Half of the semester may be spent for finding this and students wait for finding a hint leading to a magical starting point. However, actually, they need to know how to call it. Collecting data, evaluation, sorting, and selection of relevant ones about the related subject allows creating questions about the topic. The insistence of questioning and finding the right questions provides defining the problems in right questions. Basically, it can be said that there are two types of designers which are the ones start from solutions and, others from questions. Designers who start from solutions try to adapt the previous solution to new situations and after they spend all their efforts they come to a point where they both forget about questions and solutions. But the ones start from questions know that for each problem there is always a one-time solution and starting from the beginning for each is needed. Every design is made for solving important problems, not for solving all of them and what is important is decided with these questions. After that, we will see some realized projects of Nevzat Sayın as an example of that process.

The Seed/Istanbul/Emirgan

The vectorial solution between finding it true to not to construct new buildings in Bosphorus region and the attraction of building a concert hall for orchestra made us questioning if building something is not visible is possible or not. They started with focusing on a design of a building which is not seen without entering inside of it. Without changing the existing Bosphorus landscape and terraces they buried the steel egg-shaped yellow hall.

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Anadolu University Faculty of Architecture

Studios are the main spaces of architecture education and the key point for studios is that they are meeting spaces. Students learn more from each other than from instructors. So they started with the idea that, they should design an architecture school with as open as possible spaces and areas in which students can meet easily and occupy space how much they want. The building has impressive sections.

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UMUR/GOSB

Designing an industrial building in a site with a 25-meter level difference between the top and the bottom is not an ordinary project. In and out circulation systems needed to be somehow straight for that type of business building but they started to work on that much-inclined site. They started with solving the level relationships between the ramps between building and entrances. There are like four separate buildings and they put the main circulation system outside of the building.

After all these examples, the main point was that after collecting a huge data about a design problem, finding critical questions while evaluating them and knowing that the answers mostly become apparent between these questions is very important for starting.

GAPS |Prejury II

After the first prejury, we all continued to improve our projects by working on programmatic organizations, section drawings, plan drawings, 3D models, topography models, and diagrams. At the and of that process we had the second prejury.

The initial idea of the project was to have a very large space, which is a mass participation zone, at the entrance level of the building. The mass participation zone divided into two parts as the office parts and public presentations zone. Public presentation zone is to introduce of the products that are produced in the office part to public. In the mid-level, there is another large space which functions as a combination of kitchen and living room. Two well-defined sleeping areas are located on the second floor with a narrow corridor between them and a private bath. In the third floor, there are no definer walls to divide spaces and the whole floor is a whole space that serves as junk space included various activities such as watching TV, reading a book, doing yoga and chilling. That unified space opens to a terrace that is located the south part of the building.

The various angles of the principal walls in the plans actually take reference from topography lines. The building sits on a highly flat site after changing the topography lines. By the help of topography lines that were pushed from the center to the edges, some natural walls can define outer gardens around the building. However, the connection between the topography and the building needed improvement, instead of creating a very flat surface building to sit on there is the emergence of harmony between these two. The other thing that requires revise was the flat huge structural walls of the building. In order to break the flatness of them, dividing and shifting operations can be used and it also prevents the prismatic appearance.

Vertical Volumes

Since I achieved a rich spatial organization and consistent programmatic organization, after that I need to improve the problematic parts that were stated in the jury.

Ground Floor Plan

First Floor Plan

Secon Floor Plan

Ortographic Drawing

GAPS|First Pre-Jury

After all the preparations, as the term project, we were assigned to work on the design process of a habitation environment considering the certain program. Also, we were expected to interpret the program to diversify the spatial definitions and organizations. The site was given to us and we were asked to work on mentioned points in sections. The program that I chose included service kits, regenerative bundles, spaces of displacements, power stations, mass participation zones and junk spaces as programme components. In order to explain everything without a question mark in minds, I think, it will be better if we clarify what are these components, how are their spatial qualities and what functions and activities they can have.

Regenerative bundles are the components that are highly related to the act of laying and sleeping. Since the activities, they can host are somehow close to the idea of individuality/privacy they are defined well. They are distantianted from the main circulation.
Service kits are like the supporter programme elements to regenerative bundles. They can host activities like cooking, eating, bathing, toilet needs, and dressing. They can change their characteristics and spatial definitions considering which other programme components they are connected to.
Junk spaces are in-between spaces. In other words, they are spaces of uncertainty. Because they can host various activities, they are also dominant in influencing the spaces that they are connected with. In order to provide flexibility, they are generally larger than service kits and regenerative bundles or they can have to change spatial definitions in the spaces.
Mass participation zones are the parts that can get circulation from more than one space and they are suitable for crowded activities like playing group games, workshops, exhibitions, mini-concerts etc. They may have a very large volume and long vertical distance.
Power station can be assumed as the part that takes the people from the outside and starts the main circulation through the different parts of the building. It can host activities like meeting and chit-chat while walking. Since it takes people from the outside of the building it may be highly connected with the topography and can be open space.

In the proposal and sections, I suggested creating units that include regenerative bundles and service kits. In that way service kits supported the regenerative bundles which are fro sleeping/laying activities with activities like bathing, cooking, and cooking. In order to differentiate them regenerative bundles were shifted up or down from the main level. After creating three units with some variations, they were randomly distributed and the connections between these units were provided by the appearance of junk spaces between these units. In order to maintain the privacy and characteristics of regenerative bundles, junk spaces were connected to the service kits and these connections can result in a change in spatial definitions, qualities, and activities of the service kits (future interpretation).

After distributing units and connecting them to each other, a central space started to be defined due to these design decisions. Actually, this result was the main strategy of my project and because this uncertainly defined central volume can be in a relationship with every unit easily and its vertical boundaries are not certain, it is the mass participation zone.

Habitation Projects Analysis

To start designing something always require serious, various and curious research and analysis before it. Because of that before we start to design, draw and make something we were assigned to make some analysis on related examples. We were given many architectural projects which all include habitations in different scales, and have different concerns in terms of programmatic organizations. We were expected to analyze the buildings considering their diversity of spatial and programmatic organizations. We tried to understand their organizational strategies, programmatic possibilities, and interpretations, spatial definitions resulting from different programmatic approaches. Since many of these buildings were quite famous ones from famous groups or architects, it was very fun to learn about them and improve our knowledge. Lastly, all the main points, analysis were shown on sections or drawings that we produced.

Villa dall’Ava [OMA]

Habitat 67′ [Moshe Safdie]

Villa Curutchet [Le Corbusier]

House and Atelier [Atelier Bow-Wow]

 

Kocaeli/Kerpe Field Trip

As a first-year architecture student, we had heard that second-year studios are taken to different cities for a field trip which is going to be the huge part of their term projects. And yes, now, as a second-year student we were also taken to a one day trip and study on a particular site which is Kocaeli Kerpe cliffs. Of course, all of us search it on Google to see what kind of trip is waiting for us and before the trip, the whole studio was quite amazed. “Oh my god! There is sea! Lets take our bikinis with us!” but rather we took sketchbooks and pencils with us. (Sad)

The first impression was fascinating. The cliffs have various forms and shapes that make it hard to believe that this is an artwork of nature. Furthermore, layers in almost consistent proportions and the whole that they created were impressive. The Black Sea made the view even more amazing and hard to focus.

Different parts of the whole site were assigned to the groups to make sketches for understanding the proportions of the area and analyzing other potentials. In the part we were assigned, there was a large tunnel-like cave and reaches to a nearly sea leveled open space but I discovered it after an hour because the cave was far away from the part we stand and is safe. By taking the risk of falling to the water we took the very narrow linear layer to reach the cave and climb to the entrance of the cave which is extremely risky and hard. Actually, it had the potential to be improved and provide a safer and experiment based designs.

Interior of the cave was suitable for human scale (2,6 m width, 10 m height). Because of the sinuous formations of levels in the cave (mostly in upper parts), there was the potential of various different spatial experiences.

Layering condition in Kerpe also can be thought as variations of steps combinations in many parts of the lower levels so it enriched my ideas about staircases, their relations, organizations, interactions, and proportions.

Lastly, even it was an exhausting trip, we had time and energy to have fun and take cool photos with my friends. As the first field trip of mine, it was a very good experience for me. Including a real topography for the term project, surely, must be a significant step for architecture education so it makes me excited. Pretty little lovely Kerpe, you are so beautiful to be a part of this world, but good enough to be the topography of my project.

(Very) Final Jury Of The First Year

“A Study In Pink” project has been completed with an exciting end and a challenging jury. Different than the other jury projects, this one was a semester-long project which means we had spent too much time reaching the final point. Both to come up with an idea and to make all the arrangements consideringly were hard steps to take. But guess what? We made it because we always make it.

This project suggests a whole that includes a construct and a field. The main problem of the project is defining a strategy and planning the integration between designed varying spaces and the field.

The main strategy was to create a controlled chaos by benefiting from three three-dimensional grids that take their references from different angles of the field parts. The grids were overlapped on the middle field part and different space definitions and spatial experiences started to occur due to different angular elements come from different grids. Spaces sit on a grid include more information when they are close to the chaotic zones and the reaction of the field increases from Field I through Field III.