as Senior Architect & Design Manager @ ONCUOGLU+ACP Architecture

Istanbul, Turkey, 55268m2 (land area) mixed use 
Produced conceptual landscape design and modeling

On the large plot, located on Istanbul`s main highway, it was required to project a mixeduse center with its own hotel, residences, offices, commercial and recreational units, with proportions to the need of the market. As Istanbul is a large metropol with many small city centers and connecting highways, there has been unplanned structuring with shanty settlements. In the recent years, by
the recreation movement of those regions for people in higher social standards, satellite cities and gated communities have emerged. The proposed project is designed as an alternative to the above mentioned introverted neighbourhoods. The main idea is to create an “urban pattern” inspired from the urban space morphology. The building blocks are planned integrated with open social spaces composed of the pedestrian streets, landscape pattern and urban squares which create a unique
urban pattern. The main element that strengthens the design scheme is the pedestrian street that connects the highway to the leftover park area on the rear parallel road which is on a level that is 10 meters higher. This pedestrian way with the commercial units at the periphery and an integrated museum block that is envisioned for cultural facilities, create an attraction center where the residents may gather together. Besides, the passage functions as both a separator and unifier of the public areas with the rear residential blocks. Therefore, the design of the landscape stands as one of the
most important design items of the overall project. At that time I had been working on my new
project in Irkutsk, and in the meantime I was asked to make a quick but urgent sketch proposal for the design passage for the coming presentation to the client. The project came to me as the block masses are placed with a request of designing a landscape with around 5000 sqm of museum and commercial areas. I made a 2-day-sketch study in SketchUp and later detailed it to be prepared for the render.

The main simple idea I found to deal with both the level difference and diagonal directioning to the park was mainly to assign two bordering walls orientating the people from the highway to the park, and interrupting those walls by horizontal lines in the direction of side blocks which creates breaks on the bordering walls for the entragration from side areas, while elevating the passage to keep the required level. So both separation for privacy and at the same time unification for integration had been provided. On the otherhand, for the location of the museum, the nearest point to the corner park
was chosen, as being the most visible highest level, to be a landmark on the pathway. To adapt to the high level difference, the museum played a solution role as the peak point by placing escalators and lifts to be also used by the museum visitors. So by the ability to keep the slope affordable for the rest of the parts, the passage was saved to be a boring, tiring, climbing path. The form of the museum is designed in a circular plan which is refered to be a node at the pedestrian traffic on the site and differing in form so it can attract attention as a landmark. The commercial areas on the pathway are designed as longitudinally projecting single storey rectangular prisms, defined on the
horizontal lines interruping the bordering walls, just as a visual continuation of the middle blocks. By their carefully chosen placements according to the perspectives created on the pathway, they also play an animating visual role on the overall design. They are assigned as cafes, buffets and small shops up to location.
Later, during the project development period, keeping its principle concept, I modified the first sketched design to fit the recent modifications of the project.