MECIDIYEKÖY TOWERS BY EMRE AROLAT ARCHITECTS

Mecidiyeköy Towers project aims to create a  wholistic approach which regards  the project as a chance of creating a public place in Mecidiyeköy, a region congested with heavy traffic and dense urban texture.

The most important decision that conditions the settlement strategy of the new buildings has appeared to leave the area in front of the factory until the Büyükdere Street as blank, and the plain area which was obtained in this sense should be restored to its genuine identity.

This area has been expanded to the area of former Ali Sami Yen stadium in order to create a continuous, green, open public space with commercial activities.

Thus, as one of the most important decisions related to the general layout strategy, approximately twenty thousand square meters area on the northern part of the land is proposed as a city park integrating with the existing green area on the adjacent parcel of Liqueur Factory.

Designed as a large public space, this area has a potential to generate a “breathing zone” between dense urban blocks of Mecidiyeköy. In this context, the hidden square formed at the west corner of the land has been designed as a public space which is enriched by surrounding commercial spaces-mainly food & beverage.

Therefore, the tension between the silence of the green platform on upper level and the dynamic nature of the hidden square on lower level emerged as a critical design decision. The lower levels of the south side of public platform were arranged as ‘green offices’ with inner gardens.

Towers, which have the intention to reconsider the conventional tower-residence lifestyle with a claim of vertical city, adopts the principle of mass fragmentation, following the existing physical context. Creating sky-gardens in different positions and scales, it aims to recreate the essence of the relationship that existing buildings have among themselves in horizontal axis.

Mecidiyeköy Towers shape themselves along with the principle of fragmentation both vertically and horizontally. However, it should be noticed that this is not an effort for differentiation, it is rather conditioned with a concern about context.

One of the five high-rise blocks was arranged as office, another one as hotel, as well as the other three (one in liqueur part) were designed as residential towers. The massive installation of these buildings comes into existence with the pieces composed of the facades which were oriented according to different viewpoints.

This situation that can be regarded as a kind of ‘tropism’ (the orientation of the plants towards the sun) enables all the façades of the buildings to be oriented to the angles of panorama as the fragmentation of the building mass helps the tall building perceived as a lighter mass in urban texture.

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Architect: Emre Arolat Architects

Partnership: Torunlar, Aşçıoğlu, Kapıcoğlu

Area: 250.000 square meters

Year: 2013