Bogaçay Masterplan #Landscape driven design #Urban Resiliance

The European side of Istanbul with the support of the European Union. Located at 12 km from the newly opened Istanbul Grand Airport the project aimed to accommodate more than 2000 refugees under humanistic conditions before being transferred to their countries of origin, once possible.

Even though confined, we considered these residents as guests, and proposed a building design respecting the individual’s needs and introduced the comfort of airy courtyards and open views to the surrounding landscape. This approach, in combination with the request for an easy to build, prefabricated and modular building system, resulted in the idea of interconnecting horizontally oriented building blocks. However, the irregular form of the land and the elevation interval of more than 20 meters presented us with a serious challenge.

Considering the buildings users diverse background and profile, various zones had to be planned such as family, female, male and more specific subdivision groups. And each of these compartments would have a separate garden, facilities, and secured zone. Here the landscape shaping provided us with the inspiration for the building design, characterized by the positioning of a series of perimeter blocks on various levels. To maintain a harmonious ensemble as well creating variations and distinction we sought for a modular rhythmic façade design. Transparent to eliminate a sense of isolation and support the idea of the collective. An earthy color scheme and tactility to introduce a welcoming space embedded carefully in its context suppressing a feeling of denialation. The facility becomes a balanced, harmonious and strong building composition which offers a respectful space to its unfortunate visitors.