Izmir is one of the biggest cities in Turkey. It has been an important port city on the Egean coast and grew as a city of commerce in Republican period. Today the city is under a rapid development like many other cities in Turkey.
The project is located on an industrial area in city center, which is planned to be developed with high density mixed use buildings. Without any sensitiveness about the climate, urban context and the genius loci of Izmir, these new projects consequently create new gated communities in vertical form in a given building code.
The project aims to interpret this building code with a sensibility to context, learning from conventions of local architecture. Getting inspiration from the traditional elements of “ayazlık” for shading and “köşk” for semi open spaces; the building is formed by stratification of slabs, organized in an orthogonal structure in order to be more applicable and affordable in this earthquake region.
The slabs that act like pergola, which is an important shading element in traditional architecture in İzmir, welcome the visitor to the commercial spaces on the podium levels. This layering continues on upper levels, forming garden terraces and social spaces. The pergolas shade the sunken courtyards that supply sunlight and green into shopping mall. The layering of the slabs also continues in the formation of the blocks in a more massive way, blurring the image of monoblock tower. One office and two residential towers are oriented according to the view of the bay.
