The Transhumances III exhibition will see designers Andres Monnier, Morghen Studio, Elsa Foulon and Laura Pasquino present a selection of works they created in ancient cave dwellings in Cappadocia, Turkey.

The works on show, from a chandelier made out of a tree to candleholders crafted from local stone, will be showcased in a series of caves where the designers undertook their residency.

Organised by design gallery Philia, formerly known as Galerie Philia, the residency encouraged the designers to craft works inspired by the UNESCO World Heritage site in collaboration with local artisans.

Titled Transhumances III, the residency took place across 10 days in November, and was the third in a series organised by Philia that takes designers to destinations with a rich craft heritage.

"I've loved Cappadocia for a long time – it's really a region of pottery and ceramics," said Ygaël Attali, director and co-founder of Philia.

He chose the Taşkonaklar hotel in Uçhisar as the location, which operates a series of studios for artist residencies within ancient caves carved into the cliffside.

Mexican designer Monnier, known for his monumental candle holders and fire pits crafted from slabs of raw stone, worked in collaboration with local stonemasons in Cappadocia.

He made new sculptural candle holders from red onyx offcuts quarried in the region, alongside a travertine side table and black stone candelabra.

Monnier's works took inspiration from the surrounding landscape, including the unique vertical rock formations known as "fairy chimneys", and one of the mountains he passed regularly during his residency. "Cappadocia has beautiful, beautiful stones," he said.

Installed in the dark caves and topped with burning candles and incense, Monnier's works – with titles including Spiritus and Laberinto – were designed to have a ritualistic presence.

Ceramic designers Pasquino and Foulon crafted vessels and sculptural lighting respectively. As such, they both engaged in the pottery traditions of the region, working with a local potter and regional clay to translate Cappadocia's craft techniques into their own works.

Named Landforms of the Red River, Pasquino's large, spherical, hand-built vases in warm terracotta hues were made using red clay and crushed stones from a local river.

"I'm really into textures," Pasquino said, adding that she wanted the surface of her vessels to be rough, recalling both the river bed and the roughly hewn stone walls of the caves she undertook her residency in.

The Dutch designer researched the techniques and tools of local potters to learn from and apply in her work. She had never worked with terracotta before – preferring porcelain and stoneware – but since her residency, she has grown to appreciate the "powerful" effect of the material, she said.

Foulon worked with a local white clay to create a series of pebble-like table lamps, named Troglodyte Glows, that emit a warm glow from within.

The French designer was drawn to the way that light in Cappadocia "changes constantly" and impacts the colours and details of the landscape, as well as the unique quality of sunlight spilling into caves. She added a yellow underglaze in her lights to create the effect of a golden glow.

Both Foulon and Pasquino helped another of the residency's designers, Rodolfo Viola of Milan-based Morghen Studio, to work with ceramic for the first time.

The Milan-based studio creates statement sculptural lighting, mostly using brass. But to make a large-scale lighting piece in 10 days, Viola had to use a different material.

"I wanted to make a chandelier but didn't know how to go big in only a few days," he told Dezeen. "I thought it would be nice to source something from nature."

He found a tree on a local walk, charred it, and added fired ceramic "petals" covered in black ink around LED lights on its branches, attached with twine.

After creating the dramatic black chandelier in one of the caves, he installed it by hanging the tree upside-down from the cave ceiling; there, it appears almost like exposed subterranean roots.

"Having just a week to come up with something is a perfect exercise for designers," Viola said. "You don't have time to overthink. I had to learn a new material in a few days."

Together, the collection of objects are both made from and presented in the unique landscape of Cappadocia. Exhibiting them locally was vital for Attali, who wanted to avoid the carbon-heavy shipping so prevalent in the collectible design market.

Instead of importing materials and exporting works, the designers on the nomadic residency work with local materials, exhibit locally, and sell locally. "It shows that we can do things differently," said Attali.

The photography is courtesy of Maison Mouton Noir and Philia.

Transhumances III will run from 15 February to 16 March 2024 at A.R.C Taskonaklar. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Increasingly prevalent disasters mean collaboration and humility in architecture are more important than ever says Mehmet Kalyoncu, the architect coordinating efforts to rebuild following the Turkey-Syria earthquake.

"Our problems in the world are more complex than ever and we are in a time where we need teamwork," Kalyoncu told Dezeen.

"The era of starchitects is finished because the problems are much harder than one single person should carry," he said. "The new approach is going to be people working together."

Kalyoncu is a Turkish architect who serves as chair of the Turkey Design Council, a non-governmental organisation founded in 2015.

It is currently spearheading the rebuilding of the earthquake-ravaged Hatay province in southern Turkey.

The province was among those affected by the Turkey-Syria earthquake in February this year – a disaster that claimed at least 56,000 lives.

Turkey Design Council gathering "best brains in the world"

The Turkey Design Council has recently put together a consortium of 13 local and international companies spanning various disciplines to help rebuild Hatay.

Described by Kalyoncu as the "best brains in the world", the group consists of firms working across sectors including design, engineering, sustainability and heritage.

Among them are Danish architecture studio BIG, British engineering firm Buro Happold and British architecture studio Foster + Partners, which is leading the masterplan.

"After the devastating earthquake, unfortunately, placemaking and developing cities became the number one priority of Turkey," he said.

"As a non-governmental organisation, we felt great enthusiasm to involve ourselves and make this process as participatory as possible at local, national and international levels to create something really meaningful," he continued.

Kalyoncu said that international and cross-disciplinary collaboration, such as in this project, are vital for Turkey's recovery efforts due to the scale and complexity of the disaster.

"This is the most sophisticated urban problem in the world in this century," he said. "That's why we need the best brains. That's why we invited Foster and Partners, Buro Happold and Bjarke Ingels."

However, he believes that NGOs are the "driving force" when it comes to designing for disasters and suggested that architects have little power without them.

"An architect cannot make a social impact without involving other experts," Kalyoncu explained.

"The participation of non-governmental organisations is important," he continued. "I cannot say one single architect or one single architectural office can change something."

"We should listen more than we talk"

Increasing collaboration in architecture will require architects and designers to learn to practice with humility, he added, something he believes they will find to be a "challenge".

"Humility is, I think, very important," Kalyoncu explained.

"Working with designers is very hard," he continued. "Our approach is that the less area we occupy on the table, the more other people will come. We should listen more than we talk."

Turkey Design Council's project stemmed from discussions with Turkey's Ministry of Urbanisation and Ministry of Culture, which asked the organisation to help protect Hatay from future disasters and honour its history respectively.

The project is expected to take between five and 10 years to complete.

The rebuild will focus largely on the reconstruction of important sites such as places of worship and bathhouses, as well as an urban masterplan for the city of Antakya – the heart of the province.

With 80 per cent of Antakya destroyed during the earthquake, the team is relying on an archive of material documenting the city to guide the reconstruction.

"We don't want to make the new design, the new atmosphere, the new feeling very different from the old," said Kalyoncu.

"So we created an archive showing the cultural essence of Antakya," he explained. "There are many images, many stories and many videos taken with the people living there describing their city, how was it, how they felt, which areas they feel are important and make Antakya different than any other place in the world," he said.

"We don't want to design something that can be anywhere in the world."

Project aims to be a model for disaster recovery

In the wake of February's earthquake, it was widely reported that the scale of the disaster in Turkey was exacerbated by poor quality construction in the country resulting from a disregard for legislation.

At the time, the government issued more than 100 arrest warrants linked to buildings that were destroyed while Turkish architects called for urgent improvements to architectural education and practice.

To prevent history from repeating itself, Kalyoncu hopes that the project will set a precedent for high-quality earthquake-proof construction in the country outside of Hatay province.

"Hatay will be built back starting from the centre," he explained. "So if the centre will have good design, good planning, and really [align] with regulations, then the rest we hope will follow that."

While informing the post-earthquake rebuilding in Turkey, Kalyoncu hopes the project will also set an example for disaster recovery worldwide.

"There has never been an era that we lost so many cities in such a short time, we lost Beirut, we lost Aleppo and we are losing Gaza now. We lost them because of disasters," he added.

"That's why city planners, architects and people in the built environment, this field, it's our responsibility to build back."

In particular, he hopes the project and the consortium behind it will also highlight the value of international collaboration.

"Politicians, if you ask me, cannot do this without the support of international cooperative organisations," he said.

"So as Turkey Design Council, as a non-governmental organisation that has lived through a recent and the most challenging experience, we want to continue in other geographies of the world."

For now, many people displaced by the earthquake in Turkey remain living in temporary housing.

Among the organisations to help deliver this accommodation was Voluntary Architects' Network, the non-governmental organisation founded by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban in 1995.

The team used Ban's Paper Partition System, which makes use of cardboard tubes and fabric, to divide evacuation centres into private living spaces for survivors.

The images are courtesy of the Turkey Design Council unless otherwise stated.

Designing for Disaster

This article is part of Dezeen's Designing for Disaster series, which explores the ways that design can help prevent, mitigate and recover from natural hazards as climate change makes extreme weather events increasingly common.

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Wildfires can be detected before they spread or even before they start using a new satellite-enabled sensor system created by a group of Turkish recent design graduates and spotlighted by Dezeen as part of our Designing for Disaster series.

Like an Internet of Things for woodland, ForestGuard is a system of sensors that is fitted to trees to detect changes in the air and alert the local authorities if a fire is present.

Only one sensor is required for every 16 hectares of forest — or around 16,000 trees — and the system can distinguish between different types of emissions, such as that from a wildfire versus a cigarette or car exhaust, to avoid false positives.

ForestGuard chief technology officer Suat Batuhan Esirger told Dezeen that the product reduces the amount of time it takes for firefighters to be notified of a fire from an average of 90 minutes to just 15.

In a recent example, it allowed the firefighters of the Turkish archipelago of Princes' Islands to extinguish a wildfire when it had only burned through an area of land around the size of a dining table.

"It was the middle of the night, there was nobody passing by, nobody to report on the fire until it got a lot bigger than when we detected it," said Esirger. "That was a huge win for us, seeing it in action."

Esirger and the other members of the ForestGuard team — Ecem Ertan, Onur Sertgil and Rana Imam Esirger, students of İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi — began work on the invention after the devastating 2021 Turkey wildfires, for which they all provided volunteer assistance.

Esirger aided the search-and-rescue effort as a drone pilot, which he says allowed him to see the whole process from end-to-end and start thinking about what could be done better.

Around the world, wildfire detection is currently managed through a mix of drones, satellites and thermal imaging — all options that have their drawbacks, chiefly that they are restricted to looking above the treetops.

"We focused on the phrase, 'what if the trees themselves notify us'," said Esirger. "We approached it like a smartwatch; let's monitor the air in the forest below the tree line. So if something abnormal happens, we will know about it."

The system they came up with measures and analyses temperature, humidity, air pressure and the levels of various gases to identify the presence of a fire, with trained machine-learning algorithms to differentiate between wildfire smoke and other kinds of emissions.

Their initial design used a low-power terrestrial network called LoRa to connect the sensors to the internet, but they've since switched to satellite connectivity provided by American company EchoStar.

The change makes the system "disaster-proof", claims Esirger, whereas some of the older LoRa devices were sent offline when earthquakes hit Turkey in 2023.

Other measures also add to the ForestGuard sensors' resilience. Their power comes from a solar panel with a long-lasting supercapacitor for energy storage and they're equipped with anti-theft mechanisms.

They are also made of engineered plastics that can withstand ultraviolet light exposure, animal interference and temperatures of up to 1,500°C, meaning they will survive for part but not all of a forestfire.

"We made it fire retardant as much as possible, so they will continue sending data until their last breath," said Esirger. "From that data we can predict the spread direction of that wildfire, so we can feed that data to the authorities and they can fight fire more efficiently."

ForestGuard's algorithms also allow for something perhaps even more useful than a faster disaster response: prevention.

Using the data collected through the sensors, ForestGuard can tell when the conditions are such that a fire is likely, giving firefighters the opportunity to carry out measures such as cleaning out dried brush or preventatively spraying water.

Since the wildfire in August, the firefighters at Princes Islands have been following these warnings and not had any further incidents, said Esirger.

According to ForestGuard, the system can protect 500 trees for US$1 a year, assuming the devices remain in place for five years.

ForestGuard won the Turkish heats of the James Dyson Award 2023 and is now up against regional winners from around the world in the international competition, with the winner set to be revealed on 15 November.

The product is further along in its development than most others in the contest, with devices already on sale in Turkey and ForestGuard looking to expand into markets including France, Australia and the USA in the coming months.

Esirger hopes that the invention will be seen not just as a tool to fight fires on a regional level but as part of a united, global battle to minimise the impacts of climate change. Here, wildfires form a "vicious cycle", he said, that is often underappreciated.

"Forest fires emit carbon dioxide," said Esirger. "Carbon dioxide causes global warming. Global warming causes a lot more wildfires. So it just feeds itself. We are trying to minimise this increase."

Reflecting on the exacerbation of wildfires by climate change earlier this year, GGA+ architecture studio partner Greg Kochanowski said that the design professions were not doing enough to address the problem of wildfires.

"What is needed is a new holistic, synthesised, design discipline" fusing multiple areas of expertise, he wrote.

The photography is courtesy of ForestGuard.

Designing for Disaster

This article is part of Dezeen's Designing for Disaster series, which explores the ways that design can help prevent, mitigate and recover from natural hazards as climate change makes extreme weather events increasingly common.

The post "The trees themselves" raise wildfire alarm in ForestGuard detection system appeared first on Dezeen.

British architecture practice Foster + Partners and Danish studio BIG have been selected to help rebuild Hatay following the devastating Turkey-Syria earthquake in February.

The studios will help rebuild the Turkish province, which was heavily damaged by the earthquake, as part of a consortium led by Turkey Design Council, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to developing the country socially and economically through design.

Turkish architecture studios DB Architects and KEYM also form part of the group, which comprises 13 companies across fields including architecture, heritage and engineering.

"Following the earthquake, we experienced the biggest ever global cooperation for the relief effort," said Turkey Design Council chairman Mehmet Kalyoncu.

"Now, we want this to be the biggest-ever global collaboration of experts to shape the next era of Hatay."

Project aims to be "an example for the world"

On 6 February, a 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, causing the collapse of thousands of buildings and claiming the lives of more than 55,000 people across the two countries.

In Turkey, the scale of damage is widely believed to have been exacerbated by poor construction caused, in part, by a disregard for legislation.

The focus for Turkey Design Council's rebuild with Foster + Partners and BIG is currently on the Hatay province in the southeast. At the heart of the proposal will be a masterplan for the city of Antakya, 80 per cent of which was destroyed during the event.

It will aim to ensure the longevity of the region in the future while also preserving its heritage.

"This is the first step towards Hatay's next chapter and with the support of our project partners we can ensure it becomes an example for the world of design-led revitalisation," said Kalyoncu.

Foster + Partners to lead masterplan

The team behind the masterplan for Hatay is set to be led by Foster + Partners.

"We are looking forward to working with local communities and collaborating with architecture, planning, urban design and engineering experts in Turkey, to help develop plans for the historic city of Antakya," said Foster + Partners' senior executive Nigel Dancey.

The masterplan will focus specifically on "the restoration of important sites" including churches, mosques, bathhouses and synagogues, the team said. It is expected to be revealed fully in 2024.

"This design aims to preserve Hatay's unique identity, while making it resilient to earthquake risks," added Bünyamin Derman of DB Architects.

"We are trying to achieve a master plan that will enable the residents of Hatay, who migrated after the earthquake, to return to their homeland," added Derman.

While specific details of the masterplan are yet to be disclosed, Derman said new buildings will be constructed from a range of wood, steel, and reinforced concrete.

It will also draw on courtyard-house typology in Antakya and include "a historical and cultural tour route" to celebrate the region's history, he added.

"Our ambition is to place collaboration in the centre"

While helping Turkey to recover from the February earthquakes, Turkey Design Council's ambition for the project is also to offer a model from which other countries can learn when rebuilding after disasters.

"If we are successful in Hatay, we can integrate this spirit of collaboration into other Turkish and international recovery and revitalisation efforts where local people most need them," chairman Kalyoncu said.

"Hatay will become a global exemplar for earthquake recovery, taking best practice principles from around the world and applying them to its unique context."

Kalyoncu also hopes it will also demonstrate the value of collaboration in design.

"Our ambition is to place collaboration in the centre of our post-disaster reconstruction efforts," he said.

"We are in a specialisation era in all aspects of life, and this brings loneliness and fragmentation which makes us, our society, city and world weak against any problems or risks," Kalyoncu continued.

"We think that we can overcome this problem by collaborating with each other, person to person, group to group, city to city and country to country."

Foster + Partners has been working with the Turkish Design Council since March 2023 to help set out guidelines for the urgent construction of temporary housing developments.

Elsewhere, the studio's founder British architect Norman Foster is also helping to develop the masterplan for the rejuvenation of Kharkiv following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Foster said he wanted "to assemble the best minds" to rebuild the Ukrainian city.

Earlier this year, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban used his Paper Partition System to create cardboard shelters for victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake.

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The layout and materials of traditional Turkish buildings informed the US Embassy in Ankara, designed by New York studio Ennead Architects to "balance openness and security".

Located on a 3.6-hectare campus in the new central business district Sögütözü, the building comprises a chancery, security guard residence and community facilities.

It takes the form of a sequence of rectilinear, stone-clad forms, broken up by three internal courtyards and surrounded by landscaped gardens that Ennead Architects has used to moderate levels of access and privacy.

"Classical Ottoman architecture was a major inspiration and point of departure," Ennead Architects partner Richard Olcott told Dezeen.

"In particular, we looked to the work of Mimar Sinan, the renowned 16th-century architect responsible for designing many of Turkey's most iconic buildings," Olcott continued.

Among Sinan's buildings that were used as a visual reference was the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, which is "a complex of many buildings with a continuous sequence of courtyards, gates, and thresholds".

"That typology and manner of sequencing – moving from public to more private – informs our design approach to the diplomatic campus," explained Olcott.

Set back from the street is an "arrival plaza" with trees and planting, intended to soften the boundary between the embassy and the city.

Here is a narrow pavilion to control entry that bisects the site, alongside additional gardens and a patio shaded by the golden travertine-clad overhang of the chancery.

"The site plan creates a formal organisational structure for circulation across the campus, progressing from public to private as one moves further away from the street," Ennead Architects principal Felicia Berger told Dezeen.

"The narrow building is an entry pavilion for all embassy visitors. It is the front door of the campus, and as such, presents an important representational image welcoming visitors, staff, and dignitaries alike," she continued.

A large courtyard at the centre of the chancery building acts as the embassy's primary social space. It is lined by gridded concrete walls informed by traditional mashrabiya screens in Islamic architecture to allow light and air to pass through.

At the rear of the site are more private spaces, including the security guard residence that is also buffered by the landscaping wrapping the site.

The interiors of the embassy are designed in collaboration with New York-based architecture studio Spacesmith and, much like the exterior treatment, focus on the use of local and traditional materials.

"Using local and traditional materials for this diplomatic facility is a way to materially bring two cultures together, representing American values while referencing the rich architectural traditions of Turkey," said Berger.

"A material palette of Marmara marble, travertine, warm woods, ceramic tiles and pops of turquoise reference many of the rich materials available across Turkey," she added.

Ennead Architects is a New York studio formerly known as Polshek Partnership, which was founded in 1963 by James Polshek.

Alongside working on the US Embassy in Ankara, it has recently completed the refurbishment of the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in Manhattan and developed a proposal for Wuxi Art Museum.

The photography is by Scott Frances.

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Italian architecture studio Renzo Piano Building Workshop has completed the landmark Istanbul Modern museum, which is its first project in Turkey.

Over 10,000 square metres in size, Istanbul Modern is an art museum on Karaköy waterfront, a historic area in Istanbul where the Bosphorus and Golden Horn waterways meet.

It has a top-heavy form made up of three stacked rectilinear volumes, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop to evoke the shape of a ship.

Aluminium panels with an almost iridescent quality envelop the building and subtly reflect the colours of the changing sky and light.

The studio explained that the aluminium panels were chosen for their reflective qualities, drawing on the glittering and light-reflective nature of the nearby Bosphorus waterway and fish scales.

"Echoing the history of a site that has been used as a harbor for millennia, the outline of the building evokes ships of different sizes travelling back and forth between Europe and Asia as well as a creature of the sea that has leapt from the Bosphorus on the shore," said Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

"The facade is made by a sequence of 3D-formed aluminum panels that play with the changing sunlight, creating a shimmering, iridescent envelope evocative of fish scales."

The ground floor of Istanbul Modern is fitted with expanses of glass to provide views of the waterfront promenade. It contains the museum's library, a cafe, gift shop as well as education, exhibition and event spaces.

"The new building's transparent and accessible design reflects the ethos of the museum: a multifaceted experience offering visitors audience-oriented exhibitions and programs inspired by the artistic diversity of the present day," the studio said.

On the first floor, galleries dedicated to photography sit alongside pop-up exhibitions, staff offices, a restaurant, terraces and additional event and education rooms.

Istanbul Modern's permanent collections are contained on the second floor.

On the roof of the museum, a large terrace adjoins a reflective pool that is intended as an extension of the Bosphorus.

Elsewhere in Istanbul, Foster + Partners completed an Apple Store in the heart of the city that is characterised by two travertine stone walls.

Meanwhile, Turkish architecture studio Salon Alper Derinbogaz created a collection of "pandemic-resistant" offices for Yıldız Technical University.

Photography is by Cemal Emden.

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The latest edition of our weekly Dezeen Agenda newsletter features shelters designed by architect Shigeru Ban for victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake. Subscribe to Dezeen Agenda now.

Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Ban has supplied victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake with modular shelters made from cardboard tubes.

The Paper Partition System functions as a structure that holds up textile partitions and takes three people just five minutes to build.

This week's newsletter also included an opinion piece by Aaron Betsky questioning the decision to award this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize to David Chipperfield, Nikken Sekkei's designs for a headquarters in Japan and a Ukrainian "home" in Antarctica by Balbek Bureau.

Dezeen Agenda

Dezeen Agenda is a curated newsletter sent every Tuesday containing the most important news highlights from Dezeen. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Agenda or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to our other newsletters; Dezeen Debate is sent every Thursday and features the hottest reader comments and most-debated stories, Dezeen Daily is our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours and Dezeen In Depth is sent on the last Friday of every month and delves deeper into the major stories shaping architecture and design. 

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Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban has provided his Paper Partition System, made from cardboard tubes and fabric, to evacuation centres housing victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake.

The Paper Partition System (PPS) is constructed using cardboard tubes, which function as a structure that holds up textile partitions.

Ban provided the shelters, which take three people just five minutes to build, to evacuation centres "in response to the Turkey-Syria earthquake".

The architect is working with his Voluntary Architects' Network, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that he founded in 1995, on the project and is calling for donations to support it.

The tubes used for the PPS shelters are longer versions of those used to roll up and store fabric or paper and come in two diameters – one for the posts and one for the beams.

Paper or fabrics was draped over the structure and fastened with a safety pin to create shelters that resemble shared hospital wards. They measure two by two metres or 2.3 by 2.3 metres depending on the size of beds they contain.

Recently, Ban also installed the PPS system across temporary shelters in Europe that house refugees fleeing from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Today, the studio also announced that it is also working on a number of other solutions to help the Ukrainian refugees, including plans to produce Styrofoam Housing Systems (SHS), a panel-type housing system.

The SHS houses will be made from lightweight panels made from Fiber Reinforced Plastic (FRP) wrapped around Styrofoam, an extruded polystyrene foam insulation material.

The panels will be made by Ukrainian refugees at a local factory to also create employment opportunities.

Ban's studio worked with Wroclaw Univesity of Technology to create an SHS prototype in September 2022 and is currently conducting structural tests on the panels to ensure they are safe.

The studio is also working with Solidarity Fund PL in Poland and Ordinary People in Kharkiv, Ukraine, to distribute Japanese wood stoves to places affected by large-scale power outages.

So far, 190 stoves have been shipped to Kharkiv and Ivano-Frankivsk.

Ban designed PPS in 2011 and it has previously been used to house victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011), Kumamoto Earthquake (2016), Hokkaido Earthquake (2018), and torrential rain in southern Kyushu (2020).

The system was also used to create Covid-19 vaccination booths during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ban also recently used cardboard tubes to create the structure of the Farmer's Restaurant in Japan, which has a thatch roof.

The photography is courtesy of Shigeru Ban Architects.

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Improvements to both architectural education and practice must form part of the recovery plan to prevent history from repeating itself, argue Turkish architects following last month's deadly earthquakes.

Architects in Turkey believe that the scale of destruction caused by the earthquakes on 6 February was exacerbated by poor construction in the country caused, in part, by a disregard for legislation.

"Buildings built with competent architecture, competent engineering, competent construction and competent control mechanisms do not collapse even if they are directly on the fault line," said Altinisik, who is director of Turkish studio Melike Altinisik Architects.

"The buildings that have not been demolished today are proof of this fact," she told Dezeen.

"Earthquake-proof standards were not followed"

Architect Alper Deri̇nboğaz, the founder of the studio Salon Alper Derinboğaz, agreed, explaining that the earthquake's destructiveness was "not attributable to numerical values".

"[The damage] is due to the poor quality of the buildings in the affected region," he told Dezeen. "The fact that some buildings with the same topography remained standing while others collapsed emphasised this issue."

GEO_ID's founding partner Tugce Rizeli Bilgi believes that this is due to "the roles of architects and civil engineers being undermined" in construction in the years leading up to the disaster.

"This earthquake was expected in Turkey and the main reasons for this catastrophic consequences are unplanned urbanisation, negligence and disregarding of experts' opinions," Bilgi told Dezeen.

"Besides the older buildings, some new apartment blocks in the affected areas have also been damaged and destroyed because they were not constructed properly and the earthquake-proof standards were not followed."

Scale of disaster "could have been prevented"

The reason for the failing buildings in Turkey is currently the subject of much dispute, with blame being directed at the government, built environment figures and the public.

Many local architects, including Emre Arolat, believe that the government is at fault. In his view, if it had properly enforced building standards in the country, "the catastrophic situation today could have been prevented".

Turkish building standards have been under scrutiny since the tragic 1999 Izmit Earthquake, which led to stricter construction regulations in the country.

However, it is widely believed that these have not been properly implemented due to so-called "construction amnesties" – legal exemptions for fees for structures that are built without the required safety certificates.

"It was possible for the rulers of this country to learn from this earthquake [in 1999] and rehabilitate the precarious building stock, especially in regions where the fault lines are known to be active," reflected Arolat, who is the founder of Emre Arolat Architects.

"This period could have been used more efficiently and in line with scientific truths," he continued. "The laws passed could have been abided by."

According to Salon Alper Derinboğaz's founder Deri̇nboğaz, in 2018 over seven million buildings were granted construction amnesties. Most of them were residential.

Architect Merih Feza Yıldırım said that this reflects a wider societal view of "houses as an investment tool rather than for meeting the need for shelter", which he believes needs to change.

"Architectural usability and robustness do not determine the value of buildings, therefore, these values are not taken into consideration," said Yıldırım, who is a partner at Not Architects.

To avoid this scale of disaster from happening again, he said "it is imperative for society to lower its expectations of income generation, speed and profitability in this sector".

"Earthquakes do not kill"

Architects Altinisik and Nevzat Sayın echoed this sentiment, blaming "ignorance" in society for this attitude towards construction. They fear it will result in a similar disaster in the future.

"Earthquakes do not kill," Altinisik explained. "But actually unawareness, ignorance, unsystematic urbanisation and uncontrolled construction that has spread to the whole society causes such an extensive destruction."

"In any region, this [scale of destruction] would happen," added Sayın, who directs the studio Nevzat Sayın Mimarlık Hizmetleri. "Worst of all, it will happen again."

While many architects blame the government for the scale of the disaster, governing officials are blaming contractors and has issued numerous arrest warrants in recent weeks.

Some residents of apartment buildings that collapsed have even been criticised for not ensuring their homes were safe, GEO_ID's founding partner Bilgi told Dezeen.

"It's said that the residents should have checked whether their buildings are safe enough or not and if not, they should have moved to a safer building," explained Bilgi.

Yet according to the architects interviewed, this is unfair, as many people occupying unsafe buildings would not have been able to afford a seismic retrofit.

"This was not a rational expectation as many of the people in the region didn't have enough economic welfare to move to another house," Bilgi continued.

Motto Architecture partner Onur Özkoç agreed, adding: "residents may have ruled out any structural reinforcements due to insufficient financial power".

Time to "question education in the building sector"

Some Turkish architects believe they and their colleagues must look inwards at the architecture industry following the quakes, and call for improvements to architectural education.

This includes Geomim's founding partner Ali Çalışkan, who suggested that greater awareness and use of earthquake-proof construction techniques are critical.

"We are frustrated and angry, and we are frightened about the next earthquake because we are not ready for it," said Çalışkan.

"In a country like Turkey where millions of people live on the fault line, my reaction from now on will be to question education in the building sector," he continued.

Çalışkan thinks education must be improved in "all disciplines involved in engineering, from planning to construction" in order for architecture to withstand future disasters.

Melike Altinisik Architects' director agreed, telling fellow architects that "we should also hold the mirror to ourselves, rather than blaming the contractors, who are the last part of the chain".

"In any circumstances, people who are not competent should not be given the right to be a part of this system," Altinisik continued.

Motto Architecture partner Özkoç added that the public must also be educated on the importance of earthquake-proof architecture in order to create more demand for safe buildings.

"I believe it is evident that the real challenge ahead is not the update of building codes or structural system choices, but coming up with mechanisms that ensure proper following of [existing] codes and requirements," he said.

"That of course begins with the governmental organisations, but should also be supported by the public."

Supranational disaster organisation "must be established"

Several architects are calling for organisations that oversee how affected cities are reconstructed to be established quickly following the quakes.

For Derinboğaz, this will prevent hasty reconstruction efforts and ensure that building to withstand earthquakes becomes "a primary design parameter".

"Currently, there is a discussion about initiating rapid reconstruction efforts to provide housing for those affected by the earthquake," he said.

"However, constructing buildings of poor quality will only exacerbate the situation. Instead, the reconstruction area should be carefully planned and designed by a team of professionals."

Arolat agreed, suggesting this could take the form of a team of scientists from various disciplines who are "above politics and away from shallow power grabs".

"A group of people who might have ideas about how a city should be built should include geologists, experts in load-bearing systems, representatives of other engineering fields, sociologists and anthropologists, educators, experts from different walks of the culture industry, doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists, as well as the previous and potential future users of those cities," he said.

For Altinisik, the earthquake recovery plan must involve the creation of an even larger group – an international organisation dedicated to addressing natural disasters.

She believes the Turkey-Syria earthquake should serve as a reminder of the other natural disasters that could be coming as a result of climate change.

"Although the earthquake is a great disaster reality in front of Turkey today, on the other hand, climatic disasters that involve the whole world such as floods, fires and storms are increasing day by day," Altinisik explained.

"In this context, considering the increasing climatic disasters in an earthquake country like Turkey, a supra-political Ministry of Disaster must be established."

Since the first earthquakes last month, Turkey's president Erdoğan has rejected claims that the scale of the disaster is the government's fault, instead blaming it on fate.

Meanwhile, Turkey's justice ministry has set up crime investigation bureaus in the affected Turkish provinces.

"We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and buildings that caused deaths and injuries," Turkey's vice-president Fuat Oktay said.

More than 100 people are understood to have received arrest warrants for their ties to buildings destroyed by the disaster, with at least 12 having already been taken into custody.

The main image is by Çağlar Oskay via Unsplash. 

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Authorities in Turkey have issued arrest warrants to more than 100 people with ties to buildings destroyed by the devastating Turkey-Syria earthquake last week.

Turkey's vice-president Fuat Oktay said 131 contractors, architects and engineers linked to collapsed buildings have been identified following the tragic quakes, which struck parts of Turkey and Syria on 6 February.

At least 12 of those suspects have already been taken into custody, the Guardian reported.

The arrest warrants come as the death toll reaches more than 31,000 people in southern Turkey, and over 5,700 in north-west Syria, with these numbers expected to dramatically rise as rescue workers continue to search the rubble for survivors.

According to Reuters, vice-president Oktay said that the justice ministry has set up earthquake crimes investigation bureaus in the affected Turkish provinces.

"We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and buildings that caused deaths and injuries," he said.

Poor construction quality exacerbated destruction

Of more than 170,000 buildings across the south of Turkey, 24,921 have either collapsed or been severely damaged, said the Guardian. Many of these were 21st-century apartment blocks.

One of them was a 12-storey complex built a decade ago in Antakya by contractor Mehmet Yasar Coskun, who was detained at Istanbul airport before boarding a flight for Montenegro and has since been arrested.

The contractor told prosecutors he did not know why it had collapsed, Reuters reported.

"We fulfilled all procedures set out in legislation," Coskun told local news agency company Anadolu. "All licenses were obtained."

It is widely believed that the poor construction of buildings in Turkey has exacerbated the scale of the quake's destruction. The recent arrests are seen by some as an effort to divert blame from the Turkish government.

The quality and safety of buildings in Turkey have been under scrutiny since the 1999 Izmit Earthquake, which prompted more stringent construction regulations.

However, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government has been accused by opposition leaders of failing to properly enforce these standards.

This is partly due to so-called "construction amnesties" in Turkey, which are essentially legal exemptions for fees for structures built without the required safety certificates to encourage a construction boom.

Turkish president blames "destiny's plan"

Yet, president Erdoğan rejects these claims and blames the scale of the disaster on fate.

"Such things have always happened," said Erdoğan, the BBC reported. "It's part of destiny's plan."

In another report by the BBC, up to 75,000 buildings across the affected earthquake zone in southern Turkey were given these construction amnesties.

This was backed by University College London professor David Alexander who said that the earthquake was "not necessarily [large] enough to bring well-constructed buildings down".

"The maximum intensity for this earthquake was violent but not necessarily enough to bring well-constructed buildings down," said Alexander, who specialises in emergency planning and management.

"In most places the level of shaking was less than the maximum, so we can conclude out of the thousands of buildings that collapsed, almost all of them don't stand up to any reasonably expected earthquake construction code."

In an opinion piece on Dezeen, founder of Worldchanging Institute Cameron Sinclair said that "earthquakes don't kill people, bad buildings do".

Following the earthquake, aid for Turkey has flowed in from around the world, but recovery efforts in Syria are lagging because of political divisions. Today, Syria's government agreed to open two more border crossings to allow aid to be delivered more effectively.

The main photo is by Doga Ayberk Demir via Shutterstock.

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Architects should play a major role in the recovery after disasters like the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria, but egotistical posturing will not help anyone, writes Cameron Sinclair.

Countless lives have been lost with many more injured and suffering from the tragic disaster that has struck Turkey and northern Syria. While most people see the wrath borne by tectonic rupture, architects, engineers and construction professionals know that earthquakes don't kill people, bad buildings do.

Currently, somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed, many of which could continue to deteriorate with repeated aftershocks possible in the weeks and months ahead.

Well-meaning commitments and plans can be far worse than not responding at all

Entire towns and villages have been decimated and, as I write, valiant volunteers and aid workers are desperately trying to save those still trapped. Some are using bare hands and makeshift inflatable air bladders to lift rubble in an area that already has close to three million refugees displaced by a decade-long war.

In the last 25 years I've been part of dozens of humanitarian responses, engaging building professionals in many projects. From Afghanistan to Haiti, Japan, Syria and the United States, the outpouring of support and desire to help from our profession has always been unwavering.

However, well-meaning commitments and plans can in fact be far worse than not responding at all. When we only commit in the short-term, we raise expectations and create false hope to communities suffering from tragedy. You can do a disservice to the community and, in turn, the profession as a whole. In humanitarian circles, we call this the "Katrina effect", when so many groups came to rebuild the Gulf Coast but left a community with empty promises.

During my career, I've been fortunate enough to work with a lot of building professionals. After the great earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I ended up developing the "rule of four" strategy in responding to disasters. A brief synopsis follows:

In the first four days, the affected region needs immediate relief efforts. In the first four weeks, engineering and building assessment teams are needed to mobilize and evaluate damaged structures. In the first four months, a locally-based architectural response team must work with community leaders, stakeholders, funders and professional and academic institutions to help coordinate reconstruction efforts. And finally – the most important – teams must be funded and commit to at least four years in the rebuilding process.

It's easy to get it wrong, and I write from personal experience. As a passionate design professional in my mid-20s, I led a small team in launching a design competition to build housing for families displaced by the Kosovo conflict. That competition was called Architecture for Humanity. While we built hospitals and schools with funds raised, the number of homes built: zero.

I'm frustrated, angry and distraught at how we allow history to repeat itself

No symposiums, design competitions, conferences or flamboyant design proposals will help a damn soul without actually building solutions. In the face of natural disasters, climate collapse and conflict, the world continues to need dedicated teams working collectively to rebuild civic and economic infrastructure.

Architecture can be a catalyst for change, helping enforce better construction practices and building codes, ensuring funding is distributed to affected communities. But here is the kicker: if you truly want to help, you have to be ready to work when all the funding and interest has disappeared.

After 15 years, I left the organization I helped found and once cared so deeply about. The following decade I worked silently under the guise of others. I found my passion again in partnering with Syrian refugees to develop and build re-deployable structures, advising housing groups in conflict zones, supporting families caught across political borders, tackling gun violence in the US and building health facilities in Ethiopia and Cambodia.

During that time, it was my hope that a global network of building professionals would emerge ready to respond to any humanitarian crisis, beyond the handful of existing organizations. It hasn't.

Certainly "pro bono" architecture exists as part of our industry, but it is not what the majority of the world sees. In mainstream media, we see high-profile architects flying into Ukraine with promises of city building, government agencies handing tens of millions to groups with scant local experience and international institutions sending out condolence tweets whilst ensuring grassroots architectural groups receive scant financial support beyond awards and recognition.

Do I sound like a bitter curmudgeon? I'm sure I've been called worse and frankly don't have the time to care. I'm frustrated, angry and distraught at how we allow history to repeat itself.

The world is ill-prepared for what the next 40 years will bring – and our profession should know better. If you believe in science, you'll know storms and earthquakes are getting worse and more frequent. Resource scarcity will lead to conflict and the continual destruction of our planet for access to what should be a basic human right.

The cradle of civilization needs more than our hope

Should we join marches and protest our realities of the future or work together to invest in creating solutions for the present? Our entire profession needs some serious soul-searching to rekindle the value of what we bring to society. Instead of relying on our institutions beg for a seat at the decision-making table we need to fight for our values and show that, when called upon, we can rise to the occasion by acting as the vessel for a community in recovery and re-emergence.

We are now three days since the earthquake and now is the moment to unify as a profession.

The cradle of civilization needs more than our hope, it needs us to work together to empower talented and dedicated Turkish and Syrian architects in the resilient rebuilding of their communities. Time is not on their side and when we don't step up, do you know what gets built? Tens of thousands of poorly constructed buildings that will be a ticking time bomb for the next disaster.

When it comes to creating safe environments, architects are not just the creators of a brighter future, we are also the cavalry in times of need. If you know you have the opportunity prevent the deaths of tens of thousands, what will you do?

Cameron Sinclair is founder of Worldchanging Institute, an Arizona-based research organisation focused on architectural and design solutions to humanitarian crises. He is currently advising family foundations and NGOs on responding to manmade and natural disasters.

The photo is by VOA.

The post "Earthquakes don't kill people, bad buildings do" appeared first on Dezeen.

The latest edition of our weekly Dezeen Agenda newsletter features the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey, which is the world's longest suspension bridge. Subscribe to Dezeen Agenda now!

With a span of 2,023 metres, the bridge has reached completion and is now open to traffic over the Dardanelles waterway, connecting Turkey's European and Asian shores.

Created by consulting group COWI for contractor DLSY, the structure takes the title of the world's longest suspension bridge from the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan, which has a 1,992-metre-long span.

Other stories in this week's newsletter include the American Institute of Architects' best homes for 2022, designer Philippe Starck expressing his "unconditional support" for Ukraine after a yacht he designed for a Russian oligarch was seized, and an opinion piece on Cumbernauld's brutalist town centre by Rory Olcayto.

Dezeen Agenda

Dezeen Agenda is a curated newsletter sent every Tuesday containing the most important news highlights from Dezeen. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Agenda or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to Dezeen Debate, which is sent every Thursday and contains a curated selection of highlights from the week, as well as Dezeen Daily, our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours on Dezeen.

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The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge has reached completion in Turkey with a span of 2,023 metres, becoming the longest suspension bridge in the world.

Open to traffic over the Dardanelles waterway, the massive structure was created by consulting group COWI for contractor DLSY to connect Turkey's European and Asian shores.

The bridge, named after the year of an important Ottoman naval victory against the British and the French during world war one, takes the title of the world's longest suspension bridge from the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan, which has a 1,992-metre-long span.

The distinctive 318-metre-high red towers from which the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge's steel deck is suspended are also the tallest of any suspension bridge in the world, according to COWI.

The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge is located south of the Sea of Marmara. It is expected to carry up to 45,000 vehicles across its six lanes each day and support both tourism and commercial activity in the region.

While the main design work was carried out by COWI, the team also included construction companies Daelim, Limak, SK and Yapi Merkezi.

According to COWI, the position of the bridge posed many design challenges, including high winds and high seismic activity. It achieves its aerodynamic stability partly through a twin-box girder.

The clearance between the water and the deck was engineered to accommodate high-stacked container ships and cruise ships that need to pass under it.

"The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge has been a fantastic project to work with," concluded COWI's project director Inger Birgitte Kroon.

"Not just for all the technical challenges that we as engineers love but also for the strong collaboration with DLSY, the owner and other involved parties," she continued. "Only with a collaborative mindset from all parties has it been possible to design and construct a world record suspension bridge in less than five years."

Suspension bridges are one of the seven main types of bridges that feature in the Dezeen guide to bridge design and architecture. The structures feature a deck suspended from vertical ties or suspension cables, attached to tensile cables slung between towers.

Other recent suspension bridges featured on Dezeen include the world's longest glass bridge in China and a 516-metre-long pedestrian suspension bridge in Portugal.

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Dutch studios IND [Inter.National.Design] and Powerhouse Company have completed the Çanakkale Antenna Tower, a broadcasting and observation tower made from Corten steel to contrast a surrounding forest.

IND [Inter.National.Design] and Powerhouse Company designed the looping building, which is located in Çanakkale, Turkey, to form a continuation of an existing forest path. As well as a multimedia and telecom broadcast antenna, it also houses exhibition spaces, recreational facilities and an observation deck.

The 3,000-square-metre building is made from Corten steel. The studios chose the material for both its colour and its ability to withstand the weather.

"The project's principal material is Corten steel for its suitability for outdoor sculpture and its natural rust color," Arman Akdogan, partner at IND [Inter.National.Design], told Dezeen.

"Corten or weathering steel is a type of steel alloy that develops a stable, rust-like appearance after exposure to the weather," Akdogan added.

"This finish forms a protective layer that prevents atmospheric corrosion. Its rustic and antique appearance offers a wonderful contrast with the green forest and reflects the long history of Çanakkale."

The tower's site was partly occupied by a decommissioned military complex, which meant it had strict plot boundaries that helped inform the curving path of the design.

Çanakkale Antenna Tower's public areas are separated from the technical areas, which are located in a concrete underground bunker. The looping tower has a walkable roof, which continues the forest path and is made from wood.

By elevating much of the structure, the studios aimed to create a building that would allow the landscape to "flow uninterruptedly" and leave a minimal footprint.

"The beauty of the site, a hilltop forest facing the Dardanelles Strait, inspired the creation of a spatial experience that is intimately connected with the landscape – far removed from a conventional antenna tower design," Akdogan explained.

Visitors to the building walk along the forest path, which merges into the visitor centre as the building rises from the ground before "shooting" up towards the sky in the form of a tower.

"It was a challenge to combine a public program with a (potentially hazardous) radio tower, yet we solved the puzzle with a single gesture," said Powerhouse Company co-founder Nanne de Ru.

The studios won an international competition to design the tower, beating firms including Snøhetta with Özer/Ürger Architects and Battle Mccarthy, who took second prize, and AL_A, which came in third.

Other recent projects by Powerhouse Company include the first mass-timber university building in the Netherlands and a reception building topped with a red circular walking trail in Chengdu, China.

The photography is by Sebastian van Damme.

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Emre Arolat Architecture has completed a hotel in Antioch, Turkey, featuring prefabricated rooms that are suspended from an enormous steel frame above an important archaeological site.

The project, which is shortlisted in the hospitality building category of Dezeen Awards 2021, began in 2009 when the developer of the 34,000-square-metre site commenced work on the foundations for a planned luxury hotel.

During the excavations a significant archaeological find was unearthed, including artefacts belonging to 13 different civilisations as well as the world's largest in-situ mosaic.

The developer was keen to progress with the completion of the hotel, but Turkey's Cultural and National Assets Protection Board decreed that a scientific archaeological excavation was required.

The original plans for the five-star hotel were scrapped and Emre Arolat Architecture was asked to develop a new proposal that could be built without disturbing the ancient structures.

"The tension between the significance of archeological findings, their restrictions and hotel's strict programmatic codes was the main determinant that constituted the contextual and physical frame of the project," said EAA.

"This strain subverted the conventional hotel typology and put forward the idea of integrating a public museum that would exhibit the restored archeological artefacts."

A committee of scientific experts was able to determine the locations of artefacts that were still to be excavated. The building was then designed to fit around these excavation sites, as well as the already unearthed treasures.

A total of 66 pillars were embedded in the site to support a massive framework that hovers above the ground.

The requirement to construct the building using the smallest possible footprint, along with the unconventional placement of the pillars, resulted in a structure with a highly irregular geometry.

"All typological elements of the hotel have been raised off the ground and the programme elements are considered as individual units spread on the site under a protective canopy, rather than building a compact, introverted, conventional hotel building," the architects added.

The Museum Hotel Antakya's 200 modular rooms were prefabricated in a nearby workshop over a period of nine months and then transported to the site one by one.

A crane was used to lower the 16-tonne steel-framed units into place. The rooms are fixed to the steel frame and stacked in twos or threes.

A canopy installed at a height of approximately 25 metres above ground level protects the archaeological site below. Facilities including a restaurant, gym, swimming pool, nightclub and ballroom are located on the roof level.

The roof features a large glazed opening that allows natural light to permeate down through the building. The skylight's position and outline references the path of a river that once flowed across the site.

The hotel's lobby and lounge are situated below the rooms, approximately 10 metres above the ancient ruins. The museum and archeo-park are elevated just above the ground level and are accessible from the adjacent street.

A sequence of ramps and bridges allow visitors to traverse the site and observe the ruins from a close proximity without touching them in any way. The design also ensures a visual connection to the ruins is maintained across each level.

The project aims to demonstrate a new approach to dealing with archaeological sites in urban areas by preserving the findings in situ whilst also allowing development to take place.

"The main objective of the design from the beginning of the process till the end was that The Museum Hotel Antakya would have a positive impact on the geography," EAA concluded.

"It is located as a unique building that at the same time benefits from the potentials and opportunities of the context."

Emre Arolat Architecture was founded in Istanbul in 2004 by Emre Arolat and Gonca Paşolar. The firm works on projects across all scales and also has offices in London and New York City.

EAA's previous projects include a mosque near Istanbul featuring concrete and stone walls surrounded by a terraced landscape. Founder Emre Arolat was a co-curator of the Istanbul Design Biennal in 2012.

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Salon Alper Derinbogaz has revealed the design for Ecotone, a set of partially open-air offices for Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul.

Set to be located on the university's Yıldız Teknopark campus, the Turkish architecture studio took the coronavirus pandemic into account when designing the educational facility.

"Ecotone proposes a new exemplar for pandemic resistant and sustainable office architecture, with the integration of outside areas, planting, and protected yet fluid office zones," said Salon Alper Derinbogaz.

"The project aims to develop a better office environment that prioritises hygiene and safe areas for individual and group work."

Ecotone is named for the geographic term to describe where one ecosystem meets another. The offices will sit between the textile academy and a teaching block on campus, and provide a place for study that will act as a bridge between education and industry.

Raised platforms with rounded edges will act as a base for a series of single-storey offices with curved glass walls.

Open-air and semi-covered walkways and terraces will connect these spaces, doubling as outdoor meeting spaces when the weather is fine.

A passive geothermal heating and cooling system, which uses pipes buried in the ground to sustainably regulate a building's temperature, will reduce the need for air conditioning.

Re-circulated air is a risk factor in coronavirus transmission, according to the World Health Organisation, while natural ventilation can be safer.

The roof will be supported by a series of slim columns. These mushroom-style supports will double as hollow pipes to channel rainwater off the roof surface.

Planters filled with greenery and trees will be placed both indoors and outdoors.

As with most of Istanbul, Ecotone will be built in an earthquake risk zone. Its site has no space for foundations either, so the structure needs to be entirely self-supporting.

For this reason, the columns will expand at the top and the bottom to support the load.

"The structure uses a steel mainframe and timber sub-frames, clad in laminated timber with steel connectors," said Salon Alper Derinbogaz.

"The tubular columns employ an innovative fabrication technology similar to that used in petrol tank design, perhaps used for the first time in architecture."

Salon Alper Derinbogaz was founded in 2010 by Alper Derinbogaz and is based in Istanbul. Its offices were one of 10 practices in the city photographed by Marc Goodwin as part of his global series on architects' studios.

Project credits:

Architect: Salon Alper Derinboğaz
Architecture team: Egemen Onur Kaya, Ekin Cem Tümbek, Pınar Kömürcü, Emmy Bacharach, Berkay Yücebaş, Tolga Halil Akşahin, Cansu Gösterişli, Han Seki
Structural engineering: Parlar Engineering
Mechanical engineering: Çilingiroğlu Engineering
Electrical engineering: Sanayi Engineering
Structural peer review: Peter Bauer, Werkraum
Sustainability consultant: Pınar Sipahi
Structural peer review: Peter Bauer

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A rippling timber roof cantilevers from the Dolunay Villa in Muğla, Turkey, designed by Foster + Partners to complement its rugged coastal setting.

Positioned on the coast of the Aegean Sea, it is the first private family house designed by Foster + Partners since completing Leedon Park House in Singapore in 2006.

Dolunay Villa's giant undulating timber roof is designed to appear like an extension of its rocky, beachside setting.

Its terraces are sheltered by the home's overhanging roof, which has a 7.5-metre-wide cantilever. It relies on solid structural oak beams that rest on steel columns and was designed in collaboration with Blumer Lehmann.

"We were fascinated by the local landscape and wanted it to flow through the interior spaces and effectively disguise the building," said Foster + Partners' head of studio David Summerfield.

"Even though it gets incredibly hot in the summer, we wanted the building to be able to breathe naturally," he added.

"The landscaped open courtyards within the house allow the prevailing sea breeze to gently move through the villa. These are simple ideas that have come together in an elegant way."

Huge areas of glazing on the south side of the home  open out to the sea and invite in the coastal breeze.

Dolunay Villa comprises two storeys divided into private and shared spaces, surrounded by landscaped gardens. These gardens feature fragrant plants such as thyme and lavender, chosen to create a "multi-sensory experience".

The home is accessed from a meandering approach on its north side, where it is disguised as a closed-off, low-rise dwelling.

Its full scale is revealed by following the gradient of the sloped site to the south side, where it switches into a two-storey structure, partially embedded it into the landscape.

The unexpected transition between the one and two-storey sides to the villa is reflected externally in the buildings material finishes.

Its windowless north side is lined with stone and timber slats, while the south sea-facing side is enveloped by large areas of glazing.

"There's a real split between the public forum and private," explained the architecture firm's partner Niall Dempsey.

"A sense of discovery and a richness of experience comes through in the way the spaces change as you walk through the site."

Inside, the main entrance guides visitors directly to the centre of the villa, which is flanked by the private quarters on its east side, and the public areas to the west.

Here there is a feature spiral staircase that is made from solid Portuguese limestone, and provides access to the lower ground floor.

Along Dolunay Villa's south-facing facade, the glazing slides open to provides access onto shaded terraces.

These terraces offer an connect the interior and exterior, and also help naturally ventilate the home.

This main outdoor terrace links to the shared living areas, and is connected to a linear swimming pool.

Throughout the home, the interiors are complete with a natural material palette dominated by stone, wood, leather and bronze.

Many of its finishing touches are bespoke, including hand-carved solid timber doors and ceramic tiles and basins in the bathrooms.

The home is complete with a "sunset pavilion" positioned closer to the coast.

This pavilion also features an earthy material palette of stone walls, wooden tables and a bamboo soffit.

Foster and Partners is an architecture studio with offices worldwide and headquarters in London. It was founded in 1967 by Norman Foster.

Other recent projects by the studio include a luxury residential tower in London, Philadelphia's tallest building and an Apple store in Miami with an undulating white concrete roof.

Photography is by Nigel Young/Foster + Partners.

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Ten architects' studios in Istanbul, Turkey, opened their doors to photographer Marc Goodwin for the latest instalment in his global series.

Norm Architects, Tabanlioglu Architects and Emre Arolat Architecture are just some of the architecture practices captured by Goodwin, the founder of architectural photography site Archmospheres.

"Istanbul is one of my favourite cities," Goodwin told Dezeen. "There are lots of great architects here."

Goodwin has previously shot architects' studios on location in Paris, Shanghai and Los Angeles, but his latest series takes in the Turkish city that straddles Europe and Asia.

"This is a big city for this part of the world, though small compared to [other locations in his series] Seoul, Mexico City or São Paulo, and it really feels it," he said of Istanbul.

"Layer upon layer of history, things being torn-down, torn-up, rebuilt. On one level it feels like a constant battle to get things done on the other hand people feed stray cats everywhere you look and fish all along the Bosphorus," he added.

"It feels like a Mediterranean village on steroids."

The photographer had a little more adventure than he bargained for when an earthquake struck the city while he was shooting at Emre Arolat's office, which "collapsed the whole city for the day".

"They only have them once in a blue moon apparently and the last one was a decade ago – the last time I visited!" he said.

Scroll down to see inside ten architects' studios in Istanbul:

AVCI Architects

In this space since: 2018
Number of employees: 15
Building's former use: house

GEO_ID

In this space since: 2009
Number of employees: 19
Building's former use: house

KG Mimarlık

In this space since: 1997
Number of employees: 10
Building's former use: residential

Salon Alper Derinbogaz

In this space since: 2014
Number of employees: 19
Building's former use: residential

Norm Architects

In this space since: 2007
Number of employees: 32
Building's former use: Armenian community prep-school

MeMA London

In this space since: 2018
Number of employees: 15
Building's former use: studio

Atelye 70

In this space since: 2010
Number of employees: 15
Building's former use: school guesthouse

Emre Arolat Architecture

In this space since: 2010
Number of employees: 50
Building's former use: new build

Tabanlioglu Architects

In this space since: 1995
Number of employees: 130
Building's former use: office and apartments

Nevzat Sayın Mimarlık Hizmetleri

In this space since: 2013
Number of employees: 8
Building's former use: carpenter's shop

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Digital art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast marks the opening of the Kengo Kuma-designed Odunpazari Modern Museum with two virtual reality installations that comment on humanity's dependency on nature.

Titled Treehugger and In The Eyes of the Animal, the two immersive exhibitions combine virtual reality with aerial 360-degree drone filming to take visitors through a digital forest.

While In The Eyes of the Animal allows viewers to embody various creatures as they fly above the trees, Treehugger acts as a "digital fossil", documenting rare and endangered trees.

Marshmallow Laser Feast hopes that the installations will aid conservation efforts by encouraging people to connect with the natural world and in turn feel compelled to protect it.

The opening installations will run from 8 September until 7 December 2019 at the Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM), which officially opened its doors today.

Designed by renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, the architect behind the V&A Dundee museum, OMM is a modern art museum housed in a cluster of stacked-timber blocks.

"Museums act like cultural lighthouses, positively impacting social life," said Ersin Han Ersin, one of three creative directors of Marshmallow Laser Feast.

"Eskisehir has one of the youngest demographics in Turkey and stimulating this young audience with great architecture, beautifully curated collections and diverse programming gives all of us hope for our collective futures in Turkey," he added.

Marshmallow Laser Feast aims to convey an "important environmental message" with its installations – this being that the protection and restoration of the environment is crucial to the future of humanity.

"Humanity's dependence on the natural world is absolute, from the food we eat to the water we drink and the air we breathe, and the protection and regeneration of ecosystems is fundamental to our collective futures," said OMM.

"In an age where technology is said to disconnect people from the natural environment, Marshmallow Laser Feast uses cutting-edge technology to highlight the invisible but fundamental connections and dependence between humans and the natural world," the institution added.

Originally set in Grizedale Forest in the UK's Lake District, In the Eyes of the Animal uses virtual reality, aerial 360-degree drone filming, LiDAR and CT scanning to take viewers above the forest canopy.

Visitors will come face-to-face with various insects and animals in high definition, as well as embodying four different woodland species to try to understand how they view the world and their environment – particularly the challenges our planet faces in the twenty-first century.

The Treehugger installation was created as the first step in Marshmallow Laser Feast's plans to develop a virtual archive of rare and endangered trees, starting with the Giant Sequoia tree.

The studio collaborated with researchers at London's Natural History Museum and Salford University to create the video, using LiDAR, white light and CT scanning to create highly detailed textures that "distort our sense of space and time and make the invisible visible."

The tree's vascular system is presented through a soundscape. Sounds were generated by capturing bio-signals and sonifying them using hardware and software custom-made by sonic artist Mileece I'Anson.

The studio also created a soundscape for the tree's external environment, designed to creatively represent the Sequoia National Park's bioacoustics.

Audio layers of birds, insects, amphibians, rain and wind were weaved together to create an immersive sound field, with certain sounds being mapped to movement.

"It's great working with institutions like OMM that take environmental issues seriously and use art to address our fundamental dependency on nature," said Ersin.

"Both installations on display at OMM challenge the idea of our current 'age of distraction', where technology is accused of disconnecting people from society and the environment," he continued.

"Instead, Treehugger and In the eyes of the Animal use sensors, virtual reality headsets and multi-modal stimuli to catalyse a group experience that embeds us in planetary cycles and shared natural rhythms," the designer added.

Marshmallow Laser Feast's works will form part of OMM's inaugural exhibition, opening on 8 September. The museum will also host a large-scale installation by Japanese bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV made from woven bamboo.

Marshmallow Laser Feast first debuted its In the Eyes of an Animal installation back in 2015, where visitors to an English forest were able to experience the landscape via virtual reality as if through the eyes of one of three woodland creatures: a dragonfly, a frog and an owl.

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The Odunpazari Modern Museum, designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates, has opened its doors in Eskisehir, northwest Turkey.

Built to house the modern art collection of architect and chairperson of Turkish contractor Polimeks, Erol Tabanca, the museum in the Odunpazari district of Eskisehir is formed of a cluster of boxes made from stacked, interlocking timber beams.

Odunpazari, which means firewood market in Turkish, used to be a centre for timber trading and Kengo Kuma and Associates took this history as the basis for the design.

"Timber is really important to the town's heritage," said Yuki Ikeguchi​, the partner leading the project at Kengo Kuma and Associates.

"Ensuring that the building spoke to the history and memory of its setting was always front and centre in our minds. It has been always our practice's keen interest to build with timber that gives comfort and warmth to the space and is kind to the environment."

The building consists of a group of square-shaped blocks that are surrounded by laminated-timber beams stacked on top of each other. These have been arranged to continue the streetscape of the surrounding Ottoman houses.

"Cantilevers and rotation makes the streetscape and walkthrough experience very special and unexpected," explained Ikeguchi.

"It was my intention to make a link to the unique character of the Ottoman houses adjacent to the site by stacking and rotating the boxes that offer the opportunity to house exhibitions and activities in various scales," she continued.

"Not just in the formalist manner, but to continue the streetscape and recreate the non-linear journey of visiting the inside of the museum."

The museum will display items from Tabanca's 1,000-piece collection of modern and contemporary art, alongside temporary exhibitions.

The building is designed so that there are smaller, more intimate spaces on the lower floors, with larger, open galleries for events and exhibitions on the upper floors. It also contains a cafe and a shop.

At the centre of the building, where four of the stacked blocks meet, there is a skylit atrium that stretches the full height of the three-storey building.

This timber-lined square skylight twists gently as it rises through the building.

The museum opens out onto a large plaza with steps that run up alongside the building, which connects an area of older housing with a new development.

"The idea for OMM was to use architecture to create a link between people and art," said Ikeguchi.

"We were deeply inspired by the history, culture, people and streetscape of Odunpazari, and we wanted the building to resonate on many levels. We hope that the museum will breathe new life into Eskisehir and become a central and inviting meeting point for the city," she continued

"I hope visitors will feel excited and comfortable and that the museum will be a more than just a place to enjoy the art. I hope they will sense the connection to the history and the memory of the place that links to the future."

Kuma founded Kengo Kuma and Associates, which has offices in Tokyo and Paris, in 1990. The studio has completed numerous cultural projects around the world, the most recent being the V&A in Dundee.

Kuma is currently designing the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Denmark and a cultural centre in a former slaughterhouse in Porto.

Photography is by NAARO.

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Portuguese architect, curator and co-founder of The Decorators Mariana Pestana has been revealed as the curator of the Istanbul Design Biennial in 2020.

Pestana is the curator of Eco-Visionaries: Art and Architecture after the Anthropocene, an exhibition running until 8 October 2019 examining how designers are responding to the damage humans are doing to the environment. The exhibition is simultaneously on display at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon and galleries in Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Eco Visionaries response to the anthropocene will be coming to the Royal Academy in London from 23 November 2019 to 23 February 2020.

She has curated shows at the V&A Museum, including The Future Starts Here show, and ArkDes – the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design. She is currently curating the Young Curators Lab for the Porto Design Biennale 2019.

Pestana is also a co-founder of London studio The Decorators, which she runs with Suzanne O'Connell, Xavi Llarch Font and Carolina Caicedo.

The studio focuses on designing public spaces and exhibitions with a social dimension. Examples of past projects include turning an abandoned car showroom into a co-working space and building a temporary community events space on top of a multi-story car park.

"Mariana Pestana's passionate approach will be beneficial to the biennial in many ways, and her critical reflections on contemporary issues and inquiries into fictional futures are quite intriguing," said the board of the Istanbul Design Biennial.

"We believe that she will put all her soul into turning this edition into a memorable one, and relish the opportunity to extend the collaborative approach of the Istanbul Design Biennial."

The concept for the fifth Istanbul Design Biennial, which will run from 26 September to 8 November 2020, will be announced shortly.

Last year, under the curation of Belgian design critic and teacher Jan Boelen, the event was titled A School of Schools. Six pop-up schools to explored how informal groups of collaborators could tackle issues within and with design.

One of the projects on display proved how bioplastics made form algae could offer an alternative to petroleum-based plastics. At the exhibition Boelen told Dezeen that designers using recycled plastic is "bullshit".

"It's easy, it relieves our guilt," said Boelen. "We've set up crazy systems to collect it and reuse it and these systems now need to be made viable," he added. Instead, he argued, designers should use alternative – and more sustainable – materials.

Boelen is on the board for the 2020 biennial, along with ArkDes senior curator Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Selva Gürdoğan, partner at SUPERPOOL – International Multidisciplinary Design Studio, the V&A East curator Catherine Ince and curator and writer Amelie Klein.

Main image is courtesy of the Istanbul Design Biennial.

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Yalin Architectural Design made shutters from the wooden planks used for the board-formed concrete frame of Goat House, a holiday house in a small farming village in Turkey.

The Istanbul-based practice co-founded by Yalın Mimarlık devised a sloped concrete form for Goat House, so the taller end frames views over the lush Aegean landscape.

Shutters running along this south-facing facade can open to the landscape, or be closed to shut the house up when it isn't occupied.

A large overhang from the concrete roof creates a shaded area in front of the house, where built-in benches and cabinets minimise the need for outdoor furniture.

At the back a more sheltered, gravelled area connects to a driveway that leads down from the village road above.

Goat House, which is named after the animals that roam the nearby cliffs, is located in a village three miles from the sea, made up of just 20 households who rely on agriculture and beekeeping.

"Our idea was a simple rectangular prism that sits on the top of the terrain like an observation deck," said the architecture studio.

"With its soft concrete texture and modest height, the Goat House is built as a window opening to the Aegean landscape, surrounded by hills, greenhouses and agricultural areas."

Yalin Architectural Design deliberately used a limited range of materials to create a simple house for the client, who grew up in the village.

Goat House's interiors have been finished with white plaster and cast terrazzo.

The plan is divided into two by a central, courtyard-like space where a section of the roof has been cut-out.

To one side is a large living, kitchen and dining space, and to the other the bedrooms and bathrooms, connected via a corridor running along the back of the house.

Yalin Architectural Design was founded in 2011 by Yalin Mimarlik, Ömer Selçuz Baz and Okan Bal.

The practice has recently completed the Museum of Troy in Turkey, with a corten-clad form designed to resemble and excavated artefact.

Photography is by Egemen Karakaya.

Project credits:

Lead architect: Ömer Selçuk Baz
Design team: Elif Tuğçe Sarıhan, Ege Battal
Engineering: Aycan Balaban
Door system: Linea Rossa Opening Door and Sliding Door System
Flooring: SFS Floor
Woodshop: Bayram Yuce

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London architecture studio Softroom has created six lounges for Turkish Airlines inside Istanbul Airport, linked by a ribbon-like parametric wall that's nearly a mile long.

Called the Flow Wall, it runs throughout 19,000 square metres of lounge space in Istanbul Airport, creating what Softroom describes as an "intuitive route that transcends barriers of language and culture".

"Passengers will move effortlessly through zones and the form of [the wall] will relate this experience to the lightness and the dynamism of air travel," explained the studio.

The studio created the wall in just 30 weeks using parametric design – an algorithm-based process that allows you to test the various outcomes of a design concept within a set of parameters.

"We used Rhino CAD software to create the Flow Wall, controlled by grasshopper scripting," explained Oliver Salway, director of Softroom.

"The parametric script was able to quickly customise the smoothing of the wall's curves and the number of light strips, as well as provide a real-time preview of the wall's final form," he told Dezeen.

"We continued to use the script to fluidly develop the design of the wall as it flows through the different spaces and respond to the constraints in both structure and M&E."

The undulating wall is visible upon entrance to the airport, topped by a huge gold-metal Turkish Airlines logo. It guides travellers from the check-in counters, through to the lounge entrances and then to a central space populated by shops and other amenities.

Its form rises and dips to draw attention to different features in the lounges – for example in the cinema room it tapers downwards to direct sight lines to the screen, whereas it peaks "like a beacon" above one of the lounge's restaurants.

Constructed with a plywood framework, the wall has been covered with bleached strips of oakwood and carved to feature seven grooves – a subtle nod to the fact that Turkish Airlines fly across the world's seven continents.

These grooves have been inlaid with over three miles worth of LED lights, which can be set to pulse when necessary.

The six new lounges comprise of two international departure lounges – one dedicated to business class and another for those part of Turkish Airlines' loyalty programme – respective lounges for frequent flyers and general arrivals, and two domestic lounges for those flying within Turkey.

In the business class lounge there are sleep suites where travellers can rest and recharge, complete with sand-coloured furnishings and warm wood writing desks. There is also a museum-style space lined with display cases which will host a changing array of Turkish artworks and historic objects.

There is also a children's play area, prayer rooms and work pods dotted throughout.

Softroom is based in Lambeth, south London, and is headed up by Christopher Bagot and Oliver Salway. The studio often takes on large-scale projects – back in 2017 it designed a new lounge for business-class passengers of the Eurostar, completing its interiors with plush furnishings and marble fireplaces.

Photography is by Büşra Yeltekin, except where stated.

Project credits:

Architect: Softroom
Local architect: Avci Architects
Lighting designer: Cinimod Studio
Structural engineer: Sezer Proje
Mechanical engineer: Arke Muhendislik
Electrical engineer: Erke Tasarim
Acoustics consultant: Sandy Brown
Local designer: FD Architecture

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Melike Altınışık Architects' 369-metre-high Çamlıca TV and Radio Tower has almost completed in Istanbul, with only the engineered facade left to install.

Construction began on the supertall telecommunications tower in 2016, and is due to finish later this year. When finished, it will be the highest structure above sea level in the city.

With staggered, elliptical levels near the top, the tower's geometry is designed to change from different perspectives across Turkey's biggest city.

As well as being a key piece of infrastructure for Turkey's ministry for transport and communications, the structure will host a series of visitor attractions.

The top 13 levels will house observation decks and a restaurant offering 360-degree views over the city, which sits on the border of Europe and Asia.

The observation decks will sit at 148 and 153 metres, while the restaurant will host diners at 180 and 175 metres in the air.

A panoramic lift will transport the expected 4.5 million visitors a year up the tower, which will also have a library and exhibition spaces situated in its base.

When complete, the Çamlıca TV and Radio Tower will have capacity for 125 broadcasting transmitters.

Levels of the tower have been lifted up in phases and attached to the concrete core.

Four of the eight construction phases are now done, with the final four phases to lift up the 130-metre facade scheduled to complete by autumn 2019.

Melike Altınışık Architects is based in Istanbul. The studio has also recently revealed plans for a museum in Seoul that will be built using robots, including 3D-printed concrete machines and drones.

Photography is by Naaro.

Project credits:

Architect: Melike Altınışık Architects
Project director: Melike Altınışık
Project design team: Melike Altınışık in collaboration with Daniel Widrig
Project architects: Özge Çağlayan, Tuğba Okçuoğlu, Ayça Yontarım
Project team: Melih Altınışık, Tan Akıncı, Begüm Aktaş, İrem Coşkun, Gül Ertekin, Büşra Güler, Çiğdem Nur Kebapçı, Selçuk Kişmir, Thomas Kleinow, Samed Tezgah, Ahmet Ünveren
Architectural assistants: Ali Arslan, Yunus Emre Demirkıran, Zoe Georgio, Mazyvdas Samuolis, Beste Sensöz,
Structural engineer: Balkar
Structural peer review: Thorton Tomasetti
Telecommunication engineer: ABE Teknoloji
Electrical engineer: HB Teknik
Mechanical engineer: Çilingiroğlu
Wind engineer: RWDI
Facade engineer: Newtecnic
Landscape architect: DS Landscape
Fire strategy consultant: Etik
Vertical circulation consultant: 3TEK
Acoustic consultant: Pro-Plan
Lighting design consultant: Realities United, Darklighting
Way-finding design consultant: POMPAA
Quantity survey and fee estimation: Entegre Project Management
Client: UDHB – Ministry of Transportation and Communication

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House of Chickens, designed by architecture studio SO?, is a modular coop for 800 chickens on an artist's farm in Turkey.

Istanbul-based practice SO?  designed the coop on the Palanga Art and Architecture Farm in Erzincan, a project of Kutlug Ataman, who is commissioning structures for animals and wildlife in the neglected rural area.

The chicken coop was built with simple materials. It has oak plywood facades, oxidised metal panels and a roof of corrugated metal. As the farm expands, there is space to build more modules alongside the existing structure to expand the  coop.

The low-tech materials were chosen as they were easier to maintain and replace in its remote location. Wood was also deemed a more natural choice for the animals to shelter in.

"The reciprocity between human and animal is the main design aspect that shapes the sectional design of the project," said the architecture studio.

"The short section of the project lets the people collect the eggs, without having to go inside the coop and disturb the chickens, while the longitudinal section is formed by main functions of the shelter; sleeping and incubating."

As summers can be hot, the sloping roof extends to form a shady canopy under the building for the chickens to rest under during the heat of the day.

SO? examined the habits of chickens and drew on local people's prior experience of looking after a flock of fowl to make sure House of Chickens' occupants would be contented.

"Designing for a user that does neither demand nor pay for a property is another ambitious task in the design process," said the architecture studio.

"If the users – chickens – do not appreciate the house, they simply won’t live in it."

Designing interesting homes for chickens is an unusual challenge for architects. Chan Brisco Architects designed a chicken coop that looks like a log cabin in rural Finland, and in Vietnam architecture studio Tropical Space built an elaborate chicken run that doubles as a children's playground.

House of Chickens' interior is cross ventilated and allows natural daylight to filter through, but indirectly. Timber roosting bars are angled to be easy for chicken claws to rest on.

Wooden nesting boxes are stacked three high and can be accessed through hatches on the outside, so as not to disturb the birds too much.

The coop rests lightly on trusses the ground, which is being regenerated as part of the farm's program to replenish nutrients in the depleted soil.

It's the first building to be completed in a masterplan that includes barns, feedlots, greenhouses, goose coops and kitchens. There is also an area dedicated to rehabilitating wild birds and a campaign to plant 5,000 trees a year.

Photography is by Ali Taptik.

Project credits:

Architect: SO?
Lead architects: Sevince Bayrak, Oral Göktaş
Design team: Derya Ertan, Elif Çivici, Selin Çubukçuoğlu, Gülce Yuyar, Zeynep Çabuk

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Yalin Mimarlik has completed a weathering-steel-clad archaeological museum in northwest Turkey, which is dedicated to the history of the city of Troy.

Located 800 metres from the site of the ancient city, the orange-coloured museum was designed by Turkish architecture studio Yalin Mimarlik to resemble an "excavated artefact".

It takes the form of a cube clad in weathering steel called Corten, which extends down below the ground into a vast subterranean level.

First excavated in 1870, Troy is an ancient city famous for the mythical siege narrated in Homer's Iliad. Excavations from the site reveal the earliest contact made between the civilisations of Asia and the Mediterranean.

"Museum of Troy is honouring this heritage and is a medium to tell the rich history of Troy in relation to its natural, cultural, artistic and archeological context," explained the architects.

Yalin Mimarlik won a competition held by Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism to design a museum at the UNESCO World Heritage site in 2011.

Now complete, it comprises 2,000 square metres of exhibition space, split over four floors, showcasing ancient artefacts.

The Museum of Troy's entrance is on the subterranean floor, accessed by a large ramp lined with concrete walls indented with niches to hold small exhibits.

As well as the entrance hall, this underground floor houses exhibition spaces, a cafe, restaurant, retail facilities, and hidden conservation laboratories and storage space for the museum's collection.

From the subterranean space a series of internal ramps that wrap around the inside of the cube provide access to the exhibition spaces above.

These ramps also lead up to a rooftop terrace, which provides views out onto the site of Troy and areas of archeological excavation nearby.

All the Museum of Troy's interiors have been minimally furnished, with the building's concrete frame left exposed to retain focus on the exhibits.

Corten steel is the only trademarked material to make it into the Dezeen Hot List. In 2017, architecture studio Elding Oscarson also used the material in its extension of the Skissernas Museum in Lund, Sweden, which is designed to complement a historic red brick building nearby.

Photography is by Emre Dörter unless stated.

Project credits:

Lead architects: Ömer Selçuk Baz, Okan Bal, Ozan Elter, Ece Özdür, Ege Battal, Cihan Poçan, Tuğgen Kukul, Firdevs Ermiş, Pelin Yıldız
Curatorial design: Deniz Ünsal, Lebriz Atan, Burçin Akcan, Cristina Rizzello
Consultants: Rüstem Aslan, Fonksiyon Engineering, FDC Engineering, Moskay Engineering, Cemal Omak, Tülay Tosun, ALD Lighting
Employer: Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Contractor: Aksan Construction

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Hundreds of chateaux have been abandoned at the Burj Al Babas luxury housing development in central Turkey, after its developer filed for bankruptcy, as shown in this drone footage.

Approximately halfway between Turkey's largest city Istanbul and its capital Ankara, the Burj Al Babas development will contain 732 identical mini chateaux when, or if, it completes.

Begun in 2014, the hundreds of houses have been left in various states of completion since the dramatic collapse of the Turkish economy led to developer Sarot Group to file for bankruptcy in November. The complex has debts of $27 million, reports Bloomberg.

Each of the houses are identical, with the developer controlling the external appearance and buyers allowed to customise the internal layout.

Identical houses all in style of mini French chateaux

The houses, which are being built in the style of mini French chateaux, are all three storeys tall with a round corner turret and a square tower above their entrances.

They are closely arranged on 324-square-metre plots on a rural site near the town of Mudurnu, as can be seen in the footage.

At the centre of the development a large classical domed building is also under construction. This building is intended to be the communal centre of the complex and will contain shops, cinemas, restaurants, conference halls, small meeting rooms, and a nursery.

587 houses completed before bankruptcy 

It is also planned to house fitness facilities and include a Turkish baths, saunas, steam rooms, and an aqua park, while basketball courts, tennis courts, and football pitches would be built alongside it.

Before it filled for bankruptcy the developer had completed 587 houses in the development, with the chateaux sold for $370,000 to $530,000.

Although construction has halted at the site Mezher Yerdelen, Sarot Group's deputy chairman, told Bloomberg that he is hopeful that the development will continue.

"The project is valued at $200 million," said Yerdelen. "We only need to sell 100 villas to pay off our debt. I believe we can get over this crisis in four to five months and partially inaugurate the project in 2019."

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An embroidered computer and a sound recorder made from yarn are among the products produced as part of Ebru Kurbak's research project into the use of traditional textile techniques to manufacture electronic objects.

The arts-based research project, called Stitching Worlds, was put together over the course of four years by Vienna-based artist and designer Kurbak.

The five separate works were installed and showcased at the city's Yapı Kredi Culture Centre during this year's Istanbul Design Biennial. The works each explore textile technologies and traditions, such as knitting, weaving, crochet, and embroidery, and how they can be adapted to produce electronic objects.

Created between May 2014 and June 2018 at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the series of projects were funded by the Austrian Science Fund.

The exhibition posed the question: What if electronics emerged from textile techniques such as knitting, weaving, crochet, and embroidery? And also: How would technology be different if craftspeople were the catalysts to the electronics industry, via textiles manufacturing?

The five projects were carried out with a large network of collaborators and in four parallel tracks of investigation: experimentation, theoretical study, speculation and reflection and dissemination.

Projects include a working 8-bit universal electromechanical computer that is embroidered from gold. Made from linen, gold, silver, copper, hematite and wood, the computer is handmade using a traditional embroidery technique and does not incorporate any regular electronic components.

In terms of its capacity and workings, the embroidered computer is comparable to early mainframe computers that were built in the 1950s.

Its computer circuit and simulation software was designed by Matthias Mold. Raimund Krennmüller created the generative pattern development, Susanne Frantal consulted on the use of embroidery, and Sophie Fürnkranz advised on the use of metal threads.

"The piece demonstrates the possibility to make a computer from scratch through long-established alternative materials and skills," said Ebru Kurbak and Irene Posch, who led the project. "Through its mere existence, it evokes one of the many imaginable alternative histories of computing technology and stories of plausible alternatives to our present daily lives."

Kurbak collaborated with So Kanno, Posch and Mold on a magnetic recording and playback device that can record and play sounds on yarns that contain steel fibers.

The Yarn Recorder's design resembles the wooden yarn-winding tools, such as a spindle, used to unwind hanks of handspun yarn onto bobbins or reels before the process of hand weaving.

"Hand spinning has lost its position as a necessity, at least in Europe, and has become a process for manufacturing luxury goods if not a hobby," said Kurbak.

"As a result, the societal value given to the process of hand spinning has drastically changed, as far to make it hard for us to conceive the influence of the simple spindle on the development of the complex and sophisticated technologies of today," she added.

"The Yarn Recorder intends to reveal this fascinating link through playful interaction, as a commentary on the changeability of the value of things."

Also on display was a series of four imagined tools that are designed to be used for new electronic textile practices. The Tools We Want include the Ohm Tailor's Tape by Kurbak, the Fingernail Strippers by Hannah Perner-Wilson, the Needlework Probes by Posch, and the eTextile Tailor's Scissors by Mika Satomi.

"The tools on display, beyond being one of the many practical extensions to the artists' toolkits, are chosen for the way they visually communicate the straddled position of cross-disciplinary practices like electronic textiles, and form a commentary on socially constructed stereotypes about skills and competencies," said Kurbak.

Other showcased projects included Crafted Logic – a series of electronic components and objects produced in collaboration with a group of women in Turkey. Made by crocheting threads with conductive properties, pieces include electromechanical switches, logic gates, and an Algorithmic Logic Unit (ALU) for an electromechanical computer.

The experimental process focused on adapting the traditional local needlework techniques already practiced by the group of women, who are based in the rural area of Anatolia in Turkey.

The handmade crochet technique used to make the components is traditionally used to make items for a wedding trousseau by the bride and other female members of the family. Made over the course of several years, the wedding trousseau contains delicate objects, such as doilies, towels, beddings, tablecloths, curtains, and clothes.

"This tradition leads women to spend significant time practicing and gaining a high-level expertise, especially in crocheting, one at a time, circular, square, and hexagonal small 'motifs' to be combined into a larger textile object later on," explained Kurbak, who worked with Perner-Wilson, Posch and Mika Satomi on the project.

The final project presented by Kurbak was The Knitcoin Edition – an adaption of the well-known board game Monopoly that compares the shifting economic value of craft skills, such as brocading and hand-weaving silk, with the rise of immaterial money markets, such as cryptocurrencies, throughout history.

"Monopoly was originally invented as a critical tool to demonstrate the unfair consequences of the system it now iconically represents," said Kurbak.

"The proposal is to replace the game's paper play money with 'knitcoin' without changing the rest of the rules," she continued. "When players need play money, they must knit it. The installation invites the audience to speculate on the consequences of such a system."

The five projects were presented alongside a live workshop where craftspeople practiced and developed textile-electronic objects.

"The Stitching Worlds workshop showcases the surfacing and maturing of a unique craft, providing a final opportunity for the craftspeople to revisit unfinished experiments that have remained in their minds," explained Kurbak.

As well as the final exhibition, the Stitching Worlds research project also resulted in a book, and a project blog.

This year's biennial, which ran between the 2 Sepetmber and 4 November was the fourth hosted by the Turkish city. According to its curator Jan Boelen, female designers made up 70 per cent of participants, proving that women are set to play a dominant role in the design world in the future.

Photography is by Kayhan Kaygusuz.

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A helium balloon tethered to a cantilevered track is among the winners in a competition to design a conceptual observation deck to overlook a volcano's crater in eastern Turkey.

The Volcano Eyes competition, which was held by Bee Breeders, set entrants the challenge of designing a 20 square-metre observation platform to perch at the top of Nemrut, a dormant volcano situated in eastern Turkey.

Sitting at an altitude of 2,800 metres, the viewing deck would provide uninterrupted and otherwise unaccessible vistas of the surrounding scenery and the volcano's large, crater-like pit that plays host to three lakes.

While the projects won't actually be realised, participants were asked to develop their ideas using a guide budget of £75,000 and to keep in mind that the site will be reachable via a ski lift.

Due to the remote and largely untouched location, designs were also expected to consider energy efficiency and environmental responsibility.

First prize was awarded to students Fernando Irizarry, Marcos Ortiz and Gabriel Rivera from the University of Puerto Rico, whose project aims to "change the idea of a static observatory".

They proposed attaching an asymmetric helium balloon to a circular railed track, along which it would slowly move to offer 360-degree views of the landscape. Jutting out over the peak of the volcano, the rail's limited anchor points mean that little impact is made at ground level.

The second prize was given to architect Keremcan Kirilmaz and product designer Erdem Batirbek, both from Turkey. Their project features a stepped walkway that would ascend to a viewing platform shaped to reference the flow of lava and shifting movement of tectonic plates.

Crafted from weathered steel, the structure has been designed to endure the setting's changeable weather conditions.

Architects Guiseppe Pastonesi, Desislava Georgieva, Marchela Varbanova and Nina Gerosa from Italian studio S64 scooped third prize for their triangular proposal (lead image).

Cantilevering 10 metres over the edge of the volcano's crater, the platform lets visitors sightsee from numerous different points.

While the structure's floors have been designed from meshed steel to allow glimpses of the land below, its exterior would be constructed from white metal plates so that it would be camouflaged against the terrain during the snowy winter months.

Designers Sam Naylor and Elaine Stokes from the US were bestowed the competition's BB Green Award that commends a project that has a particular focus on sustainability.

Their observation deck, which gradually moves 70 degrees to offer different perspectives of Nemrut, is accessed via a solar-powered illuminated path.

Architecture magazine eVolo host a competition every year to design a conceptual skyscraper. Previous winners have included a collapsible building that can offer relief in remote disaster zones, a high-rise containing 11 different landscapes, and a tower housed within the hollowed-out trunks of giant sequoia trees.

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A system of pulleys are used to raise and lower sections of the walls of this prefabricated cabin on the border between Turkey and Greece, allowing the holiday home to open up to the outdoors or be completely closed during bad weather.

Cabin on the Border was designed by Istanbul architecture studio SO? for a couple with a young child who live in the Turkish city and wanted a retreat they could used to escape to on the weekends.

The cabin is situated in a village close to the city of Edirne in the northwest of Turkey. Its location close to the Aegean Sea means the family uses it for longer periods in the summer but it also needs to provide a sanctuary all year round.

The 18-square-metre building was fabricated at a factory around 300 kilometres from the site and transported on the back of a flatbed lorry to its current plot, where it is nestled among mustard plants.

A laminated-timber framework wrapped in stone-wool insulation and sheets of weatherproofed birch plywood contains a simple interior comprising a kitchen and lounge area overlooked by elevated beds.

Narrow horizontal windows incorporated into the walls provide views of the surrounding countryside and allow daylight to pour into the cabin when the walls are sealed.

A platform bed at one end of the space looks out onto a meadow through a large polycarbonate panel, which can be raised using a pulley. The window opens onto a deck formed by lowering the outer plywood wall.

"On a warm rainy afternoon, the polycarbonate window becomes a canopy to lay under and watch the sky over the plywood facade that becomes a terrace," said the architects.

"On a stormy night, both the window and the facade are shut down, then the cabin becomes like a sailboat in the ocean."

The bed can also be used as a bench for dining at a table that folds down from the wall. Large sliding drawers integrated beneath the platform provide useful storage.

All of the moving walls, furniture and windows are operated using pulleys or by hand as the cabin is off grid and therefore has no source of power.

A ladder placed at the end of the platform can be used to access a bed tucked into the space beneath the ceiling. The bed looks down onto the living area and has its own window offering a view of the countryside.

At the opposite end of the cabin is another bed above the kitchen, which is also reached using the ladder. A section of the wall lining this sleeping area can be lowered to allow fresh air to enter.

The kitchen features simple plywood units that provide the necessary storage and countertop space. A door to one side of the kitchen leads through to a bathroom.

The homogenous plywood interior is interrupted only by the wood-burning stove and the various openings framing views of the green landscape outside.

A slatted timber canopy that extends out from the side of the cabin provides shade to a bench facing back towards a small deck outside the entrance.

The simple design and limited palette of materials enabled the project to be completed at a cost of just €9,800 (£8,560), including transportation.

Project credits:

Team: Sevince Bayrak, Oral Göktaş, Şeyma Erdal, Cansu Özay, Metincan Güzel, Gizem Aşçı, Alex Gahr, Baran Aybars, Tuğçe Selin Türk, Cemal Temel
Structural consultant: Asmaz Ahşap

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Belgian design critic and teacher Jan Boelen has been announced as the curator of next year's Istanbul Design Biennial.

Boelen, 50, is the founder and artistic director of Z33 House for Contemporary Art in Belgium, artistic director of experimental laboratory Atelier Luma in France, and head of the Social Design masters programme at Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

He will become the fourth artistic director of the Istanbul Design Biennial, a showcase for innovative design that takes place in the Turkish city every two years.

His appointment was made by an advisory board that includes Design Museum chief curator Justin McGuirk, Dresden Museum of Decorative Arts director and e-flux editor Nikolaus Hirsch. The event has previously been overseen by curators including Joseph Grima, Zoë Ryan, and Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley.

The 2018 biennial will take place from 22 September to 4 November 2018, hosted by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), and its conceptual framework will be announced in the autumn.

Boelen launched Z33 House for Contemporary Art in 2002, as a space for contemporary art and design that focuses on showing "everyday objects in a novel manner".

In 2013, Boelen introduced Z33 Research, design and art research studios that are transforming the museum from an exhibition-based to a research-based institution. And in 2014, he led the Z33 team curating the 24th Biennial of Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Earlier this year, Boelen was one of several names suggested to take over as creative director at Design Academy Eindhoven, following the resignation of Thomas Widdershoven in July 2016 – although the role was eventually offered to Joseph Grima.

His relationship with the academy has had its share of problems – he was one of three senior teachers who resigned from their posts following a row over the autonomy of the masters courses in July 2012, but the trio agreed to return to their posts after claiming victory in their dispute.

The curator, who studied product design at the Media & Design Academy (now the LUCA School of Arts) in Genk, also serves on various boards and committees, including the advisory board of the V&A Museum of Design Dundee in the UK and Creative Industries Fund in the Netherlands.

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As Donald Trump prepares to build a wall between the USA and Mexico, Turkey has announced the completion of a three-metre high fortification along its border with Syria to prevent refugees and smugglers entering the country.

The completed 556-kilometre section is the first phase of a structure that will eventually seal the entire 911-kilometre border between the two countries.

The rest of the wall is due to be completed by the autumn, at which point it would be the second-longest structure in the world, after the 3,460-kilometre Great Wall of China.

Humanitarian expert Killian Kleinschmidt said he saw the wall first hand on a visit to Gazientep in southern Turkey last week.

"You see it running through the mountains, up and down," he told Dezeen. "It's really wow. Nobody gets across the border now without the Turks saying so. The Turks are very proud. Trump would love it."

Kleinschmidt, founder of humanitarian consultancy Switxboard, said that the wall, together with new barriers along Syria's borders with Lebanon and Jordan, had effectively ended the mass exodus of refugees fleeing Syria's civil war.

"They have made Syria into a very big prison," he said. "Lebanon has closed its border more or less. There's no wall but it's close to being one. Jordan has an earth berm and is using American technology such as night-vision stuff to close its border and nobody gets across."

The measures meant that the outflow of Syrian refugees has "more or less finished," Kleinschmidt said.

It is estimated that over five million Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries since the onset of the civil war in 2011, with almost three million of them seeking asylum in Turkey. Lebanon and Jordan have the next highest refugee populations, with registered numbers standing at one million and 600,000 respectively, although actual figures may be far higher.

The Turkish border wall is comprised of modular concrete blocks each weighing 14 tonnes and is topped by 60 centimetres of razor wire, according to Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak.

The paper said that the blocks were produced by contractors including Toki, a state-run social housing provider.

Turkey's border with Syria, which was drawn up after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the first world war, starts south of Antakya on the Mediterranean coast. It extends roughly eastwards through the hills of Upper Mesopotamia, across the Euphrates river, and ends at the point where the Tigris river enters Iraq.

When complete, the fortification will also include 67 reinforced defensive towers, 67 watchtowers and around 100 kilometres of illuminated sections.

At 1,600 kilometres in length, Trump's wall will eventually beat the Turkish wall into second place as the world's longest.

The Israeli West Bank barrier, under construction between Israel and the West Bank, will be 650 kilometres long when complete. Earlier this year graffiti artist Banksy opened a hotel called Walled Off alongside the section of the barrier that passes through Bethlehem.

Killian Kleinschmidt, a former director of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, was previously director of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. In an interview with Dezeen in 2015, he described refugee camps as "the cities of tomorrow" and called for an overhaul of aid-based strategies to humanitarian crises.

Instead, he believes the entrepreneurial spirit of refugees should be encouraged so they can solve their own problems.

Last year Kleinschmidt contributed to the Refugee Cities report, which proposed turning camps into enterprise zones.

Earlier this month IKEA announced that it was setting up production centres in Jordan to employ refugees, as part of a strategy to help 200,000 people out of poverty.

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Kengo Kuma & Associates has revealed plans to create a modern art museum in a former wood market in Turkey, which will be made up of cluster of slatted timber blocks.

The Japanese studio founded by Kengo Kuma is designing the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum to host a large collection of Turkish modern art in Eskishehr, a university town in the northwest of the country.

Led by architect Yuki Ikeguchi, Kengo Kuma & Associates has proposed a volume made up of irregularly stacked boxes so that the building increases in height towards its centre.

The aim here is to respond to the style and scale of the surrounding traditional wooden Ottoman residences, which often feature slightly overhanging upper storeys.

Horizontal timber planks will clad each of the blocks to reference the history of its location in Odunpazari, an area that was once a wood market.

"Our design strategy is to make the volume in aggregation; stacking small boxes to create the urban scale architecture," explained the studio.

"Stacked boxes at the street level are read in the scale of surrounding houses and it grows taller towards the centre of the museum to stand in the urbanscape that announces itself as new cultural landmark of the area."

Each of the boxes will vary in size and be rotated in a different direction to create diverse scales of exhibition space, with more intimate art works placed in the smaller volumes toward the top of the building.

Four of the boxes will meet to form the skylit central atrium, which will connect each level and let natural light permeate the building. Openings between the wooden slats allow further light to enter the galleries.

The main entrance will occupy an opening on the lower level of one of the volumes facing an outdoor seating area. The different levels of the site surrounding the museum will also be landscaped with steps and ramps.

Kuma ranked at number five on the Dezeen Hot List of most-talked about architects and designers.

Other recent projects by the firm include the major expansion of the Portland Japanese Garden and the V&A museum in Dundee, which is nearing completion.

Project credits:

Design architect: Kengo Kuma & Associates
Partner in charge: Yuki Ikeguchi
Project manager: Yasemin Sahiner
Structural engineer: SIGMA
Mechanical engineer: TEMA Engineering and Consulting Trade
General contractor: Polimeks Holdings

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This boutique dairy factory in western Turkey by Slash Architects and Arkizon Architects wraps a glazed courtyard offering visitors glimpses of the cheese production within.

The Farm of 38° 30° is named after the coordinates of its site in a valley near the village of Afyon Tazlar, in Turkey's Afyonkarahisar Province.

Istanbul-based Slash Architects and Arkizon Architects wanted to elevate the factory from its status as a simple production space to a cheese showroom.

Production process and spaces are arranged in an ellipse enclosing an inner green courtyard with a circular patio for events like tasting sessions.

While the outer facades are made predominantly of stone, glass walls surround the yard to offer visitors a 360-degree view of the building's interior.

A large opening in the elliptical ring is intended to invite passersby into the internal courtyard. It is covered by a canopy that forms the sloping roof for the rest of the building.

"While ensuring maximum efficiency for the production line as in a 'classical' cheese factory building, the boutique factory adopts a more contemporary attitude via its monumental form," said the architects

"The building wraps around an inner green courtyard and opens itself to the exterior via its large welcoming canopy," they continued.

"The transparency of the facade lets us peek into the production spaces, while the staff animates the whole."

From the covered entrance, a set of steps lead up to the glazed main entrance to the factory, which opens to the sales department with the production room placed behind.

Facing the main entrance, the staff doorway leads to the changing rooms and a walkway that wraps the internal courtyard.

Slats of Corten steel forming sun blinds in front of the glass walls tighten in sequence to increase the shade and privacy of spaces used by staff.

"The materiality of the facade reflects the degree of privacy and interest of the various spaces," explained the architects.

"The entrance is fully open, followed by the sales office and the production spaces of the factory, both very transparent," they added. "Moving on to more private spaces, the composition of the materials on the facade gradually offers less transparency."

The building's outer walls, made of local Afyon stone, feature tall and thin windows that offer views to the surrounding countryside. The openings are designed to control the natural light according to each specific room's requirements.

The roof of the building slopes downwards with its maximum height over the entrance spaces to invite visitors in. It gradually lowers to reach its minimum height over spaces like cold storage rooms.

By minimising the volume where possible, the architects aimed to increase the efficiency of insulation, temperature and air control in the building.

Other factories from Dezeen's archive include a sunken prosciutto factory in the Italian countryside and a Tesla windscreen factory in Peru featuring fluted and coloured glass fittings.

Photography is by Alp Eren.

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A+Awards: the next in our series of winners from this year's Architizer A+Awards is Emre Arolat Architecture's restoration and expansion of facilities for wealthy visitors at a Turkish marina.

Yalikavak Palmarina is located on Turkey's south coast, which has seen a boom in tourism over the past few years.

"Yalikavak is one of the lagoons on the southwestern coast of Turkey, which is becoming a popular destination for blue voyages along the Turkish Riviera," said Istanbul-based Emre Arolat Architecture (EAA).

"Unlike its provincial centre Bodrum, which faced a building boom in 1980s with the increase of touristic activities, Yalikavak is still a relatively calm, smaller-scale settlement with its natural landscape."

To accommodate the increase in upper-middle-class visitors, EAA added several features to the marina complex that would help boost the area's economy.

The first phase – on the section of the marina that juts out into the sea – included retail, restaurants, a beach-pool club, and sanitary and mechanical units for docked megayachts.

"The main motivation for the design of the 'island' was to search for the possibility to reconcile the needs of 'outcomers' with the genius loci of Yalikavak as a Mediterranean settlement," EAA said.

Travertine stone was used as cladding for the entire complex, to give it an aesthetic cohesion like the ancient cities of Kos, Rhodes and Siena.

Phases two and three involved the creation of more shops along the shore, where wide overhangs create a continuous shaded path between the units.

The complex also includes a boutique hotel, customs office building, a spa and fitness, an office building, storages and a shipyard for winter maintenance.

Work completed in 2014 on the project, which was awarded in the Marinas & Ports category at this year's A+Awards.

Organised by Architizer, the awards promote and celebrate the year's best projects and products. Their stated mission is to nurture the appreciation of meaningful architecture in the world and champion its potential for a positive impact on everyday life.

Find out more about the A+Awards »

Entries are now being accepted for the next A+Awards, with a discount available for submissions before 4 November 2016.

Enter the 2017 A+Awards »

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Architect Onurcan Çakır paired stark concrete with rugged stone for the walls of this compact family house near the west coast of Turkey (+ slideshow).

Named Barbaros House, the 83-square-metre property provides a year-round residence for Çakır and his family in Barbaros, a village approximately 50 kilometres west of Izmir.

The house stands close to buildings belonging to the Izmir Institute of Technology, so one of the Turkish architect's main aims was to create acoustic separation. This led him to design a building with chunky walls – all approximately 400 millimetres thick.

"While designing the house, the main idea was to achieve a silent living space in a natural environment," he explained.

"Local stone and reinforced concrete were used for both the walls and structural system," he said. "Both materials have high surface densities and thus provide good acoustic insulation."

Built by local stonemasons, the stone walls surround the main volume of the house, enclosing an open-plan living space, two bedrooms and a single bathroom.

The exposed concrete walls surround just one room – a third bedroom. This is located on the north-west corner, and has thick walls on all sides to ensure complete silence inside.

The doorway between the bedroom and the living room contains two doors for extra soundproofing, while a double-layer window offers views out from this room to the landscape outside.

"The room is designed especially for resting and sleeping without any noise," said Çakır. "Special acoustic precautions have been taken to prevent any unwanted sound from outside."

A concrete platform surrounds the two sides of the building. To the north, it integrates steps to form an entrance. A dog house stands at the base of the steps to accommodate the family pet Çakıl.

The west side functions as a terrace where residents can dine outdoors. Two large glass doors connect the space with the living room.

There is also a willow tree just beyond, which helps to shade the terrace and living room from the strong summer sunlight. It sheds its leaves in winter, allowing more light to penetrate the interior.

Photography is by the architect, apart from where otherwise indicated.

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Turkish firm URAStudio has completed an Istanbul flagship store for fashion brand Cashmere in Love, adding a wall of brass accents and geometric patterns to the all-white space (+ slideshow).

The boutique encompasses 55 square metres and is located in Bebek, an affluent neighbourhood in the Turkish city.

Cashmere in Love, founded in 2007 in Istanbul, is an upscale brand that offers contemporary knitwear for women.

"Its style is led by signature clean-cut shapes and architectural lines, to evoke a distinct feminine expression of luxury and elegance," said URAStudio.

Inside the linear retail unit, the architects set out to create a space that represents the essence of the brand.

"The flagship store is designed as an exciting retail space that lets customers experience the spirit of art, travel, craftsmanship and subtle luxury the brand is identified with," said the firm.

"The open floor plan and sparsely decorated clothing racks convey an air of refined purity."

A key feature of the store is an installation composed of geometric cutouts that cover an entire wall. This element is angled slightly to create storage space behind.

The piece adds to "the dazzling play of textures, silhouettes and natural light inside the store", said the firm.

In the front of the boutique, an asymmetrical brass shelving system appears to step down from the ceiling. The sculptural display is positioned to be visible from the large front window.

In other areas of the store, clothing hangs from free-standing triangular racks that also are made of brass.

Floor-to-ceiling mirrors visually enlarge the space while also serving as a backdrop for the brand's clothing.

Custom-made marble counters and a seamless terrazzo floor further add to the store's modern appearance.

"A neutral colour palette and clean geometrical shapes juxtaposed with high-end materials convey an air of optimism and stealth luxury," said the firm.

URAStudio was founded in 1995 by Emir Uras. Originally based in Los Angeles, the firm is now located in Istanbul.

Other minimal boutiques include a high-end sneaker store in Seattle by Best Practice Architecture and a women's clothing shop in Porto by Fala Atelier.

Photography is by Ali Bekman.

Project credits:

Design team: Emir Uras and Handan Yalkı
Contractor and fabricator of wall: Galata Yapı, Koray Korkmaz, Aysegul Kasapoglu and Murat Cakan
Custom terazzo floor: SFS Floor
Client: Esra Bezek and Tolga Dikencik

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This mosque near Istanbul by Emre Arolat Architects, which features cast concrete walls and a "cave-like" prayer hall, has been shortlisted for this year's Design of the Year award (+ slideshow).

Turkish firm Emre Arolat Architects used a combination of light grey stone and reinforced concrete to construct the Sancaklar Mosque, which is set into a plaza made up of shallow terraced steps.

The 700-square-metre structure is situated in Buyukçekmece, a suburb on the outskirts of Istanbul and is separated from the surrounding gated communities by a busy highway and tall stone walls.

The pared-back and unornamented structure is set into a depression in the landscape, with only the stone roof and a tall minaret visible from certain points around the perimeter.

"Sancaklar Mosque aims to address the fundamental issues of designing a mosque by distancing itself from the current architectural discussions based on form and focusing solely on the essence of religious space," said the architects.

Pieces of stone set into the sloping terrain create rows of long, earthen steps that lead down to the sunken building. Tufts of grass have sprouted around the stonework, helping to integrate the steps and roof into the landscape.

A combination of concrete partitions, stone walls and tall box hedges screen areas of the gardens at the lower level, where stepping stones lead across a pool of shallow water to the entrance.

"The building blends in completely with the topography and the outside world is left behind as one moves through the landscape, down the hill and in between the walls to enter the mosque," said the team. "The project constantly plays off of the tension between manmade and natural."

"The contrast between the natural stone stairs following the natural slope of the landscape and the thin reinforced concrete slab spanning over six metres to form the canopy helps enhance this dual relationship," they added.

A large concrete-lined prayer hall forms the centre of the building, while auxiliary spaces including a foyer, shoe-storage room and washrooms are arranged around its periphery.

Male and female worshippers are separated by a black screen in the prayer hall, meaning women are segregated into a strip along one side of the building. The perforated screen provides privacy while allowing the congregation to maintain eye contact with the pulpit.

The main prayer hall features a tiered concrete floor and ceiling. Lights set beneath the steps and in crevices in the ceiling softly illuminate the space.

"The interior of the mosque, a simple cave-like space, becomes a dramatic and awe-inspiring place to pray and be alone with God," said the architects.

A ribbed concrete wall that runs along the front of the space slopes back towards a sliver of daylight provided by a skylight. Only narrow strips of concrete connect the ceiling to the Qiblah wall – which orients worshippers towards Mecca – creating a slotted lightwell.

"The slits and fractures along the Qiblah enhances the directionality of the prayer space and allows daylight to filter into the prayer hall," said the team.

A flight of steps with a rounded profile creates a podium for preachers in front of a doorway. A staircase behind the door leads to the tall, oblong minaret – a typically decorative structure used to project the call to prayer.

Another pulpit projects from an adjoining black wall, which separates the bathrooms from the main hall and frames a space for the resident preacher.

Sancaklar Mosque, which was completed in 2012 and won best religious building at the World Architecture Festival in 2013, has been nominated for this year's Designs of the Year, an annual award run by the Design Museum in London. An exhibition of the 76 nominated architecture and design projects will run at the museum until 23 August.

For job opportunities at Emre Arolat Architecture, visit their company profile on Dezeen Jobs.

Photography is by Thomas Mayer.

Project credits:

Architects: EAA – Emre Arolat Architects
Chief architect: Emre Arolat
Project team: Uygar Yüksel, Leyla Kori, Nil Aynalı, Fatih Tezman, Nurdan Gürlesin
Client: Sancaklar Foundation
Owner: Republic of Turkey Presidency of Religious Affairs
General contractor: Sancaklar Foundation
Structural project: Balkar Engineering
Mechanical project: Setta Engineering
Electrical project: HB Teknik
Landscape design: Emre Arolat Architects, Medosa
Lighting design: SLD – Piero Castiglioni
Acoustics: Sey Consulting
Calligraphy: Mehmed Özçay
Conveyance / accessibility provision: MER Asansör
Timber formwork: Peri Kalıp
Metal window frames: BSM Aluminium
Window glazing: BSM Aluminium
Doors: Natural Ahşap
Furnishings: Koleksiyon Mobilya
Lighting: Vetaş Electric & Lighting

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Photo essay: Istanbul-based Yener Torun has created a photography series that offers an alternative view of historic Turkish cities, featuring modern buildings with graphic shapes and bright colours (+ slideshow).

The photographer has spent the last year using Instagram to document architecture that features bold shapes, vibrant hues and patterned facades, both in Istanbul and other cities. He hopes to reveal that there is more to Turkey than opulent mosques and old streets.

"I want to show what people usually do not see. Maybe because of that, even long-term residents cannot believe that most of my pictures have been taken in Istanbul. They offer an escape from the Orientalist perception of the city," explains Torun.

In the last 10 years there has been an unbelievable growth in construction business in Istanbul. And unfortunately most of these mega projects brought more problems than they solved. Instead of showing bad architecture I choose to show some less-ostentatious, modest, colourful, small-scale treats. What I show is a silver lining to the negativity of this uncontrolled grey growth.

I'm a 32 year-old architect and have been living in Istanbul for 14 years. Inspired by other Instagrammers, mostly minimal photographers, I started photographing buildings almost a year ago with Instagram.

Most of my early pics are colourful architectural details. Later, I started to combine street photography with Minimalism and tried to build my own style. I started looking for strong shapes, and colourful or patterned facades. It is funny, because my photos of Istanbul do not really look like Istanbul. And that is what I exactly wanted to do – to show a different side of the city, a side that was never focused on.

Most of the Istanbul images people see are of the grand mosques, old streets or other places around the Bosphorus, and I really like those too. But those are not what I want to show. I want to show what people usually do not see. Maybe because of that, even long-term residents cannot believe that most of my pictures have been taken in Istanbul. They offer an escape from the Orientalist perception of the city.

Istanbul is exotic and modern at the same time, and that makes its atmosphere unique. It is a city of contrasts by all means. It's fascinating to come across simple, modest, colourful and modern lines amongst all these historic, sumptuous, ornate structures.

But of course it's very rare to find these buildings in historical areas. I choose shooting locations from the more modern parts of the city. I occasionally look for industrial buildings, schools, malls, social housing towers and hotels. These types of buildings offer the geometry and colours I need.

Even though my photographs are of many different colourful structures, Istanbul is not full of them. Actually finding these buildings is the hardest part. It's a vast city and the majority of it is grey. But I enjoy looking for them. I dig every corner of the city – it's a kind of treasure hunt for me. When I find the right place I really feel the adrenaline running through my veins.

Bold use of colour in architecture really fascinates me. These bright colours have a really positive impact on me and I believe they have a similar effect on the people who see my pictures. It is another challenge to decide what to do with the place I find. I usually visit these shooting locations more than once to get what I want, or to see what more I can get. I sometimes take my friends with me as models or I visit the same places at different times in the same day to see how the shadows change.

I approach these colourful or patterned walls as if they were canvases. Because of this, I never think of my work as architectural photography. I use architecture as a tool for telling a story; to show an emotion, a feeling.

They are not just pictures of buildings. The architectural elements, colours, shapes, shadows, the human element, and some humour all connect to create a story – and usually a funny story. It is a story that takes place in a different world. So I think the things I show in my pictures are abstracted from reality. I feel like I discover a new world whenever I find a new shooting location.

I also sometimes visit other cities – like Ankara, Bursa, Izmir and Kocaeli – to find their hidden gems, and sometimes these cities surprise me even more than Istanbul.

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News: the Turkish government has approved an order to demolish a series of new skyscrapers in the Zeytinburnu area of Istanbul to protect the historic views of key buildings including the Hagia Sofia.

Three skyscrapers in the Onalti Dokuz development in the west of Istanbul will be demolished or partially demolished, after the Turkish government's Council of State rejected appeals against a court ruling demanding their removal from the city's skyline.

The residential towers, designed by Alpar Architecture for developer Astay Gayrimenkul, were designed to form the centrepiece for a 12-hectare development site and vary in height from 36 to 27 storeys.

But the decision to allow their construction proved controversial, with critics and campaigners expressing dismay at the impact of the towers on the city's silhouette, including views of the Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque.

The project coincided with the timing of an ultimatum from world heritage body UNESCO, who threatened to strip the city of its World Heritage Site status and add it to its list of endangered sites after repeated warnings about the city's approach to site management and the planning of major new construction projects.

According to Turkish newspaper Todays Zaman, two legal cases were launched against the development – one seeking cancellation of the permits for the construction of the building and another to shut down the construction and destroy parts of the buildings that had already been completed.

In December last year, an Istanbul administrative court ordered the destruction of storeys on the Onalti Dukuz towers that were visible above the city's historic skyline.

Both the developer and the Istanbul and Zeytinburnu municipalities appealed against the decision, but the Council of State has now rejected their applications.

It is not clear who will have to foot the bill for the demolition.

In a statement reported by the state-run Anadolu news agency and repeated in Todays Zaman, local attorney Cihat Gökdemir who had been leading the case against the development said that the Zeytinburnu Municipality would have to demolish the skyscrapers in the near future and had no further legal avenues to explore.

Main image is from the Gorkorg blog.

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Red, white and blue translucent circles overlapped to form this screen created by London designer Paul Cocksedge at a festival in Istanbul (+ slideshow).

Paul Cocksedge's Palette installation of acrylic disks was erected outside the Turkish city's The Seed venue on the edge of the Bosphorus Strait.

The screen was installed to coincide with the GREAT Festival of Creativity, which celebrated British and Turkish design.

Facing across the water to the east, the disks created colourful patterns across the white paving as the morning sun shone through them.

"Whatever I did, it had to be about seeing and experiencing the landscape and transforming what you're seeing," Cocksedge told Dezeen.

"What I enjoy about Palette is the way it only comes to life in this setting, when the transparency of the material re-defines and celebrates the landscape beyond it: the trees and plants, the sea, the sky... on its own it is not complete," said Cocksedge.

The red, blue and white colour ratios of the varying sized circles were taken from the British and Turkish flags.

Different tones were formed where the pieces overlapped, celebrating the historical connections in trade and culture between the two countries. "The colours mix to create a unique colour that celebrates that collaboration," said Cocksedge.

He initially designed the installation by "painting" with his thumb on an iPad, which is how the circular shapes came about.

Stainless steel wires hold the circles in place, but can't be seen. The designer collaborated with engineer Christian Dercks of Arup, who advised him that it would be easier if the elements moved slightly in the wind rather than stay remain fixed in place.

"My initial idea was to crate a rigid piece fixed to the balustrade, but the engineers ran their tests and thought it would be better to allow it to move," he said. "All of the mechanisms disappear so the floating colours look like an effect on Photoshop."

The installation was commissioned by the London Design Festival as the centrepiece for the inaugural event GREAT Festival of Creativity, which took place from 20 to 22 May. After the event, the screen was presented as a gift to Istanbul and will be moved to another location in the city.

Previous installations by Paul Cocksedge include a sculpture resembling pieces of paper caught in the breeze and a mysterious neon phone number suspended above a London street. See more design by Paul Cocksedge »

Photographs are by Mark Cocksedge.

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Opinion: the Turkish government's attempt to move protestors from Taksim Square to a new public space – nicknamed the "third testicle" – on a piece of reclaimed land at the edge of Istanbul was a failure from day one, says Justin McGuirk.

On the first of May, demonstrators in Istanbul headed to Taksim Square for the annual May Day rally. On the approach, they were driven back with tear gas and rubber bullets. Since last year's Occupy Gezi protests, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has banned public gatherings in Istanbul's main square. He hammered home that injunction in a speech in parliament the week before May Day, telling potential protesters, "give up your hope of Taksim".

Nothing about the events two weeks ago was unexpected. Many of the demonstrators were even sporting gas masks and construction helmets, as if the uniform of the Euromaidan protesters in Kiev is now the default garb for protest. Nevertheless, this was not in Erdogan's ideal playbook. After all, his government has gone to the trouble of building a bespoke protest site at Yenikapi, in the south-west of the city, which is many times the size of Taksim. Designed for rallies of up to a million people, this new, official demonstration ground is where the marchers were supposed to converge. Needless to say, on May Day it was deserted.

Yenikapi City Park is an extraordinary place. Literally a new piece of the city, it is a 700,000-square-metre landfill reclaimed from the Marmara Sea. This bulbous growth alters Istanbul's cartographic profile, materialising on Google Maps like a tumour on an X-ray. Capacious enough to hold 88 Hagia Sophias, it is larger than all of the city's public spaces combined, and yet many Istanbullu don't even know it exists.

The week before the May Day clashes I was holding a workshop with students at Istanbul Bilgi University. Charged with creating a public awareness campaign about Yenikapi City Park, the students gave it a new name based on its suggestive shape: Üçüncü Billur, the third testicle. Aside from its satirical, schoolboy humour, the nickname fits an official narrative of Istanbul in which progress is measured in thirds: a third airport, a third bridge across the Bosphorus (an obtuse solution to the city’s gridlock) and a third child (to keep the Turkish state young and burgeoning).

Yenikapi City Park is as redundant as a third testicle. And "park" is something of a euphemism. It's true that there are several acres of saplings aligned in neat rows like hair implants, but to reach this greenery the visitor must first cross a desert of concrete – the protest site. On this featureless landscape the sun beats down mercilessly, reflecting back up off the pavers. In its sheer excess of space, it is the very definition of a non-place. Right-minded urbanists who harp on about the value of public space should be careful what they wish for.

In offering Yenikapi with one hand, and taking away Taksim with the other, the municipality is sending the citizens of Istanbul a very clear message. Protest has been marginalised. Banned from the historic and symbolic heart of the city, demonstrations have been shunted to a peripheral site with no history, no context and no symbolic power. While several main arteries meet at Taksim Square, Yenikapi is cut off by a six-lane highway. Not only would demonstrators have to be bussed in, once on the peninsula they can easily be contained by riot police, with nowhere to escape except into the sea. You might call it a bespoke kettle.

Down here in the authorised zone of protest, a crowd can chant as much as it likes, but if the national media decide not to show up then the rest of the city, let alone the country, might not even know – it's worth remembering that during the Gezi Park uprising CNN Türk chose to air The March of the Penguins. In short, while Yenikapi is only a sop to the needs of the citizenry, it suits the authorities perfectly.

In recent years, ceremonial squares in the Tsarist or Soviet mould – Kiev's Independence Square or Cairo's Tahrir Square – have been reimagined by an increasingly global protest movement. Once dour symbols of centralised power have become the new locus in which the distributed power of social networks can become manifest. Long unfashionable, as critic Owen Hatherley has noted, they have become politically correct, romantic, essential.

Taksim Square, designed by the French urban planner Henri Prost in 1939, is not quite in that mould (though Red Square was an early influence) – it is somehow messier, less crisply orthogonal. Yet it has deep associations with union power, and was the site of a May Day massacre in 1977 when police opened fire on demonstrators, which is still commemorated annually.

Yenikapi has no such cultural memory. It is a void, detached from the city. The idea that one can replace Taksim with what might as well be a giant car park on a reclaimed peninsula is not just cynical but brazen. Authoritarianism becomes most apparent when it assumes the pretense of liberalism – when, for example, it only allows the appearance of opposition, or when it tolerates Twitter, just not during an election. In the same way, Yenikapi allows Erdogan to pretend to preside over a healthy democracy while showing all the symptoms of a paranoid despot.

Indeed there is a further irony. The protests over the proposed destruction of Gezi Park last year were also a challenge to the idea of government-led development projects. The solution? Another top-down grand project, a multi-million-dollar land reclamation that benefits no one except the construction industry.

Geographer David Harvey has proposed that the new revolutionaries are no longer the proletariat but urbanites. And as we witness protest becoming a new norm, we are likely to see more governments seeming to encourage it while rendering it toothless. Demonstrations are not meant to be convenient, or fit neatly into authorised zones. To have any meaning, they must spill out into the real and fluid fabric of the city. Beware the bespoke protest site.

Taksim Square image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Justin McGuirk is a writer, critic and curator based in London. He is the director of Strelka Press, the publishing arm of the Strelka Institute in Moscow. He has been the design columnist for The Guardian, the editor of Icon magazine and the design consultant to Domus. His book Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture will be published by Verso in June 2014..

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News: a design team led by London firm Grimshaw has revealed plans for a new six-runway airport in Istanbul capable of accommodating up to 150 million passengers a year.

The Grimshaw-led team, which also includes Norwegian firm Nordic Office of Architecture and London studio Haptic, says the Istanbul New Airport Terminal One will become the "world's largest airport terminal under one roof", covering a site of nearly 100 hectares.

Described by the designers as "modern and highly functional, with a unique sense of place", the terminal will feature a vaulted canopy dotted with skylights. These will focus daylight onto key sections of the interior, including check-in desks, passport control and shops.

The airport will be located 20 miles outside the city on the Black Sea coast. It will be built in four phases, with the first expected to open in 2018 and serve up to 90 million passengers a year.

A large plaza and transport hub will be built at the entrance, allowing the airport to integrate with existing rail, metro and bus routes.

Grimshaw recently completed an airport in St Petersburg with golden ceilings, designed to reference the gilded spires of the Russian city's churches. But partner Andrew Thomas says this new project will aim to capture "design worthy of the world city of Istanbul".

"The Istanbul airport attempts to reconcile the requirements for a top modern, functional airport with something that is rooted in local identity," added Haptic director Tomas Stokke.

"We were inspired by the local use of colours and patterns, the quality of light and how it penetrates buildings, as well as by traditional architecture such as the Süleymaniye Mosque."

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News: international architecture firms IND and Powerhouse Company have won a competition to design a 100-metre-tall broadcast and observation tower in Çanakkale, Turkey, with a design that resembles a continuous ribbon.

Planned for a forested hilltop on the outskirts of the historic city of Çanakkale, the proposal by IND (Inter.National.Design) and Powerhouse Company is based on an undulating loop that rises above the ground and stretches upwards to create the tower.

The competition brief called for a building that provides recreational facilities including exhibition spaces and observation decks, as well as the communications mast.

"The design of the new Çanakkale Antenna Tower resolves these paradoxes by uniting all the different functions and spatial requirement into one spatial gesture," said a statement about the winning design.

Visitors will be able to wander along a raised path that will loop around the site and lead to the visitor centre, which will be built above the treetops on the edge of the hill facing the city.

The tower is deliberately located away from the visitor centre to reduce the danger of radiation from the transmitters fixed to its surface affecting visitors or staff, and is designed with a simple form that will enable it to accommodate future technologies.

"The antenna tower is formed by joining the two vertical paths, creating a gracious gateway under which the visitors enter the premises," added the statement. "This gesture creates a strong visual identity; an iconic appearance from afar that is transformed into an elaborate scenic experience when up close."

By lifting the structure off the ground, the architects aim to minimise its impact on the surrounding forest. The space surrounded by the looping pathway will be dedicated to use as a park that visitors will be able to access at points where the path touches the ground, and from a staircase beneath the viewing deck.

The architects collaborated with infrastructure and engineering firm ABT on the design of the winning proposal.

The main image is by MIR.

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Movie: in our final exclusive interview from Inside Festival, Emre Açar of Alatas Architecture & Consulting explains how the Turkish studio converted a dark, narrow nineteenth-century house in Istanbul into a light office space.

Dardanel Administration Building by Alatas Architecture & Consulting, which won the creative re-use category at last month's Inside Festival, provides office space for Turkish tinned tuna company Dardanel's 25-person administrative team.

The building required significant structural reinforcement to make it earthquake-resistant, but Açar says the key to the success of the project was getting enough daylight inside it.

"The [original] windows were so small and the central parts [of the building] were completely dark because of these small windows," he explains. "We needed to find some solutions to create lighter spaces."

Alatas Architecture & Consulting chose to preserve the nineteenth-century wooden front of the house, but added a second set of glass doors to the entrance to allow light into the building while keeping the elements out.

"The main entrance doors, these historical wooden doors, are always open," Açar says. "We have [added] two double glass doors to give us some connection from [to outside to] the interior ."

The back of the building was altered much more dramatically, with the addition of floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass-roofed extension, which houses the main meeting room. Glass panels in the floor of this room in turn allow daylight to pass into the server room below.

"We made the top part of the building completely from glass," Açar says. "With this glass roof we tried to provide lighter spaces inside."

The architects also added a completely new spiral staircase and elevator shaft made of glass through the middle of the building, which dissipates light from a skylight above it.

To make the building feel less narrow, Alatas Architecture & Consulting added mirrors to the bright white interior walls.

"The building's width is just 5 metres," Açar says. "It was like a tunnel. We wanted to make [the building seem] like it continues on the other side, so we used reflective materials. The workers feel like they are in a bigger building."

This movie was filmed at Inside Festival 2013, which took place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 2 to 4 October. The next Inside Festival will take place at the same venue from 1 to 3 October 2014. Award entries are open February to June 2014.

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Turkish architects are creating line drawings of protest shelters and structures following the recent occupation of Istanbul's Gezi Park.

Thousands of citizens took to the streets earlier this month to join one of Turkey's largest anti-government demonstrations in decades and non-profit organisation Herkes Icin Mimarlik - which translates as Architecture For All - has since initiated an archive of photographs and drawings, documenting the makeshift shelters, tents, and other temporary structures that have been constructed.

"The protests in Istanbul indicated one simple thing for architects," writes organisation co-founder Yelta Köm on the Tumblr page for the project. "We need new definitions for architecture in situations when architecture is removed from architects."

He continues: "Each unique structure that we encounter in the streets and Gezi Park has its own in-situ design and implementation process. Documentation of these temporary structures is of huge importance for further examination, considering their limited life-cycle."

A stage for speakers, a barricade made from benches and a communal dining table are already included in the archive, and Herkes Icin Mimarlik is asking for more submissions.

"We really want to document as much as possible," says the team. "While we are drawing what we could find, we are also open to contribution from everyone."

The demonstrations began last month, following a brutal police attack to remove a small group protesting the demolition of Gezi Park to make room for a new shopping mall.

See more stories about architecture in Turkey »

Here's some more information from Herkes Icin Mimarlik:

As Herkes icin Mimarlik (Architecture for All), we believe in participatory architecture processes. The things that we saw in Gezi Park was really impressive examples of event architecture and we were naturally encouraged to document these unique stuff.

We have been struggling with this project since the time it was announced to public. We started with workshops in which we discussed the administration's claims that the square and the park do not serve their purpose as a public space. The workshops gave birth to weekly 'Gezi Park Festivals'. We publicised the event through social media channels, invited musicians, dancers and performance artists; organised workshops and games that would attract people. While 50 people attended the 1st Festival, our popularity raised rapidly and the 5th Festival received more than 500 people. With the festivals we tried to show to people who used Taksim Square but never passed by the park that Gezi Park is a calming place to spend time. Unfortunately, our festivals were not enough to stop the destruction process, so we started an online petition to save the park which requested an open and democratic design process. We tried everything to start a dialogue but were never successful. For a very long time, we had dreamed of an opposition which could stop the destruction. That miracle happened. Since the first days of the protests, all of us were scattered around the streets of Istanbul. We were communicating through our mail and watsapp group. Following days, some of us focused on online projects that could help the resistance.

We really want to document as much as possible. We tried to create an open database. While we are drawing what we could find, we are also open to contribution from everyone.

While we were in the park, we tried to photograph what we thought could be interesting. We also created a pool for photos from Facebook and Twitter. What we are interested is the use of the scrap materials, in-situ design solutions. It is also exciting to see how these structures become part of the community there and accepted.

We always define architecture with architects. But, Gezi Park was an atmosphere where all paradigms that we were used to has shifted to something else. We dont know what is the new definition, perhaps there will be many more definitions. We are seeking for a new one maybe, but we know that this new definition will be shaped by people, not only architects.

Creating a collective memory is really important when the government is trying to forget everything. The life cycle of these structures were really short so we had to document them. We believe it is way of passive resistance. We keep remembering what happened in Taksim. In a way we merged the practice and protest by using architecture as a tool to critic. We want to make a publishment after all this progress.

Idea & Project: Herkes İçin Mimarlık (Architecture for All)
Editor and Coordination: Yelta Köm
Contributors: Ayşe Selin Gürel, Beyza Derbentoğulları, Burçak Sönmez, Ceren Kılıç, Ceren Sözer, Erdem Tüzün, Erdem Üngür, Emre Gündoğdu, H. Cenk Dereli, Hayrettin Günç, Kerem Özcan, Merve Gül Özokçu, Yasemin Sünbül, Yelta Köm

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News: Zaha Hadid has masterplanned a 276-hectare site beside a lagoon in Izmir for Turkey's bid to host the World Expo 2020.

Located just outside the city centre, the site is part of the Inciralti region designated as a future tourist destination and renowned for its hot springs. Zaha Hadid's designs would transform the region into one of Europe’s largest urban recreation areas and it would remain as a public park once the fair was over.

The theme for the fair is entitled New Routes to a Better World/Health for All and will focus on mental and physical well-being as well as the well-being of society and the environment. The site and its surrounding infrastructure are thus designed to be environmentally friendly with a low carbon footprint.

Izmir narrowly missed out to Milan on the bid for the Expo 2015, while its competitors for the 2020 fair are São Paulo in Brazil, Yekaterinburg in Russia, Ayutthaya in Thailand and Dubai. The Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) General Assembly in Paris is expected to reveal the winning city in November.

Zaha Hadid is currently also working on designs for a Qatar stadium for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, a metro station in Saudi Arabia and a residential skyscraper in Miami.

See more architecture and design by Zaha Hadid on Dezeen »
See more stories about Turkey »

Image by Methanoia.

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News: JDS Architects has unveiled plans for an M-shaped office building with green terraces in the north of Turkey's largest city.

Called Premier Campus Office, the building will be located in the Kagithane district of Istanbul.

Julien De Smedt Architects has proposed a gently curving M-shaped plan topped with several levels of green terraces.

As well as offices, the building will offer shops and leisure activities on its ground floor.

"We've thought of a building where inside interacts with outside, where the plan is flexible to allow for anyone to find its desired space and place, whether it be a small one man show company or a large corporate office employing hundreds," the architects said.

The firm, which is based in Oslo, Copenhagen and Brussels, was selected from a shortlist that includes Dutch firm UNStudio and Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas.

Construction on the building will begin in June.

The firm's previous work includes a Danish housing development modelled on a cluster of icebergs and Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo, Norway – see all architecture and design by JDS Architects.

Other projects in Turkey we've featured lately include an apartment building covered in timber louvres and shutters and plans for a museum at the site of the ancient city of Troy.

Here's some more information from the architects:

The Premier Campus Office in Kagithane is a business district that focuses on the users working and living qualities and addresses its presence in Istanbul as a new form of contextual and urban approach: The building is formed by our desire to make it interact with its environment. It opens itself up to the neighbourhood and offers spaces to the users and the passers by such as plazas, intimate gardens and generous terraces.

The volume of the block is literally carved out to invite the surroundings in. The local hilly landscape, characteristic to Istanbul, is continued in the meandering of the volume both in plan, adapting to the site's edges, and in section, weaving into itself in a series of gentle curving slopes, echoing the nearby Bosphorus waves. The vibrant commercial life of the ground floor burst out onto the plazas and the landscape. Upstairs the offices open out onto the green terraces, populated with lush vegetation, tempering the hot Springs and Summers. The volume reads clearly while still opening itself generously to the city from the far. As one gets closer the interiors become more discreet, protected by louvers that help shade from the sun.

The project acts as a catalyst of business life for a new Istanbul, that promotes contemporary culture, architecture and lifestyle. We’ve thought of a building where inside interacts with outside, where the plan is flexible to allow for anyone to find its desired space and place, whether it be a small one man show company or a large corporate office employing hundreds. We believe life is plural and various entities should coexist and exchange their experiences. The Premier Campus Office is where such a rich diversity can find its place.

Project: Commercial
Size: 100,000 sq m
Location: Istanbul, Turkey
JDS partner in charge: Julien De Smedt
Client: Feryapi
Team: DB Architects, Tavusbay-STATIK, Geodinamik, Dinamik Proje, Pozitif Proje
Project leader: Kamile Malinauskaite
Type: Invited competition
Status: Ongoing

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Timber louvres and shutters form a protective shell across the exterior of this apartment building in Istanbul by Turkish studio Alataş Architecture & Consulting.

Screening the upper levels of a glazed curtain wall, the timber cladding cloaks the facade of the six-storey-high Ipera 25 housing block, creating a system of solar shading for the nine apartments contained inside.

Alataş Architecture & Consulting divided the wall into four long vertical strips, which project forward and backwards at different points to allow slices of glass to emerge from between each of the timber panels.

"The fractures and surface variations on the facade - wider than the architectural structures in the area - not only emerge as a contemporary interpretation of the bay windows of the surrounding buildings, but also allow the facade to be perceived in a more fragmented and ergonomic manner," architect Ahmet Alataş told Dezeen.

Two one-bedroom apartments are contained on each of the first four floors. Living rooms are positioned at the front of every home and residents can open and close different shutters independently.

"The wooden elements allow a view of the street and create a bay window effect that establishes a link between home life and life on the street," said Alataş.

A two-storey penthouse is located on the uppermost floors of the building, beneath an angled ceiling that follows the pitch of the roof.

Other recently completed housing blocks include a building with a pleated facade on the Canary Islands and an apartment block with diagonally stepped floors and ceilings in Japan. See more housing on Dezeen.

Here's some more explanation from Alataş Architecture & Consulting:

The building is located on Tatarbeyi Sokak, is one of the most virginal and underdeveloped streets of the rapidly transforming Galata District under conservation. Comprised of eight 80-m2 studio flats and one 190-m2 penthouse up for sale, it has a total surface area of 1000 m2.

The building is a residential project that extends beyond the conventional codes of the already-built environment, yet manages to reproduce these codes, respecting the existing architectural fabric.

In this regard, it continues to find new solutions to the existing problems of architecture by utilizing contemporary technologies and taking into consideration the newly burgeoning socio-economic structure of the region, as well as the infrastructure, environmental conditions, climate, and solar movements.

The building is comprised of a wooden shell that covers the largely transparent living area in an uncompromising manner and set between two blind and extremely thin exposed concrete curtain walls.

The wooden components on the front elevation run parallel to the glass facade that evolves into a saddle roof and entirely cover the front and back of the building. Perceived as a gigantic blind facade from one perspective, yet appearing as a translucent veil from the other, the wooden surface also functions as a sun filter.

Comprised of parallel horizontal laths that angle at various points, the wooden element divides the facade into four as the middle segments expand outwards, towards the street; leaving the sides exposed, the wooden elements thus allow a view of the street and create a bay window effect that establishes a link between home life and life on the street.

While the building almost disregards the relationship with the street by refusing to repeat the conventional window spans in the neighborhood, it nonetheless revives its place within the context by reinterpreting the traditional bay window structure on the street.

Behind its impressive presence on the street, the building displays a plain and statuesque appearance that simultaneously blends into and stands out against the context without competing with the neighboring historic buildings in its critical approach.

As the design is concretized, the concept of the transparent surface of the wooden veil covering the two facades and the roof between two walls is maintained throughout without any qualms. The dilapidated appearance of the neighbouring building at arm's length is perceived as part of the view and the transparent surface is not even partially compromised.

While this attitude and the spatial relationship of the interior and the exterior expands the interior volumes of the 80-m2 flats – born out of the new lifestyle needs and culture – towards the facade of the buildings across the street, the translucent nature of the building's shell allows the street to feel broader and more spacious.

Architects: Alataş Architecture & Consulting
Location: Galata, İstanbul, Turkey
Design Team: Ahmet Alataş, Emre Açar

Architectural Group: Özge Güngör Ülüğ, Dilan Yüksel, Emir Elmaslar, Gabriella Colacicco
Area: 1,100 sqm
Year: 2011

Site plan - click for larger image

Ground floor plan - click for larger image

First-third floor plan - click for larger image

Fourth floor plan - click for larger image

Fifth floor plan - click for larger image

Cross-section - click for larger image

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News: Turkish firm Yalın Mimarlık has won a competition to design an archaeological museum on the site of the ancient city of Troy in north-west Turkey (+ movie).

Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism selected a team from Yalın Mimarlık led by Ömer Selçuk Baz for the project at the UNESCO World Heritage site in the province of Çanakkale.

First excavated in 1870, Troy is famous for the mythical siege narrated in Homer's Iliad, and the extensive remains discovered at the site reveal the earliest contact made between the civilisations of Asia and the Mediterranean.

The museum will take the form of a large cube clad in Corten steel panels, accessed via a ramp leading underground.

From the subterranean level, visitors will be able to walk up ramps leading through the exhibition spaces to a rooftop terrace.

The programme also includes conservation laboratories and storage space for the collection, which includes ancient artefacts dating back some 3000 years, as well as activity areas, a shop and a cafe and restaurant.

Last year Dezeen was in Turkey for the Istanbul Design Biennial, where organiser Bülent Eczacıbaşı said his country needed better design for its cities and products – see all stories from the Istanbul Design Biennial.

Other projects in Turkey we've featured include a seaside temple made from chunky chipboard and a proposal for a swimming pool under an inverted dome – see all Turkish architecture.

Images and movie are by Cihan Poçan.

Here's some more information from the architects:

Omer Selcuk Baz and his team in Yalin Architectural Design has won first prize in the National Architectural Design Competition for the Museum of Troy, one of the most famous archeological sites in the world, listed as UNESCO World heritage site. With a history of 5000 years and a significance for the development of European Civilization, Troy represents artistically and historically a profound cultural influence from the time of Homer to the World War I.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey, the organiser of the competition expropriated 10 hectares for the purpose. The museum is planned to be constructed close to the archaeological site, adjacent to the village of Tevfikiye in Canakkale. It will conserve and exhibit the artifacts unearthed at the site. The museum contains conservation and restoration labs, 2000 sq m of storage, permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, activity areas, café, restaurants and retail facilities as well as access to natural environment.

The competition, which was opened in January 2011, received 132 project submissions. Some major architectural firms from Turkey were to be found among them. The jury, composed of prominent names such as Cengiz Bektas, Han Tumertekin, Murat Tabanlioglu, Ayten Savas and Ali Ihsan Unay, convened between 27-29 May 2011 in Ankara. The results were announced on 31 May.

The approach of the winning project by Omer Selcuk Baz sets the design concept upon communicating the visitors a world beyond their perception, with roots and stories in history. The design concept gradually disconnects the visitors in part or completely at certain thresholds from the physical context to reconnect them again. The cubic form of the building is reminiscent of an excavated artefact.

About the building

The design concept must engage in a situation beyond the physical context of the environment. It must look back at a civilisation that lived a while in history, and it must generate a feeling beyond the physical structure. At this point, the preferred approach to design is to segregate the visitors gradually at certain thresholds and to integrate them again. To disconnect the visitors partly or totally from the physical context and then reconnect them.

The design gathers all supportive functions underground on one floor. This floor is not recognised from the ground level and is concealed under a landscape. The exhibition structure is perceived as a robust object on a 32 x 32 metre square plan rising through a split from underground. The visitors descend into the structure along a 12 metre wide ramp. While descending, they come near to the structure in the horizon. Landscape and earth disappear gradually, leaving solely the sky and the structure behind.

Once underground, the visitors find themselves on a circulation band. A rust red earth-coloured exhibition structure rises through the transparent roof. The rusty metal (Corten) coated structure is timeworn and, just like the broken ceramics unearthed from the excavation site nearby, it recalls a lived history. The history of the material and the architectural design evokes a connection between past and present.

Ascending through the ramps towards the top, one gets a view of the landscape, the fields and the ruins of Troy through the slits on the facades. The rooftop enjoys a generous terrace with a splendid view where one imagines Troy's distant and near history, the memories of the land and its future ahead.

Architects: Yalin Architecture Design
Location: Troy, Canakkale
Architectural Design: Ömer Selçuk Baz, Okan Bal, Ozan Elter, Ece Özdür, Melek Kılınç, Sezi Zaman, Ege Battal, Lebriz Atan
Exhibition: Deniz Unsal, Lebriz Atan, Ece Özdür
Illustrations and Animations: Cihan Poçan

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