A memory rehabilitation where the Sea of Marmara ends and joins the northern land
KADIKÖY URBAN SQUARE
#competition, #urbandesign, #kadıköy, #haydarpaşa, #coastdesign
Information
KADIKÖY URBAN SQUARE
Splitting unites stronger, sometimes.
Our proposal is a memory rehabilitation. A water element not only seperates the land from the infill area, but also isolates the dysfunctional, large-scaled, isolated sea shore which currently only serves as a passage between the bus stops and the ferries. This seperation radically gives back the local community its water shore, which is left outside the city walls in Kadıköy’s historical memory codes.The infill land is no longer an urban leftover, but an asterisk that is attached to the city, giving it a subtext and different following stories.
It acts as an urban equalizer that guides the pedestrian movements and a social balancer that unites different types of users, as well as being in contact with the locals with its qualified spatial layout that can be reached from the land via designed bridges. This place is now an object of desire that is tightly knit with the city with its Kadıköy Performing Arts Center, where all the artistic activities in its periphery take place, a Haydarpaşa Archeopark in the footsteps of our 2000-year-old fellow townspeople, and places where social-cultural-commercial interactions take place.
Client
İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality
Location
İstanbul
Size
327000 sqm
Program
Urban Design
Status
National Competition
Collaborators
Gizem ÖZBABA (Urban Planner)
Didem MENDİ (Landscape Architect)
Sena Şeyma CAN
Naz AKDEMİR
MEMORIAL REHAB | ISLAND as an object of desire
We are standing on a city port. The Kadıköy pier has transformed into a service place over the years, and has lost its identity due to the occupation of the parking lots, warehouses, administration buildings, fire brigades, etc.. Because of the existence of the unqualified public spaces and dysfuctional areas, the public turned towards the inner parts of the city. On the other hand, Yeldeğirmeni District, although almost all of it streets reaching the pier, where the urban fabric is the closes to the sea, could not develop commercially and remained idle. In order to turn the area in to a public space to be relaxed and have a quality time in, a strategy was made to block the pier at the northern and southern ends. With an Archeopark, which is proposed to the current excavation area at the north and a Performing Ars Center in the southwest. These two serve as two blockages defining the area, while ring services, tram lines, bicycle paths allow the coastal line to develop and revitalize parallel to the shore.
This geography, where the Marmara Sea ends and merges with the northern land, has been a home for dozens of civilization throughout the years. We see that port cities have developed in two different ways since prehistoric times. In Destination Cities such as Ephesus, Cume, Porto, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Merida, the relationship with the water is strond and the life is nourished by the water. All commercial activities and entertainment are organized by the water edge. The other type is the Stop-By Cities. They are the cities such as Tarragona, Yosu, Moin, CapeTown, Khalkedon, where colonies and armies stop for supply and to take a break on the way to the destination city. In these areas, the priority is whats within the city walls. The residents limit their relations with temporary foreigners. The world inside the wall is different than the world by the shore. The cities do not develop in a day. For this exact reason, Kadıköy Pier (Khalkedon) has the codes of the Stop-By City in its memory. Without a radical change, it is bound to live by this heritage.
Far-Shore (ÖteYaka) presents a radical shore line to the city
KADIKOY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Kadıköy is an important culture and arts center with its theaters, small opera houses, conservatories, cinema halls, theather passages and different scaled stages. Despite this, the current performance areas cannot meet the needs of the public, and the platforms where artists can express themselves better and make their voices heard to more people are insufficient. In the area located at the southwestern end of the Project Area, which is used as a parking lot today; a multi-purpose Performing Arts Center has been designed, where classical music concerts, magnificent, crowded events requiring special stage and equipment, as well as small-scale music and performing arts events can be held. In this context, it is thought that a building not only welcomes visiors to Kadıköy as a landmark, but also has the potential to transform the environment in which it is located.
A memory rehabilitation that seperates the infill area from the city
APPROACHING THE AREA FROM THE SEA
The performing Arts Center welcomes the visitors with its symbolic architecture. In addition to the building, monumental modern art installations have been proposed for 3 focus areas in order to emphasize the art-intertwined life of Kadıköy to the new arriving visitors. Among these installations is a giant mirror sphere located at the southwestern end of the area where a symbolic air balloon once stood on. The place of this air balloon which holds a great part in the cities memory was considered important.
Idea Sketches
It is possible to break down and reunite the historical codes of a city. This is approached by not only designing on paper, but also raising public awareness. As long as we manage to design a public space which the community will embrace, we can preserve the urban identity and stick strong to our values.
Turning the water shore into a living space of art, culture and performance
Related Projects
The idea of a “house” built according to the existing rocks and natural landscape
The revitalization of the “Sports” Code that is currently in the memory of the project site
_-_Interior_1st_Floor%20(1).jpg)