Multi-housing
and Hotel Project
Sector
Public
Location
Konya Turkey
Year
2022
Site Area
20.000 m²
Construction Area
200.000 m²
Design Team
Yasemin Işık
Mehmet Mert Işık
Beginning from the bilateral agreement between Etibank and Russian Tiajpromexport in 1967, Eti Aluminum facilities started to be constructed in phases. The lodgings, which will be accumulated for both blue and white collar employees who are to work at the facility, have been incrementally completed since 1971, initiating with multi-story worker lodgings.
The social housing and facilities of Eti Aluminum have been developed in a considerably large area, 1 km from the industrial campus. Equipped with a comprehensive scope of social facilities such as primary school, kindergarten, mosque, green areas, primary school, clubhouse, and guesthouse, today, due to its charming but old-fashioned medium-low quality buildings established in a wooded area within the grown black pine trees, this campus gives a tired impression to someone who sees it for the first time.
During the privatization, multi-story social facilities (all types of social facilities type 1, type 2, and 3 demonstrated in the adjacent diagram) have been abandoned to the municipality free of charge for the public benefit. 115 m² in gross, around 100 m² (due to the masonry building system), 42 white-collar lodgings designated as TYPE4, and approximately two lodgings called TYPE5 are reserved for senior managers. Although the guesthouse with these lodgings was renovated between 2005 and 2010; infrastructure problems, old construction techniques, materials, and mechanical problems caused by aging (mainly due to the district reaching -25 degrees during winter and 29 cm masonry bricks without thermal insulation) have brought the necessity of renovation of the buildings to the schedule.
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Figure.1. Diagrams and photographs related to site analysis demonstrating the previous condition, SeydiÅŸehir Etibank Alüminyum Tesisleri YerleÅŸkesi Sosyal KonutlarÕ Mekân Analizi, retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/236203.
When we initiated the design, our foremost decision after the research and analysis we completed was to construct all the buildings, including the guesthouse, on their old traces in order not to touch the cultivated trees. Preliminary approval was acquired from the municipality to turn only one-story buildings into two floors (h=6.50m) without increasing the precedent. Based on this, we have settled to build a less number of 2-story houses with a slightly larger floor area than before. As a consequence, instead of 42, 26 4+1 buildings with a net usage area of approximately 150 m² were designed. In the old plan, the kitchen was facing the 7.20m wide road where the prominent traffic was; the living room and parents' bedroom were facing the main road. There was a privacy problem as there were 2+1 lodgings in the other row across the road. In the planning phase, this guided us, and on the 1st floor, we assembled an almost entirely closed facade facing the entrance, driveway, and corridor. By taking all the bedrooms upstairs, we have enabled the households with privacy and autonomy in terms of noise and guest traffic for evening use. Since there were only two, to ensure the general integrity, the former senior executive lodgings have a 5+1 plan, with the under eaves turning into a living space, almost imperceptibly.
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The previous guesthouse had a 2-story floor, whereas a 1-floor plan from the side of the road with a half-L form entrance at the southernmost end of the land and three stories from the lower garden side due to elevation. We have pursued a more aesthetic way to maintain the trace of the building as it is, to advance and diversify the social spaces without increasing the floors. By reducing the number of bedrooms to 4 in the long block of the previous guesthouse, we avoided creating the impression of a mundane hotel block by concealing it behind a sloping roof garden. Subsequent to the same logic as the previous, in the middle block, which we may call the joint structure, we established a small but advanced functional and social facility by designing the entrance, lounge, meeting area, game room, restaurant, seminar/course room, and a hobby kitchen connected to the primary kitchen on the Z and -1st floors. The block of flats leans against the guesthouse, while a separate entrance is deliberately placed in this region of the land. This block containing three 2+1 and five 3+1 is designed to be reserved for employees who come with their families on temporary commitment or to be a home for young families, where the 4+1 plan type would be too much in number.
In the landscape arrangement, the earlier order has been withdrawn since the road cuts half of the back garden on the lower level by entering the land to get service to the guesthouse. Instead, the entrances of the guesthouse and apartment block have been taken from another corner that is much shorter and straighter. Therefore, the backyard has been converted into a usable area, and an amphitheater has been designed here to host diverse uses. Green-roofed ramps have been built on the roof of the Guest House, both from the side of the main entrance and the north side of the land, to make facilitate use easier.
The roof of the articulated mass forming the social facility has also been transformed into a small entertainment and landscape terrace. Pedestrian and vehicle roads have been reorganized throughout the terrain. The open parking lot of the guesthouse with 40 rooms, which had previously had space for only three vehicles, has been qualified with a capacity of 30 vehicles. Additionally, there was not enough open parking space for all residences. To fix this, we have added vehicle roads to the entrances of the houses and arranged niches on the sides of the roads, where there are no trees; thus, the need for parking space has been eliminated.
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References
Navruz, G., & Uysal, M. (2011). Seydiúehir Etibank Alüminyum Tesisleri YerleÅŸkesi Sosyal Konutları Mekân Analizi. Erciyes Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü Dergisi , 27(3).
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