TEM Avrasya Residences

Year

2016

Client

Fuzul GYO

Category

Residential, Retail

Area

105,200m²

Team

Fuat Taşkıranoğlu, Beylem Taşkıranoğlu, Miguel Zapatero, Esen Kantarcı, Aurelija Juskaite, Oğuzhan Solmaz

Fuzul TEM Avrasya Konutları is an urban renewal project in Gaziosmanpaşa, set in an already built-up area on a site of roughly 18,700m². Six residential blocks, a social facility and a long retail building opening onto Abdi İpekçi Avenue enclose a garden of 10,000m². Of the 612 apartments, 60 two-bedroom and 90 three-bedroom units are reserved for the original property owners. Outside the complex there is a supermarket serving both the residents and the surrounding neighbourhood, two food and drink units with open terraces, and a small parade of shops. The TEM motorway runs along the northern edge of the site, TEM Avrupa Konutları lies to the east, and a service zone with a school, a sports hall and a mosque to the west. To the south is Abdi İpekçi Avenue, onto which the shops open. Vehicles enter and leave from the development road between the site and the school plot. A further connection to the main road on the TEM Avrupa side is planned as an emergency entrance and exit.

All residential blocks are limited to 18 residential floors. The D, E and F blocks to the north, which open directly onto the garden, are ground + 17 floors, while the A, B and C blocks along the avenue are resolved as a retail floor + 18 floors.

The outlook for every block is north–north-east. Because the prevailing wind comes from the north–north-west, the blocks are resolved as point blocks rather than as a continuous chain.

All residential blocks are resolved around a point core so that their façades can be used efficiently. The larger apartments are placed on the more desirable corner axes.

An uninterrupted ring road runs through the site: ambulances, removal vans, hearses and loaded fire appliances up to a certain limit can reach the door of each block.

To obtain the largest possible garden, the site plan pushes the blocks towards the edges of the plot; along the avenue they follow the setback lines in the way that makes best use of the southern aspect. To the north of the garden the blocks meet corner to corner, so that none stands in front of another. The intention was that the blocks would sit in corner-to-corner relationships without overlooking one another, opening wide gaps in front of the living room and kitchen façades and yielding the largest garden the site allows.

The residential blocks come in three types according to their floor plans. The first two storeys, which stay at eye level along the garden, use different façade proportions, while a different design language is used from the second storey upwards.

The façade language uses white frames that begin and end at varying levels. The aim was that the floor plans repeating over 18 storeys would read on the façade as a designed city skyline rather than as mass housing — lightening the building and governing the perception of height. White is always brought to the front, heightening the contrast, in both form and colour, with the dark surfaces and brick textures used in between. The joinery is dark for the same reason.

The social facility sits behind block C, on ground gained from the slope so that the continuity of the garden is not broken, at the point closest to the children's play area. It holds an indoor and outdoor tea terrace and an indoor children's play area.

The indoor pool, the men's and women's changing rooms, the sauna, the steam room and the Turkish bath are on the first basement level. The indoor pool is lit from a rooflight.