Sync – Urban Proposal Istanbul is located in the centre of Istanbul, on the shores of the Golden Horn. The area is an abandoned former industrial area that was partly used as a shipyard, and is now being transformed into a multifunctional district with certain highlighting programmes, as well as into a strong image for the city.
The existing urban fabric around the site is extremely homogeneous, equal heights, widths, distances, programme. Sot the task is to connect an existing urban fabric with a loose and undefined edge, the waterfront of the Golden Horn, to define the new edge and find a transition between the two poles.
Since the site is so close to the centre of the city, the project deals with the existing characteristics of the urban life, the permanent shift between inside, outside, covered situations, the smooth transition between public and private places, especially because the city is nerved with a dense network of retail spaces. Retail has always been a social and urban activity, it has continually been the mains socialisation device throughout the ages. Retail places set a stage for social interactions, and enhance communications. When urban space is considered as three-dimensional elements, urban space becomes figure as a positive element, and buildings become its ground.
So the Urban Strategy for the site is to oppose the existing urban fabric with different typologies and merge them with a figure – ground logic. Volumes continuously emerge out of a surface and become independent elements, from two different sides. The overlapping area creates a dense atmosphere of inside, outside and covered spaces.
