Mahalle Vertical

MAHALLE ARAS BURAK Architectural Association School of Architecture DIPLOMA 9 ICONIC FICTIONS 2009 / 2010

MAHALLE

2

CONTENT

00

Manifesto

00 00

Nakagin Tower by Kisho Kurokawa Metabolist Architecture

00

Metabolist Movement and the Nakagin Tower

00 00 00 00

Capsule system, Construction Built-in furnitures Post Occupation Death of the tower

00

Presentation / Jury I

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The Cell

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Scale Hierarchy Neighbouring Cells Negative Space Removed Sides Artificial Lands Parallel Slab Building Personal Space Space Frame

00

The Negative Space

00 00 00 00

Chain Types Chains in Different Scales Interconnected Personal Chainspace Chain forming a Ring

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Impermament Icon / Jury II

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Site

00

Cell Chained on a Corridore Shared Spaces on Chain Vertical Order

Chain Space Previews / Jury IV

Chain 1, Ring Chain 2, Compartment Chain 3, InterFloor Chain 4, SuperFloor

00 00 00 00 00 00 00

3

NAKAGIN TOWER

BUILDING A NEW CITY

6

ICONICITY

7

WODECO

8

METABOLISTS Age 32

Age 34

Le Corbusier

Age 32

Maekawa

Age 37

Age 34

Age 32

Tange

Isozaki

Asada

Age 32

Age 37

Age 34

Age 26

Age 32

Age 37

Kurokawa

Maki

Age 32

Otaka

Age 32 Kikutake

Age Kawazoe 34

Ekuan

metabolists Colofon page of Metabolism 1960, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1960

metamorphosis Age 26

Age 32

Age 34

Nakagin Tower Hillside Terrace Colofon page of Metabolism 1960, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1960 Toshiba Pavillion Age 26

Age 37

Sky House

Age 37

Age 32

Colofon page of Metabolism 1960, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1960

Age 32

Kikutake

Maki

the genius

connection to the rest of the world

Graduated from Architecture Depeartment of Waseda University. Worked at Togo Murano Architectural Office.

graduated from Architecture Department of Tokyo Colofon page of Metabolism 1960, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1960 University. Worked at S.O.M, Kenzo Tange, Jose Luis Sert. Assistant Professor at Washington

Age 26

Age 26 University in 1960.

Kawazoe

Kurokawa

the most intelligent

Colofon page of Metabolism 1960, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1960 the most capable and entertainig

Graduated from Architecture and Psychology Department of Waseda University. Worked as an

graduated from Architecture Department of Kyoto University. Working at Kenzo Tange’s office in 1960.

architectural critic.

Otaka the grandfather Graduated from the Architecture Department of Tokyo University. Experiences at Kunio Maekawa’s office.

9

BUILDING LIKE TREES

The truth is; trees do not work as leaves attached to the tree directly. There are always branches in between and the tree has a perfect hierarchy of scale from its roots until life reaches the leaves.

Metabolists always attached their plug in - plug out units to mega structures in their proposals without creating an healthy neighbourhood condition.

10

CREATING A CONTEXT

Metabolism is anti-contextual.

11

MEGA STRUCTURES

12

TOWER COMMUNITIES

While Tange was away in the States for a year, Kawazoe was told to come up with a theme and program for the World Design Conference.

The design conference would never have taken place without Tange, and without the conference to push Kawazoe and other young architects and designers.

Metabolism was a bit like the extraordinary things that happen in an apartment when the parents are away. The grown-ups go on holiday and the kids have a party in the apartment.

Marine City project was about having cylinder towers of infrastructure which would act like artificial grounds where the living units are attached.

These cylinders would be sunken after they are over-aged and be home for the underwater living creatures.

13

NO ZONING, YES CIRCULATION

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SKY HOUSE

The kitchen and the bathroom units were movable and both can be relaped with new units.

The chidren’s room was a small “move-net” unit that we attached under the floor. It’s made so you descend through a small hole in the floor.

We’ve removed it later when the children got married and were gone.

Kikutake called the units “move-net” Kurokawa called them “capsules”

Kikutake’s parents were landlords in Japan, During his youth, the people around them would gather around in their house for certain events and form temporary communities. This was also an influence for him for what Metabolist movement can do.

Kikutake’s family lost their land after the war.

It was partly in response to that he came up with the artificial land platorms he proposed in his Tower and Marine City plans.

“Metabolism is not something cooked up by architects and designers for fun”

Kawazoe

15

REBRIEF

REFRESHING TOWER

18

Re-brief

The financial crisis finally forced the last “stable� industry to become mobile.

MODULAR ARCHITECTURE

The idea of the city, physically changing in a constant rate by Metabolists became reality after 50 years.

Not necessarily focussing on its mobility, faster replacement of the units, change of the uses allowed a temporary communities to be formed at different parts of the city. The compact living spaces became ideal for a more efficent world.

These spaces were not only residential, the units host parks, used as terraces, retail, museums and social programmes individually as well.

Its mobility allowed the recycling of the spaces and their direct transfer to the poorer countries too.

spatial test in a 12m x 2.5m container with generic furnitures for a couple 1: 200

the new towers in plan 1: 750

the new towers elevation 1:750

19

REFRESHING TOWER

20

MEGA VS MINI

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PERMANENT STRUCTURE

22

CAR DESIGN = HOUSE DESIGN

Nakagin Tower by Kisho Kurokawa The unit brief is about taking an iconic building from the history; finding out the essence that made it interesting and re-briefing it in order to produce a new icon.

My research is based on the Nakagin Tower designed by Kisho Kurokawa, got built in Ginza district of Tokyo.

This building is very interesting because it could have started a revolution in the world if it was well presented and put together collectively leaving out the egos of the architects.

This tower is the product of the Metabolist Movement started in 60’s by a group of Japanese architects, thinkers and designers.

Nakagin 1972 Kurokawa had the idea of mass produced modular units that are to be replaced every 20 years on a permanent steel core.

It was supported by the Nakagin construction company and got built in 1972. The construction took only two years.

Construction details and a lot of design decissions were rushed, as a result of this; the units were not exactly working as a plug in-plug out system and the tower was not exactly representing the ideas behind the Metabolist Movement.

Every single unit was 2.5m x 4m sized and they had their own built in furnitures, bathroom.

When the concstruction was finalized, the units were actually very popular in Tokyo. All 140 units were sold out in a month’s time.

60 of them were bought by companies as hotel rooms for their guests since it was cheaper than booking a room every time. Another 60 was owned by in-town bachelors as it was expected. 20 of them were bought by families as an extension to their house since in Japanese culture guests are usually recevied in somewhere else than the family house.

There was a show off capsule on the ground level just like a car where the customers were able to go in and see the unit and then after their purchase move upstairs to their original unit.

23

REPLACABLE CAPSULES

Kisho Kurokawa proposed a steel core which will be the stable part of the building with a normal lifetime. In this steel core, there would be the lifts and staircases and water, electricity, toilet services.

The construction took only two years. The design decissions were still being made during the construction.

Therefore there was serious issues with how the capsules are attached to the core and joining next to eachother.

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The prefabricated cells / capsules was built outside Tokyo in a very short time.

When they were ready to be plugged onto the core built in Ginza, it was seen that a tiny detail was not put in account during the design process; trucks were not allowed in central Tokyo at any time of the day.

This was the only problem with the realization of the capsules. They had to be put together on the site and plugged onto the core in the end.

REPLACABLE CAPSULES

Despite the design problems and construction delays it was still a very quick construction. In two years the whole building was completed.

There were 140 capsules on two cores. And three bridges connecting the two cores which also provided advantage for fire escape and disaster escape strategies.

This kind of a building was also providing advantages for a very active earthquake zone like Tokyo.

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ICONOCITY

Godzilla movie representing the city in “Nakagin” way.

Many respected newspapers talked about the demolition decission around the world. The New York Times threw out the question: “how old does a building have to be for us to consider saving it?” in the context of Nakagin Tower.

Even the famous singer, Kanye West showed his appreciation about the Nakagin Tower and blogged the photos he took when he visited Ginza in Tokyo and saw the tower.

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ICONICITY

A Nakagin table top lamp

Nakagin Tower’s model in an exhibition

A Google Image result for the search “Nakagin Tower”

A computer game featuring the tower

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BUILT-IN FURNITURES

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BUILT IN FURNITURES

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CORRECT USE

The capsules were sized 4m x 2.5m x 2.5m, All electronic equipment and furnitures were built in like TV, radio, bed, shelves and bathroom.

Kisho Kurokawa wanted these capsules to be replacable.

Therefore he prefered to use 20 years lasting materials.

He wanted companies like Toyota to replace these capsules in time with their own designs.

Although he was talking about this widely flexible world, he formed a team of people in his office to follow and consult the clients how they should be living in the capsules.

Kisho Kurokawa literally controlling how his buildings were being used.

He was even willing to pay for the lightbulbs to be replaced incase the owner can not afford to get the same colour and make of the light bulb he was willing to have in his design.

It seems ike this highly controlled nature of the life in the building provoked the rebellion even more.

An idea suggesting an enormous flexibility was being controlled in an almost paranoid mental state.

In the image above, it can be seen potentially a bachelor businessmen is using his capsule pretty much the right way.

Eventhough clearly he’s lacking space for storage - you can see the pile of bedsheets and clothes behind him - he seems to be “allright” with Kurokawa’s design decissions at the first glance.

But when it’s analyzed carefully, it can be seen easily that he was in need of a not so elegant curtain and a better light which is almost twice the size of the original one.

This is a key point for Nakagin Tower. For this great idea, the mutation - healing starts with the modification done by the owners.

In order to achieve their “healed” solution, the owners hired teams to do a complete surgery on their capsules. (on right)

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FAILURE

31

REBELLION

In this case the capsule became purely an office.

An entertainment capsule for a young man.

The amount of light sources is increased, walls are filled with notes, storage is icreased.

He was looking for a bed and seating at the same time. But more of a sofa then a bed.

He was in need of storing his bike in the capsule too. he was also in need of a larger bookshelf.

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REBELLION

One of the smaller “operation” lead to this result.

A man who was not willing to use his capsule as a bedroom removed the bed but kept the original gadgets.

He hung his favourite paintings with their retro frames onto the hi-tech built-in cabinets.

Replaced his soft seatings with more uncomfortable looking traditional chairs and table.

The tragic situation he was put into shows the war between the user trying to “live” his own way inside a projected, so called “ideal” way of living by the author, architect.

A woman living alone and obsessed with a clean environment requested the “doctors” to remove all of the built in furnitures.

She was not satisfied with the upgraded light solution therefore she added a giant white lighting into her capsule.

A hanger for the white shirts that are just ironed is added to the corner of the room. She also added a large fridge and made sure the shoes, slippers will not make her carpet dirty by adding an additional carpet called “FINISHER” on the floor.

Apparently she was not happy with the size of the desk therefore she got a larger table built for her.

The larger light seems to be a common “upgrade” done by the Nakagin company given this photograph it can be seen for the second time.

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STRUCTURAL FRAME

Nakagin City

The plan was to replace the all-year inhabitants’ capsules first. (56 capsules) Nakagin Company did exactly what Kurokawa was envisioning for the 25 years time but instead 1 year’s time. They hired Mishubishi to sort out the 56 capsules.

Mitsubishi’s interest and confidence grew more and more in the potentials of the capsule industry while they design and build for the Nakagin.

They started flirting with the Nakagin to build new towers which will target families more than the bachelors.

a City

z in Gin g a k a N

An innocent and innovative concept, a pretty, loved icon for the city was demolished in a year’s time. The discovery of the new industry pushed the architects aside in the residential field.

This created a disposable soft layer above the city.

A cream like layer, which is shaped purely depending on the latest fashion, carefully following the latest development in the electronics for kitchen, heating, broadcasting and communication.

Residential units were now designed by the teams that knows and cares for the need of their user better than the architects do. The width of an unit and its connections to the main structure were no different than the width of a street, it’s standard and all agreed decissions for maximum efficiency. These decissions were made just like how it was decided among the technologies of VHS vs BETA or BluRay vs HD today.

ers

in Tow Nakag

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Only masterpieces were taking years to construct and the architects we know, limited themselves to only masterpiece making in this world.

The number of the architects working the we knew were no more than the number of violinists around the world.

However, this was not the death of architecture.

N

City akagin

There were still many architects whose interests were the distribution of this soft layer above the hard one. The circulation was their interest, providing the best locations for the capsules, most clever routes and shortcuts. The context was their concern.

The hard layer allowed the masterplanning on the vertical for the first time in the metropolis.

BRANCHING ORGANIZATION

1: 150

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KUROKAWA’S CITY

36

REBELLION

37

NO BUILT-IN FURNITURES

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FRAME

39

ISOLATION

Just beforet the death of the tower, The architect of the building was complaining in an interview that the whole idea was that the tower would get old in 20 years and the capsules would be replaced.

Kisho Kurokawa said: “Well, in this case I designed the building to have its capsules replaced every 25 years, so it’s ridiculous that 25 years have gone by and nothing has been done. That was a really stupid mistake.

For example, satellites have to be replaced. If you don’t maintain the building and replace its parts, you can’t go on to sell it to somebody else, but this hedge fund comes along and invests in the building, telling people that “it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, we can sell it on without changing any of the parts”, but that could lead to an horrific accident.

It’s the same with cars: Honda makes excellent cars, as do Toyota, Porsche and Benz, but all their cars need proper maintenance and the replacement of parts. If you don’t do that, you’ll have an accident.

This applies to cars and to everything else: everything is designed to be maintained. Everybody knows this, and yet you have the ownership of all these capsules divided between 140 people, which makes things really inconvenient.”

He defended until his death, his way of rebuilding the tower would cost a lot less than building a new conventional apartment building.

According to Kurokawa the demolition and rebuilding the tower would cost £190.200. Whereas removing the capsules and building new ones would cost only £ 54.959.

He says selling the new capsules, the income it would bring is £140.922.

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DEATH

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RICHER ENVIRONMENT

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REPETITION

1:

10

0

1:

20

0

43

NEGATIVE SPACE

44

ALLOWING PUBLIC MEANDER

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SMALLER SCALE ORGANIZATION

rate of change 1 rate of change 2 rate of change 3 rate of change 4

sleep 02b work, play

rate of change 5

sleep 02a work, play

toilet shower

rest

sleep 01 work, play

outside

cook

media eat, rest

outside

1: 200

1: 400

The design starts from the smallest unit, room.

The un覺t is sized 15 x 15,

The private and shared spaces are grouped.

The plan aims to clearly divide the shared space and personal space and extend to the maximum distance by the use of corridores.

Units requiring water and expected to be wet are given another section in the plan.

One enter and one exit door is given.

Seperation of the two groups in the family, the adults and children is provided, they all meet at the eat-cook and bathroom space which is both shared and private.

Higher rates of change is projected as the rooms gradually become more personal space.

These islands can be connected together when larger living spaces are required,

forming larger organ

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2009 11 17

1: 2000

+1 +1

A +1

C

VARYING SIZES / EXTENDING

C

VARYING SIZES / THREE UNITS

BUNDLING

A

B

B

1: 500

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BUNDLING

C

A

A FIRST 4 UNITS

C

A B

B +3 UNITS

C

A +2 UNITS

NEGATIVE SPACE

First, 9 units are distributed into the boundaries defined by the city block.

The height of the blocks is 5 meters.

The width varies.

Negative space can be shared space, balconies.

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1: 500

2009 11 19

SPATIAL BOUNDARIES

BUNDLING

This can be read as a volumetric masterplan.

The spatial organization is limiting, the result is too expected at this configuration.

Blurring the boundaries between the spaces can give a more experimental organization.

A

C

public private

A

B

1: 200 SLOWER RATE OF CHANGE STRIP TRANSITIONAL SPACE FASTER RATE OF CHANGE STRIP

1: 2000

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RE-DEFINING METABOLISM

Japanese Movement mega-structure capsule mass-produced enclosed element in metabolist architecture symmetrical artificial land platform constant change anti contextual

International Design Methodology micro-structure tissue a shared ownership for surfaces in reverse metabolism asymmetrical artificial land platform constant change anti contextual

standardization

non-standard

mass production

custom made

growing

50

REBRIEFED

not growing

2009 11 24

METABOLISM

FROM CELL TO BODY

City

Unit

REVERSE METABOLISM

gggggg gggggg

our concern, has been the occupation of the space in between the cell, tissue the organ and the organs forming the system.

(SOFT)

METABOLISM

Cell

Tissue

while the function of the edge and its effects on the inner space is far more interesting.

Neighbourhood

(HARD)

City Block

Organ

System 51

PERSONAL SPACE

255m2 personal space

+71% semi public 29% personal space kitchen

swimming pool

personal space

living room

garden

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our concern, has been the occupation of the space in between the cell, tissue the organ and the organs forming the system.

(SOFT)

Cell

Tissue

while the function of the edge and its effects on the inner space is far more interestin

Unit

PUBLIC VS PRIVATE

(HARD)

Neighbourhood

Organ

System residential vs public

69

only personal space is private everything else is public

Collaging Personal vs Semi-Public space

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NO CELL, YES FRAME

Using the first cellular model, by eleminating the side walls certain shared spaces occur.

Different rates of changes can be assigned to each strip and the tension created between these spaces can be experimented.

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2009 11 27

Also the surface doeesn’t have to be either a ceiling or floor it can be integrated into the circulation system and vertical structure at different points.

ALIGNED FRAMES

Back to the creation of the space, As I eleminate the the facade of the cells, only ceiling and floor is left.

When three strips of folding, bending edges (ceilingfloor) are aligned, very interesting spaces are formed.

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ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS

Building is not seperated from the city like Habitat 67 or Nakagin Tower do as an only being “residential” a building.

Even though a certain level of privacy is always essential, levels of privacies can be provided with today’s technologies.

With a booking system, residents can use certain parts of building and make them private spaces during the day depending on their needs.

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With such a flexible system, A lot of space and money spent on maintance of a house would be reduced to minimum.

Today, most of the spaces in our houses are wastefully being left empty for almost for a whole work day.

In a residential organization like this, working with the principles of the Reverse Metabolism, our buildings can be used efficently while providing the maximum comfort.

2009 12 01

The tissue (floor and ceiling) is the leaves,

SHARED PROGRAMMES

Just like how we used to put together Lego’s, Reverse Metabolism can be all about putting together the right pieces at the right time and right location.

Individuality increasingly exists in the modern flat.

Every individual has their own computer, desk and bathroom today.

Let’s be more honest in the organization of our apartments and clearly divide these personal spaces and the rest of the house into two parts.

By doing this, easily shared spaces like living rooms, kitchens can be booked daily accoding to the scale of the need. If one invites 10 people for dinner, books the large dining space with large kitchen.

These shared rooms can be cleaned and fixed by the management unit of the building daily. These rooms don’t need to be uniform, generic living rooms. They can have themes just like an IKEA floor, The difference between this and a student dorm is, once you book a room, it belongs to you as long as you rent it. So your flat’s overall configuration constantly changes in this building.

swimming pool

TV / Movie

coffee

Theatre

Shops

swimming pool

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FAILURE

The decission of taking the Nakagin Tower down was taken after the apparent failure of the supporting systems like water, air conditioning and electricity.

Some units even externally set up their own water systems independently.

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The moment the Nakagin Tower becomes a backround image for a modern house is a powerful image. While the idea was to create a new way of living and look out to the old buildings which are built on site in longer spans of time.

PRIVACY ISSUES

Privacy was one of the biggest problems for the capsules.

One neighbour capsule can see the other easily through the large circular windows.

Therefore the owners added the external and internal curtains and modified the Kurokawa design.

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JURY I

Re-briefing Nakagin Tower, Ginza Metabolist architecture was founded by a group of Japanese architect who was aiming to capture the attention of the world in Expo 1970 with a “fresh idea”.

They believed according to the requirements of the new city aided with the technological development they can propose fast changing buildings. These changes would be similar to the change trees go through seasons. While the tree itself stays stable and unchanged, the leaves drop and renew themselves in time.

Kisho Kurokawa was a part of this group. He was probably the most charismatic among all of them. In Japan it was said by some that Kisho Kurokawa is the third most famous person after the king and the prime minister.

He even had his own TV show in Japan when he was at the highest point in his career.

This might explain how he found the opportunity to build one of the most radical ideas among the built architectural products ever, one of the only remaining examples for the metabolist movement, Nakagin Tower.

The story of Metapolis Kurokawa city The Nakagin Tower was loved by everyone and in a year’s time, in a very short time the whole Ginza district in Tokyo looked like this.

Kisho Kurokawa was a national hero and the most popular man in Japan at this point.

Every year, especially the people in Tokyo started to wait for the improved and new design of the capsules by Kurokawa.

Just a few years after the Nakagin’s birth, Tokyo had a new name around the world, Metapolis. A dense metropolis that hosts the constantly mutating Metabolist buildings.

There was even a team of people in Kisho Kurokawa’s office who were working as a call centre for the owners answering the questions about how the capsules are supposed to be used.

A repair centre was formed on the outskirts of Tokyo for the maintenance of the capsules just like how it is with cars. a small scale rebellion

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2009 11 10

As the capsules were sold out the moment they are out of the factory, a group of residents decided to declare their independence and renew the interior of their capsules by themselves. This started in the very first metabolist project to be built in Tokyo, in the Nakagin Tower.

JURY I

This was a violation of the first idea. Kisho Kurokawa was frustrated by this rebellion and criticized the people for being “the people without taste”.

the healthy Metapolis

Even though he tried to sue these people there wasn’t much he can do for the people who are only changing the internal arrangement of their own house.

But it looked nothing like the projection of its owners.

He lost the cases one after another...

And in the end, the rebellion grew into a larger scale. “oh no...”

Many people were not happy for the restricting size of the capsules and were bored of the same colour of concrete and same shape of the windows they have.

On a TV show, Kurokawa declared that he’s aware of the size restriction problem and his office is on the path of developing larger sized capsules. He warned people not to change anything until his office is ready for the manufacturing of the new capsules.

Unfortunately people were impatient and in a very short time, by the end of 1975, they hired builders to modify the existing capsules.

Corporations were also very interested in the emerging industry and they started to buy and convert units to form shops, restaurants on upper floors of the Metapolis.

Police was concerned about the tripled volume of streets in the city and was now an insufficient force to have control over it. a constantly mutating organization A lot of escalators were placed into the towers by the sponsorship of the corporations. This modification guaranteed the street circulation to reach higher levels.

Larger families started to rent neighbouring slots to plug in their capsules next to each other and started using the staircases as their shared space for storage, seating.

Not a long time later, an engineering company that is only specialized in creating this shared spaces allowed branching out for four capsules at a time. This allowed the creation of communal spaces between the core and the living unit.

Because of the maze nature of the Metapolis, urban planners started to colloborate with architects to solve the circulation through the towers.

The metabolist movement succeeded.

Yes, it was like a tree and it was constantly changing leaving the infrastructure unchanged while the other spaces wear out and get replaced.

But it was not working like cars, nothing was really an invention in terms of physical environment in the Metapolis.

It was only a dicipline, a strategy, a vertical infrastructure allowing the city change regardless of the city block’s limitations.

The potentials of the metabolist ideas can be assessed again given the circumstances of economical crisis and the fast growth of our cities which demands a higher density for the city blocks.

The idea of separating parts of building which have different rates of change, allowing certain structures to remain undisturbed when others wear out, so that the buildings could work like cities can allow us live in a richer physical environment. plan To understand this proposal, we can call the faster changing layer of the building SOFT and the more permanent part can be the HARD. Instead of treating a tower literally like a tree or like a sushi where the SOFT layer is wrapped around the HARD one and create an individual tower – a building, I believe setting up a system on a slab that is more neutral and less working like an individual building is more interesting.

We have seen sections treated as plans before, but in my proposal for a vertical tower that is made out of constantly changing sections at different rates, I would treat the plan as a section. Taking one face of a slab building as the ground, gradually the building would fade from HARD to SOFT as you move towards the other face. The three 10m wide welded sections would cross over each other when the programme requires.

Circulation would get slower by making narrow staircases on the SOFT. The HARD layer would contain larger lifts, wider staircases and fast escalators. The structural skeleton would get lighter and the sizes of the spaces would get smaller - (30x30) to (15x15) - as you move towards the SOFT.

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2009 11 17

THE DREAM

THE DREAM

It should feel like New York, it should feel like Los Angeles or London, maybe St. Tropez and sometimes like Monaco or Miami…

Any way of earning enough money to own that car, shop in that place and dine in that restaurant is valid.

Will the next “national” holiday let them go back to New York? Maybe they should see Rome this time? Can she get that shoe to her dressing room from Milan on the way back? Surely there’s space for that! (her dressing room is larger than her servant’s room)

The city they live in is no longer part of their identity.

The undesirable office tower is linked to their cathedral, and the cathedral is linked to the international airport occasionally.

Who says it should be?

Who needs the pavement?

Their mother tongue is English no matter what their background is. Their Ivy League school friends form their social circle and their unbreakable bounds are ensured by the presence of Facebook. Even their local friends went to that school to make sure they end up in that university.

Later these friends came back together in their hometown to form a community in the excile, their hometown.

All of the fragments of the life on that pavement are a long walk up to the 480m2 condo and the whole experience of the city, all conversations with that local market has to be bared until one person is worth to occupy five people’s space in this world.

The internationally known corporation’s satellite office provides the shelter to feel safe and the business card they need to feel the taste of success.

Their house; Is ideally 480m2, and five bedrooms for them is just perfect.

If they can’t afford it yet, they have to bare the 98m2 condo for a while.

The giant glass windows facing the metropolis and ideally the ocean or the sea are necessary. This godlike position at the tallest tower ever lets them see the small people of the metropolis occasionally.

Seeing those tiny people getting on that crowded bus every morning makes them enjoy the comfort even more.

This is the big present, the ideal life after all those years of hard work. Nobody will ask them if they really need that hobby room or if they have ever read that bible sized book in their library.

Their home is an exhibition space, a film set. It never stinks, never gets flooded or embarrasses them.

In order to prevent any embarrassment they brought back the slavery from Romania to achieve the ideal comfort.

A single person who can live in 10m2 room while their masters require 470m2 to fit their big life in.

Size does matter.

His own cathedral is linked to the most boring place ever, the office tower, by the biggest car. A car for five people he drives alone every morning.

The journey to the work is a 40 minutes drive in a Land Rover. Who worries about the traffic in an air conditioned leather seated car while listening to that Cuban music?

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ICONIC WAR, ISTANBUL

Iconic Residence Projects in Istanbul

The High Demand

(CBD on the European Side)

Many prestigious residential projects are being planned and built on the strip.

Mashattan

by MM Proje

In the last decade, Many construction companies invested all their time to compete with each other to create the most iconic residential tower in Istanbul.

Sapphire Istanbul (p.55)

by Tabanlioglu Architects

Mashattan, (the joint word invented bu the construction company for Maslak + Manhattan), Saphire, Loft I and Loft II by well-known Turkish architects Tabanlioglu, Trump Towers, Zorlu Center, Kanyon, Metrocity, Avrupa Konutlari (European Residents), Dumankaya Ikon (Dumankaya Icon), Trio, Agaoglu, Uphill were the most popular residential towers built in one decade.

In Istanbul, only architectural product capturing the attention of the public is the contemporary residential condoniums.

Despite the fact that Bosphorus provides one of the most attractive landscape in the world, sadly the Istanbulites prefers the spend most of their time in shopping malls to socialize.

Zorlu Levent is another residential project that is still waiting for the design to be selected. It is located in between the Loft and Metrocity condoniums on the strip.

The site also has direct access to the Istanbul Metro, the major underground network.

The extreme level of competition for the iconic condonium is very interesting. The advertisements for these towers run day and night on the TV channels in Turkey.

Loft I and II

by Tabanlioglu Architects Kanyon

by Jerde Associates and Tabanlioglu Architects Metrocity

by Tekeli Sisa Architects Astoria

by Ali Bahadir Erdin Sisli Elit Residence

by BSB Architects Selenium Towers

by Tekeli Sisa Akmerkez (p.54) by (CBD on the Asian Side)

Dumankaya Ikon

by TAGO, Tatsuya Yamamoto Uphill Court

by Cihangir Tutluoglu

Dumankaya on the Asian side

Uphill on the Asian side

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Astoria

Mashattan

Metrocity

Loft I and II

Sapphire

2009 11 17

Sisli Elit

Kanyon Mall and Residences

FACE-LIFT

Akmerkez (1993)

The very first “Elite Residence” attempt “integrated with a shopping mall”, Akmerkez is currently going through literally a plastic surgery.

The competition between these towers requires the architectural tricks and this is almost the only field architecture is highly on demand.

The plastic surgery doesn’t add or remove anything from the current programmatic configuration.

It’s only a cryout for attention. The whole operation is a physical change to bring back the iconicity.

Can we predict the malls + residences built in 2000s to require such a surgeries in 2015?

While eventhough they are asked constantly, architects like Rem Koolhaas refuse to design another “shopping mall” for Istanbul.

Although the refusal has very good reasons, it seems like the only way of communicating new ideas is by manipulating a shopping mall like Jerde’s Kanyon did.

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CHAIN SPACE

2009 12 11

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HIERARCHY

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ALIGNING FRAMES

a space frame starts with 5m x 5m square with 2m depth. parralel space frames from chain spaces.

chain spaces allows different hierarchies within the building.

the smaller spaces can be the personal spaces while the larger ones can work as the shared spaces.

chain space formed by 5 space frames.

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2009 12 15

a larger chain space formed by 8 space frames.

GRADUALLY REACHING THE CITY

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CHAIN TYPES

BOX CHAIN

BOX CHAIN

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PANTHER LINK

PANTHER LINK

SNAKE CHAIN

SNAKE CHAIN

CHAIN TYPES

BOX CHAIN the body Circulation / Structure box chain is the strongest and siplest link among the tree types. so it’s ideal for the largest frame / core.

PANTHER LINK the system Courtyard / Shared panther links are parralel, they are not ideal to be the strongest links but if they are not physically connected, they can be ideal to be used as a replacable element.

SNAKE CHAIN the tissue Apartment / Personal snake link chains are the hardest to manipulate. they require a higher sophistication of linkage. this would be the ideal condition for “cells/rooms” to be in order to form an apartment

three types of chains are scaled down and up for appropriate programmes.

four the apatrments (snake chain) forms the courtyard (panther link)

every element in the tower is a type of chain.

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SNAKE CHAIN

Double Units 1: 500

Double Units Combined 1: 500

personal spaces

shared spaces

infrastructure UNIT 2 UNIT 4

UNIT 1 UNIT 3 retail

Double Units Combined 1: 200

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underground

BOX LINK CHAIN

shared services at the 60cm gaps between the space frames.

parallel stand

parallel stand

tunnel connection 1

perpendicular connection

tunnel connection

tunnel connection 2

varying size stand

varying size perpendicular connection

courtyard in plan (1:500)

courtyard condition in section (1:500)

Morroccon riads

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PANTHER LINK CHAIN

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INTERLOCKING CHAINS

distorted courtyard in plan (1:500)

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JURY II

The Impermanent Icon The year started with the research for two post World War 2 buildings built in the two ends of the world. They are both not designed as permanent, final product. One is the Inland Steel in Chicago and the other one is the Nakagin Tower in Tokyo.

Inland Steel by SOM provides flexibility and accepts the impermanence of the programme in the building by having column and service free open plans. These 13 floors connect to a service and circulation providing core - tower.

On the other side, as a completely different approach, in Nakagin Tower for Kisho Kurokawa impermanence is about the physical replacement of the residential capsules in time. These capsules can be seen equal to the column and service free floor plans of the Inland Steel building.

In Nakagin Tower, the room layout is very specifically defined, furniture are not movable while in Inland Steel, the space is nothing but an empty box.

While the SOM’s open plan takes its origins from the principles of modern architecture that we are all very familiar with in the western side of the world, Nakagin Tower takes its roots from the metabolist movement of Japan formed by a group of architects and designers.

The metabolist group was active in 1960’s only for a decade. In 1970’s the movement was disowned by most the founder members and the only representative left from the group was their youngest member, Kisko Kurokawa.

Their ambition was to create a building or a city that one doesn’t have to destroy the whole structure every time one part breaks down.

Impermanent Tower Nakagin Tower construction was finalized in 1972. The building is formed around a steel core, where the plug in living units - capsules - are hanging from. In September 1972, in a month’s time all 140 capsules were sold out.

The people who bought these capsules were in-town bachelors, families and corporations. Families used these places as an extension to their own houses, for their guests and corporations were finding it cheaper use the capsules as hotel rooms than paying for a regular hotel room.

However, these capsules were too much like a prison cell for their inhabitants. They were only 8 square meters in size and were designed for a single person to live in. A capsule would not even share its walls with their neighbours. The moment a capsule owner steps out of their personal space, he would be only facing a 1m wide, dark staircase and a lift.

In contradiction to this very lonely condition created, the rooms would face each other at many points from the large circular windows creating a huge privacy issue for inhabitants.

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JURY II

Capsules survived for 20 years just like Kurokawa’s projection. They were not designed to be maintained, preserved forever therefore they were falling apart in year 2000.

The internal space of the capsules, with the built-in equipment and furniture was another failure.

One man owning a capsule removed his bed and pinned his favourite paintings on the plastic built in storage spaces, threw his own classical looking chairs and a tea table. A young man got rid of everything in the interior and built his own bookshelf and placed a sofa-bed. One woman removed the insufficient yellow lighting, replaced it with a really big white light source and brought in a large fridge for herself.

But my question at this point is; can Nakagin Tower really represent what metabolists were trying to achieve? Is looking at Nakagin Tower enough for understanding the ambition behind the metabolist movement in Japan?

There were very interesting ideas bringing six men together in one house for discussions that lasts until the mornings.

One metabolist, Kikutake’s family was a well known landlord family providing infrastructure for many. His house was hosting many people for different events. This kind of shared infrastructure and shared spaces disappeared in Japan after the new land laws that did not allow one single person’s ownership for a plot in order to slow down the development of Japan after the World War 2. As a response to this new law, Kikutake was supporting the idea of artificial land platforms that allows denser developments independent from the city plots.

Another metabolist architect, Kawazoe said once: “Metabolism is not something cooked up by architects and designers for fun”. All five architects and one industrial designer were traumatised by the effects of the war. They all saw their cities destroyed and did not believe anything can last forever. They strongly believed in the impermanence of the materialistic world.

In a Time of Impermanency We are in the shock of one of the biggest economical crisis of the last century. Giant music stores, banks are falling apart and closing down their branches on the most popular streets. Big names of architecture lost most of their commissions in the Middle East and shrunk their number of employees immediately.

Site Istanbul is one of the most impermanent cities in the world.

It is a multi-centred metropolis that would not have a OS map like system at any point. The business district keeps migrating towards the north with an incredible speed, almost every decade. The consumption of the land is marked with the migrating icons. Two bridges to cross the Bosphorus soon to be joined by a third one, two stadiums of Galatasaray, one under construction in the north. The city keeps replicating itself leaving less popular city centres behind.

In this north migrating city, construction of the twin towers of Tatlici is being paused for 15 years and Cevahir Mall construction took 25 years to be completed. The unstable economical and political conditions forces us to look for new ways of building in cities like Istanbul and by the time they are finalized, the focus of the city is moved towards north and the building is already unpopular.

Also because of the earthquakes, Istanbul has been an impermanent city since Constantinopolis. The most important icon of the city, Hagia Sophia and it’s dome was rebuilt more than two times in the history.

Metabolist idea of gradually developing buildings can be ideally tested in a city like Istanbul.

The modern Sisli municipality in north hosts the old and new business districts and it is developed on the sides of a main road called Buyukdere. The linear development of this district is caused by the geographical limitations the city provides. Because of it’s non-flat topography. The city could never have a grid system. This topography forces the city to be denser on the sides of the main street and be linear.

Developing Form The typical stacked on top of eachother floorplates of tower would not be a developable form. As an anti capsule system, allowing maximum neighbourhood, the chains became my main interest.

The programme is mainly residential, * IMPERMANENCY OR CHANGE IS THE THESIS * CHAIN IS THE TECHNIQUE / FORMAL LANGUAGE

There are no bombings, there are no military invasions but there’s a physical environment dissolving every passing day around us. Architecture is too slow, architecture is too expensive.

How can we respond to the this constantly mutating world in an efficient and attractive way? became my main interest.

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CHAIN I

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CHAIN I

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CHAIN I CREATION

four rooms, three personal and one shared

connection between rooms, corridore

downsizing two personal units

flipping two of the rooms to benefit from the inside vs outside space

distorting linear corridore for maximizing privacy for more personal spaces

merging previous the ideas of flipping + distortion, the apartment

adding a shared space between two apartments

one end of the aparment is shared space, the other end is for circulation

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CHAIN I CREATION

PLAN of one neighbourhood

SECTION of one neighbourhood

SECTION distortion of the linear arrangement for maximum day light and benefit from level changes for having less need for furniture

1: 250

1: 250

1: 250

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CHAIN I CREATION

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SECTION shrinking the rooms by merging, allows shared storage spaces.

1: 250

PLAN the overview of shared spaces and inside vs outside condition

1: 250

PLAN 200mm wall thickness and scale check with standard furniture sizes

1: 250

SECTION 3000mm high spaces

1: 250

CHAIN I CREATION

SECTION testing overlapping shared spaces instead of adjacent arrangement

1: 250

PLAN the inside vs outside condition forming personal balconies.

1: 250

SECTION another overlapping arrangement forming terrace conditions for some units

1: 250

SECTION a mirrored configuration formng even larger terraces

1: 250

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CHAIN I RING

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CHAIN I RING

apartment 01

apartment 04

apartment 02

apartment 03 apartment 01

apartment 02 87

CHAIN II

88

CHAIN II

89

ROTATION

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SHIFTING

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SHIFTING

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EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS

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CHAIN III

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CHAIN III

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VERTICAL CONNECTION

Tissue Chain is made out of a serie of cells that are defined previously,

30m

- shared space (for two apartments) - corridore - lift - the void

CORRIDORE

3+1+3= 7m

LIFT

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VOID

SHARED SPACE

LIFTCORE

Here the test shows 5 Community Chains on top of eachother. Forming a tower made out of 5 Community Chains.

Chain 2 rotates around the lift core on every level until it reaches 25th floor and completes its tour.

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PANTHER LINK

EAST

EAST

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PANTHER LINK

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CONTENT

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CONTENT

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CIRCULATION IN VOID

level 06 1: 500

level 09 1: 500

1: 1000 level 07 1: 500

1: 1000

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1: 1000 level 10 1: 500

1: 1000

APARMENTS

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BOX CHAIN

after the tilting, diagonal circulation would have a more practical angle allowing escalators to be used

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SKIPPING FLOORS

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GREEN

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INTERNAL PROGRAMMES

NIGHT CLUB

FOOD COURT

PIAZZA THEATRE

SWIMMING

GYM

ZOO GARDEN

ART GALLERY

FOOD COURT

TENNIS

FOOTBALL

BASKETBALL

CAR SHOW

THEATRE

FOOTBALL

ART GALLERY

PIAZZA

MUSIC

PIAZZA

FOOD COURT

PIAZZA

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CHAIN IV

108

CHAIN IV

109

CORE

110

CONNECTIONS

111

CONNECTING TOWERS

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CONNECTING TERRACES

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SUN STUDIES

21st December

21st September

23rd March

21st June

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RECEIVING SUN

series of event spaces 1: 2000 Series of event spaces are in a sequence relating to eachother at different points.

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CIRCULATION

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CIRCULATION

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CIRCULATION

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CIRCULATION

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CIRCULATION

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CIRCULATION

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CIRCULATION

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CIRCULATION

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MEANDERING

nts

restaura

shared balcony

residents shared workspace

nts

sky windows and garden

restaura

public route

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shops

screens displays

residents

shops

GROUND FLOOR

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IN-BETWEEN

126

UNROLLING

residential shared space circulation retail

residential shared space circulation retail

lift escalators public floor stairs

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INTERLOCKING CHAINS

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TYPICAL VS CHAIN

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TYPICAL APPROACH

residential 59,770 sqm commercial 19,400 sqm inter-floor 10,398 sqm private shared space 6,480 sqm

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CHAIN ORGANIZATION

residential 59,770 sqm commercial 19,400 sqm inter-floor 10,398 sqm private shared space 6,480 sqm

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EXTERNAL WALKS

132

TERRACES

133

CREATION OF A NEW GRID

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PUBLIC SQUARES CHAIN

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MODELS

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MODELS

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MODELS

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MODELS

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MODELS

140

MODELS

141

142

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