Esenler Social Center: Visits - 2025

About the Process;

Competition - Project - Construction

Competition

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality launched a competition called 'Social Centers' in 2021, and simultaneously announced 5 regions in the competition, meaning that what appears to be one competition is actually 5 competitions, with 5 different winning teams...

The building's needs program is actually shaped around a series of public spaces that we hear about frequently these days but were almost new in 2021; a Neighborhood House, a Short Break Center, and the Yuvamız İstanbul units, and a building design that can create its own open-semi-open spaces within a cramped and sloping plot. Indeed, while making decisions about placement and function, we prioritized these requests and developed a project that tried to adapt very well to the form and topography of the land, and we were awarded the 1st prize. (See competition drawings)

Project
The transformation of the competition proposal into a project and the request for implementation projects took a little longer than we expected. But the real issue begins when we sit down again. The fact that the jury's notes also developed along these lines indicates that the superstructure we established with the competition program may have problems in terms of both usability and fire safety, especially due to the long circulation line, opens up a discussion about the feasibility of the superstructure under the current conditions.

To this, we add the fact that the neighborhood house unit in the competition program was not sufficiently examined in the program. We are discussing that the library function within it, in its current form, cannot be sustained under a single management; it would be more appropriate to handle it as a more independent, even separate, directorate. This decision actually changes the operating model of the structure. Instead of a single building and a single user, it introduces the idea of ​​four different operators/directorates coexisting.

Due to these decisions, the fragmentation of the superstructure becomes almost inevitable. The initial holistic proposal is beginning to give way to more interconnected parts, maintaining distance but working together. Perhaps the project redefined itself precisely at this turning point. The implementation project process, which began with this decision, was completed in approximately one year with the support of 15 separate teams in implementation projects, consulting, and tender documents.

Construction
Following the delivery of the projects, the tender process and the handover of the site to the contractor, the first activity on the ground began in the last months of 2023. That threshold where the decisions on paper slowly touched the ground, and the project began to make its real weight felt... During this process, we did not sign any service contract with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality regarding supervision; all our visits and collaborations were carried out on our own initiative.