STEAMPUNK SCULPTURE STUDIO

academic / re-use project, Istanbul Technical University, 2018

Within the context of the lecture, we are asked to come up with a new idea and re-function a building that is located on an industrial site in Istanbul. In this area, there are car repair shops mostly. But recently, also art and design studios’ numbers have started to increase. I believe this complex and unique texture of the project area has a powerful potential to come up with a new function that embraces the different types of users and even make them interact with each other. Considering that there are many industrial workshops in the region, I thought that a steampunk sculpture studio could gather the users, who have different backgrounds from each other, on common ground. The idea behind my proposal is to enable different disciplines to interact with each other and produce a common product.

Steampunk is a genre of science fiction that has a historical setting and typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology. Steampunk is an inspired movement of creativity and imagination. With a backdrop of either Victorian England or America’s wild west at hand, modern technologies are re-imagined and realized as elaborate works of art, fashion and mechanics.

The studio is located in Ataturk Industrial Site in Istanbul- Maslak. I imagined it as a branch of the Fine Arts Department of Istanbul Technical University. Since the main campus is very close to Industrial Site, it could be a reasonable choice. Students could easily access the studio and work on their projects. While taking the lectures, they can interact with repairmen and other designers, who are resident in this region, and maybe ask for help or opinion. This communication is what I am going for in this project, to enable interaction between different generations and different disciplines.

MIM 101 (Arch 101)

academic / renovation project, Istanbul Technical University, 2019

While being aware of concepts of urban memory, amnesia and memory erasure, I approach to re-design The Marmara Hotel located in Taksim Square, Istanbul by designing Mim 101 (Arch 101) Project. Using it as a tool, my aim is to keep the minds of the city dwellers awake and to open a new paragraph in the minds of those who are here for the first time. It is the first lesson of a future where architecture can talk to everybody and everybody can talk about architecture.

Taksim Square is one of the most famous places in Istanbul and it contains a significant number of architectural heritage elements in Istanbul. Nevertheless, not only newcomers but also the city-dwellers are not aware of this treasure.

With the help of the Mim 101 Project, I aimed to increase architectural awareness and prevent the loss of important architectural structures in this region. Within the context of the lecture, it is required to re-design The Marmara Hotel lobby and add new functions that satisfy problems which every student is expected to come up with after 1-month long research about the Hotel, Taksim Square and their history. Since I have decided to use this building as a reminder of architectural heritage in Taksim, it has become a start point contextually. Then I come up with the idea of making the hotel an actual start point of a path which people can follow through in Istiklal Street and observe and learn about historic buildings placed in this street for years. Some of these buildings have art-nouveau textures and some of them are important examples of modern architecture in Turkey. With the help of several seminars, presentations and collective workshops are also held in addition to the exhibition areas placed inside the hotel. These exhibition areas are like a compass that invites people to follow the path to Istiklal Street

CREATE DIFFERENCE

workshop / advertising design, Istanbul Technical University, 2018

This project is created during a 3 day-long workshop. Within the context of the workshop, it is required to develop an advertisement idea that satisfies the needs of the guerilla marketing method. Guerilla marketing is an advertising strategy that focuses on low-cost unconventional creative marketing tactics that yield maximum results. The main specifications of guerilla marketing are practicality, economy and creativity. By making Create Difference project, I aim to courage people to use more brave colours in their livingspaces.

My focus was to create an output that explains the idea of guerilla marketing. It was wanted only one poster as an output during the workshop. So the poster is the leading role in these circumstances and I decided to create a poster that attracts attention at the first sight and make people feel the guerilla idea. I decided to use the poster itself as a guerilla tool instead of using it as a guide to explain the guerilla idea by using long sentences. So I use tens of white postits, sticked on an empty poster and only one colourful postit sticked between the white ones. On this colourful one, there is a text that says “Create Difference.”.

GLITCH ART GALLERY

academic / interior project, Istanbul Technical University, 2017

Glitch Art Gallery is also a retail shop that you can get glitched old postcards of Karakoy. It is located in Karakoy, Istanbul which has a very complex structure and rich historical background. This complexity and historic texture make the neighbourhood a very unique atmospheric place.

A glitch is a sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of an equipment.

After series of extensive analysis at the beginning of this course, I observed that Karakoy was constantly changing over and over again. Changes are too quick and that causes not only the original texture is disappearing but also giving no chance to create a new one. When historic textures and new textures are coming together without any context, it leads to a complex and chaotic feeling. My idea behind offering a glitch art gallery in Karakoy comes from this chaotic and distorted texture of the neighbourhood, it reminds me of glitch. And in this gallery people can find old Karakoy postcards’ glitched versions which is giving reference to the current situation in Karakoy.

I designed the gallery as a glitched box by playing with the form and light. The cubical form of the project area is distorted. In addition, coloured shadows are created inside the gallery using three different colour light sources located side by side. New coloured shadows are formed at the intersection of these shadows.