Educational Facility

Educational Facility in Istanbul, Turkey by Murat Soygenis

Text and images courtesy Murat Soygenis.

Designed by Istanbul architect Murat Soygenis, the new educational facility in the recently planned campus for Yildiz Technical University - YTU - provides spaces for academic offices, classrooms, laboratories, library, cafeteria and a below-grade garage, and will be a 22,500 s.m. edifice on the eastern corner of an existing historic military barrack when all three phases are finalized.

An existing two-story, stone military barrack was preserved and converted to an educational facility, with the new educational buildings - like this one - facing a major university mall on both sides of the historic, rectilinear building. With the historic barrack of 1826-1832 sited in the midst of the vast campus, the campus in its entirety is surrounded by newly developed industrial and residential zones.

Placed in a heavily wooded area within the campus, the new facility was planned around modular central courtyards to allow preservation of existing groups of trees while creating a semi-private courtyard system for student and faculty use. Tree-filled courtyards will serve as shaded outdoor spaces for the users just as, historically, courtyards served similar purposes in the Ottoman era.

The cornice height of the existing neoclassical barrack dominates the height of the new building, limiting the total building height to three floors on the administrative and laboratory wings, and to two floors on classroom wings.The result was a building sitting next to the historic barrack with roof height in harmony with it and with modern touches. The modular plan provided flexibility in terms of future development and easy manipulation of the wings to avoid cutting of trees. Construction costs were lowered by employing a lightweight, steel, vaulted roof structure, pre-manufactured beam and insulated roof panel system.