Explaining my graduation project 2.1: 1/200 plan, living unit organization design, design development.

The independent living units were designed to take place in the larger tower. Here they could evolve around the courtyard opening. In the first few weeks this arrangement of living units around the courtyard was planned as a rectangular. Meaning that all the 4 sides of the courtyard are filled with living units. But after quiet a short time I had the feeling that there is a better, more beautiful and more architect like solution.

The improved idea was to arrange the living units in a U-shape. By doing this the badly situated north side earth faced units were eliminated and all the other units had direct connection to the sun at least some hours during the day.  İn the higher stories of the building the U-shape was rotated. By doing this the feeling of a more open and comfortable space was increased as the sun could reach down into the courtyard and the whole body of the building was more fragmented. Also a more straight forward connection to the walking paths was created by bringing the blank side of the U-shape to the steep hill of the walking paths.

The relation of the outside walking paths to the living units was in general a very important part of the project. As you may see in the diagram the aim was to create not closed up, tube like corridors but opened corridors with light and space for elderlies to socialize, wait, talk and walk. Therefore most of the corridors have two components. The first one is the inside corridor where the inhabitants can reach to their private living areas and the second part is an outside equivalent to the inside park where on good weather days the elderly can also walk outside and make horizontal connections with the elderlies up or downstairs.

A definite problem while designing this rotated U-shape tower was the vertical circulation. A situation that was even more problematized by the different user profiles, the need of administrative spaces and community socializing. I already explained the need for community socializing in the first part of the series and about how I want to achieve it in the part before this. Just to explain the general approach to the vertical circulation I have to say that i tried to design it in the easiest and most simple way possible. But that is often times the hardest way to do it. Creating 5 staircases all around the building for every different user without considering the general design is easy but connecting all the users to 2 staircases whose situation is chosen precisely is quiet difficult. I am not going lie to you and say I found the best solution for this problem but from the plan views you can read what I thought was an adequate compromise for the project.

In the next part we are again going into more detail and look at the detailed drawings and design of the living units.

Explaining my graduation project 3.2: 1/100 plan, detail design, courtyards, design development

In the last 3 parts I often talked about the 2 courtyards and the 2 towers evolving around this courtyards but I never got much into the details. This is going to change in this part as I want to show you my detailed design of the courtyards and what influenced my design. Therefore I am going to show you the detailed plans of the courtyards and what space were planned to be around them.

For these thoughts it was important to choose spaces with need of natural light and fresh air so i could arrange them around the courtyards. And most of these decisions I am going to talk about originate in the first diagram I made and which I explained to you (the diagram about activities, spaces and connection between spaces) in the first part of the series. The final decision was twofold.

Firstly I decided to arrange the wellness center and sport facilities around the smaller courtyard. This had defined benefits like:
-The ability to make sport in the open air and then use the wellness center facilities.
-I decided to evolve the assisted living units around the smaller courtyard as they would take less space and combine better with the smaller courtyard and the assisted living units had secondary relations to the wellness and health center.

Explaining my graduation project 3.1: 1/100 plan, Detail design, walking paths

In the last text explaining my graduation project I told you about my obsession with the green space connection of my building. This time I want to show you my detailed design about these outside walking path and my ideas behind it. If you payed close attention you may have noticed that i preformed a jump in the time line here (title 3.1) because the detailed design is generally a part of design which is concluded in the late phases of the project. But for the architect it is important to always think about these detailed designs and what he wants of them. As each little detail can and will affect the whole project. It is not like "oh let me figure out the general form of the building and I can add details afterwards." this is not how projects and design process work. So as I told you this is the first time we are getting out of the chronology as i am going to present the final product of the detailed design but during most of the project most of this part was only in my head and just the general assets were included in the design.

Explaining my graduation project 1.1: diagram, Architectural program

The graduation project in the fall semester of 2017 in the bachelor program in architecture (on Istanbul Technical University) was titled "Collective living for the elderly". Aimed were new design solutions for elderly friendly accommodations paired with health service and opportunities for social and personal interactions.

The Architectural program included
-green spaces: gardening spaces and open air areas for physical activities
-administration: Directors offices, assistants, office kitchen, meeting room, security etc.
-Common spaces: A social center with a cafeteria, cinema and TV hall, library and a wellness center
-Health services: for the elderly inhabitants with rooms for nurses and doctors.
-Living areas organized in 3 parts
=> Fully independent living units for 60
=> Partially supported living units for 20
=> Assisted living units for 20 persons
-Service spaces and technical rooms

But to not bore you longer I just want to explain how I set the relations between different activities and spaces to create my very own architectural program and smoothen the part for the space distribution and to estimate what I want to concentrate about in my project.