that crisscross the flat landscape of industrial buildings
and low-density housing projects. Taking advantage
of the limited space of the triangular site required the
architect to separate the complex into four independent
volumes. These four volumes comprising a swimming
facility, gym, cultural center and cinema, are of different
sizes, height and scales, and arranged along the major
avenue lining the site from northeast to southwest in
a stepped organization with the primary pedestrian
entrance plaza facing the main road on the west. These
four volumes dispersed over the site create their own
interior urbanism through the connectivity provided by
an elevated public platform that is accessed via wide
ramps on the west and north. Underneath this elevated
platform that connects all the cultural center’s functions
are supporting facilities such as bistros, café, shops,
fitness rooms and parking lots.
With their boxy shapes clad in a uniform surface of
stone, steel and aluminum, the volumes of the center
all resemble each other with the major difference being
their dimensions. The gym consists of two volumes in
different sizes. The larger one on the north is a triplestory high indoor ball game court with skylights. The
smaller gym on the south has specific activity rooms
and administration offices that are enclosed by a semitransparent steel lattice structure and vertical green
planting. The cultural center is a seven-storied cubic
volume with the first floor being a bistro facing the plaza
and the second to fifth floors being the superimposed
exhibition hall and dance club each with a doublestoried height. The cultural activity rooms on the sixth
and seventh floors of the cultural center are arranged
around an elevated open-air central courtyard that
opens to the landscape of the adjacent river to the east
on the seventh floor. The cinema is the smallest of the
four boxy volumes at the southwest corner with the
audience hall accessible via either a two-story high side
EYLÜL - EKİM 2013 / SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2013 • NATURA 65