Location: Konak / Izmir / Turkey
Client: Konak Municipality
Office: Studio Stag
Project Team: Ozan Ertug, Aysu Aysoy, Tuba Kara
Building type: low rise

Izmir is the western edge of Turkey and its name originates from the ancient “Smyrna” which is a major port town for thousands of years.
The proposed Konak Municipality and the surrounding area is broke into disconnected pieces by huge traffic arteries that made the area only accessible by vehicles. Being on a midtown ring, the area has two sides of a city that is splitted by a valley that resides a much polluted river.
The traffic solutions for the next generation city should be as follows
Downtown: Keep the vehicle traffic on a controllable and diminished level
Midtown: Limited axial lines, hidden traffic (underground etc.) in order to make space for the green belts, corridors and human accessibility
Outer Rims: isolated and elevated highways
Being on the midtown part of the city, the traffic ways are proposed to be taken underground and the polluted river proposed to be healed in order to make the valley into a green corridor.
Car parks are accessible from the underground passages and the ground level will no longer have active traffic corridors. There are only lightweight and simple roads that would serve as service and emergency roads.
The municipality building at the very heart of this place has this design values:
• Izmir has a very hot climate so the façade is proposed to be double layered; first one is to reflect and filter the sunlight and the second layer is to keep air condition leveled.
• Raising the more isolated parts of the municipality higher and dropping of the most used parts in order to make the whole entry level as an open space
• The dropped off parts of the municipality can be reached by a large ramp
• By making two levels underground and two levels up on the ground, the usage of the elevators are reduced
• The first layer of the façade is composed by six different components that composes the façade to be more open for the areas needs more light and more closed for the areas needs less light.
• There is an open terrace level to host balls and different kinds of leisure activities.
• The sides of the underground levels are removed in order to make light for the offices. Some parts of the openings used as open amphitheaters.
The inner structure of the offices are designed with the help of network mapping techniques which analyzes the interdependencies of departments and gives the best locations and distances between each department. The meeting room and lounges are evenly distributed along the floors with open access.
The project tends to be a solution in the next generation cities with less vehicle traffic and more human and cycling traffic. By stripping the valley from the heavy traffic and reviving the river, the mid-ring of the city will be converted into a green corridor. So the idea is to keep the human and light traffic unobstructed.