An extensive restoration and revitalization project was undertaken to allow the advertising agency group ‘Medina Turgul DDB’ to move into a salt repository. This 170 year old building is located in the run-down, once industrial district of Kasımpaşa. The restoration challenge was to maximise functionality while retaining the original character of the structure. Containing 5 separate related specialist companies, with shared backroom operations, the floorplan had to allow for each unit to exist in its own space, while also being easily connected to other units. The solution was a secondary structure in glass and steel incorporating a series of connecting mezzanine floors that integrate the different spaces and greatly increased the workable floorspace. This was done without cluttering or structurally harming the powerful nature of the existing space, with its thick stone walls and 10 metre high galleries. In order to protect the original texture of the building, all the pointings of the stone walls were washed and consolidated using tailormade solutions formulated for this purpose. Damaged parts of the walls were carefully restored. All the electromechanical installation was designed to go through the consolidated roof trusses.
The result is a building well suited to a modern creative businesses, elegant but informal, with the sensation of allowing individual ‘thinking space’ throughout.
Design Team: İ. Kerem Erginoğlu, Hasan Çalışlar, Fatih Kariptaş, Emre Erenler, Elmon Pekmez, Türkan Yılmaz
Awards:
1. World Architecture Festival, “New and Old” Category, First Prize, (Salt Repository) - Medina Turgul DDB (2010)
2. The 12th National Architecture Exhibition and Awards, Preservation & Conservation Category, Achievement Award: Tuzambarı (Salt Repository) - Medina Turgul DDB (2010)
Photos : Cemal Emden
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