Competition Background

The project site is located in Ulus, the historic district considered as the first city center of the capital, Ankara. This area holds historical significance as the birthplace of the young republic's initial foundations in its pursuit of modernization and contemporary development. However, due to changing ideologies and misapplications, the area has lost its former dynamism and urban significance. The potential of public spaces in the region has been overshadowed.

Design Approach
The initial approach of the project is to reinterpret these overlooked potentials to construct a new form of public realm in collaboration with its immediate surroundings. When the project area is interpreted together with its immediate surroundings, it reveals various rhythms and patterns due to the surrounding structures. The Ulus Market and Suluhan have intense user potential due to their commercial use, while the Mosque, Mausoleum, and public buildings in the vicinity each have their unique rhythms. Considering the existing structures and user density in the area, the vacant space in the project area may seem positive. However, the currently used parking space is disconnected from the idea of publicness.

Intervention Concept
The project aims to create public spaces that nurture everyday rhythms by taking into account the existing urban and social patterns. In line with these ideas, interventions were made to transform the vacant space into a public space and enhance the diversity of urban spaces in interaction with its surroundings.

Building Design
The structure greets the urban dweller as a semi-permeable mass hanging on a public platform. Due to the elevation of the terrain on Şehit Teğmen Kalmaz Street, the platform rises gently from Ulus Market, inviting the city dweller into the building. This space, situated in the heart of existing social patterns, forms an urban interface that nourishes the surrounding structures. The intervention seeks to reorganize the competition area together with its immediate surroundings to ensure spatial integrity and continuity.

Under the public platform, areas supporting commercial use are present, including the Cafe-Restaurant and Workshop, aligned with street level to cater to the commercial potential of the surroundings. In the center, a 450-seat performance hall, backstage, technical spaces, open and enclosed lobbies, and private entrances are designed. This design allows for specialization of spaces with different spatial requirements and security considerations (artist entrance, ticketed entry, etc.) based on the relative publicness of the areas.

The semi-permeable mass on the podium is designed as a clearly defined rectangle with galleries. This design ensures spatial continuity for users while providing a shaded platform with airflow. The structure is designed with transparency and clarity as its imagery, aimed at highlighting the surrounding historical context.

The suspended mass is envisioned as an empty shell for everyone, adaptable to all uses. This shell, designed around the gallery in the center, transforms into different spaces according to usage needs through open and flexible plans and movable furniture, offering various opportunities to the city.
The structure employs both active and passive systems for "sun and climate control." The gallery's geometry serves as passive sun control. The building's shell features a double-curtain system made of low-e reflective curtain walls with a metal sun shading net, ensuring sun control.

The performance hall, placed in the heart of the design above the platform, aims to maintain external noise at an optimal level. Echo duration has been calculated, and the hall meets the optimal range required for a performance venue. Acoustic panel systems are considered for noise control on the floor and walls. Reflective panels on the ceiling and walls help adjust the echo duration for each frequency. The design accommodates all spaces listed in the program with the required number, size, and capacity.