 And we're going to get started. So we have enough time also to have a conversation about the work that's going to be presented today. So folks, just want to come in and grab a seat. That would be great. So good afternoon. I'm Mabel Wilson. I'm a professor here in architecture at GSAP. Also, I chair the Steering Committee on Studio X. And so I wanted to welcome you to our second of a series called Architectural Practice in the City. In the fall, we were joined by architects based in Sao Paulo in Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. And this spring, it's a pleasure that we are going to be joined by the Istanbul-based firm Tuget and Kamash Architects based in Iman. And a little bit about the series, which probes how architects practice within an urban domain that must contend with the details of both localities, so the kind of local conditions, but also with the demands of globality and to kind of think through what practice is in these contexts. One of the themes that we'll discuss with this afternoon's practices is that how do architects actually build good projects in the public realm, particularly navigating the demands of government, of the people, of civic groups, but also considering questions of land and water conservation, historical and cultural conservation. But most importantly, thinking through the role of architecture and shaping people's understanding, experience, and habitation of the public realm. So we're going to hear from one group of architects. We'll hear from the other group of architects, and then we'll have a sort of collective discussion, sort of talking comparatively about the nature of practice. We are going to be joined today by the directors of Studio X who, in fact, have extended the invitation to our practices today. Our first directors will be Selva Gurdigan, also joined by Gregor Tomeson of Superpool. A little bit about them, their multidisciplinary practice. Superpool has engaged in long-term studies of a complex urban, architectural, and social ecologies of the modern global city. Their various experimental research endeavors have been included in numerous exhibitions. Among them, most recently, MoMA's Uneven Growth. They've been shown at the Guggenheim, the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale, and the Deutsches Architecture Museum. But they have also been architects for several exhibitions, including the UAE National Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, and most recently, the Istanbul Biennale, both in 2014-2016. As directors of Studio X, they have sponsored and hosted numerous civic activists designed cultural and educational organizations who gather together to, quote, from the website, generate ideas, discuss, and even make mistakes, in quote, about the future of our cities and the lives those cities nurture. Studio X will be Istanbul. The directors will be discussing the architects to get. Nora Akawi, who is curator at Studio X, Amman. Nora has led numerous research initiatives on the architecture of the Arab region. Her work investigates archives, as well as the city as archive. And with her various collaborators and interlocutors, she engages in thinking through the future political imaginaries of our globalized world. She has lectured and published widely, most recently, really incredible volume. Co-edited with Dean Amal Andres, called The Arab City. And if you don't have that book, I really highly recommend it. It came out of an amazing conference, but I think it's a very important contribution to thinking through both architecture and urbanism. Nora has been teaching graduate urban design and history theory courses focused on urbanization, borderlands, forced migration, and human rights here at GSAP. As director of Studio X, Amman, she leads the conceptualization and implementation of public programs and research initiatives on the architecture in the Arab regions by curating, often in partnership with other researchers and institutions. And Amman, I got emails today, is very, very active in terms of conferences, workshop, publications, screenings, lectures, and other forms of collective cultural productions. Nora will be introducing and having a conversation with Kamash Architects. So we're going to start. Selva Greger's. Hello, it's great pleasure to be introducing friends to friends here today. I'll do a brief introduction on Tehet. Tehet is an architectural practice established in Ankara in 1996. They moved to Istanbul in 2000, in year 2000. We are together here with its two founding partners, Mehmet Fitukcholo and Artur Uchar. Mehmet is a graduate of Middle Eastern Technical University and has a graduate degree from Syarq. He has lectured in several universities, including Syarq and also Istanbul Technical University. Currently, he's teaching at Bilgi University, where he's also a member of the board of directors for the graduate program. Artur is also a graduate of Middle Eastern Technical University and has a master's degree also from the same institution. He has taught at Yildiz Technical University and Istanbul Technical University. Artur, I learned today, I realized today is also a fiction writer and he has three storybooks, which I hope to get them soon and get assigned by him. Tehet is a very inspiring practice for those of us who also practice in Istanbul as an officer that has stood the test of time over 20 years and has not kind of developed still quite, I think, unique body of works that are not commercial, but that are actually becoming increasingly even more cultural. And they have won quite a few prizes to name. One of them will be the Maritime Museum that will be shared with us today. Also the Izmir Opera House and they were also the participants in the inaugural edition of Turkish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennial. So the work ranges from research done with students over the decades at several institutions and also very interesting to me also buildings that are always kind of I'm inspired by their spatial composition. So it's a great pleasure to introduce both Mamet and Artur to the stage now. Thank you. Hello everybody, thanks for coming in this nice weather. We are indoor. I will start with some interior photos of Maritime Museum from the Boathouse. After that I will make a long, long introduction about Istanbul so it is to prevent possible escapes. They are teasers. This is the collection of the Maritime Museum. This is the mezzanine floor, this is Bosphorus. The Maritime Museum is placed by Bosphorus. Bosphorus is a natural sea channel, sorry, linking Black Sea and Marmara Sea. It is a 30 kilometer long sea channel. It's natural and the land around it is not flat. So a series of soft hills and valleys in between makes this meandering waterway a very, very beautiful place. And this, you will see, it is scaled very nicely. It is large enough to let the super tankers and large ships to move in and it is narrow enough to build a suspension bridge on it. This is the first bridge, Bosphorus Bridge, linking two continents, Asia and Europe. Actually, the historical nucleus of the cities on the south corner, on the European side and after the construction of first and second bridges in 70s and 80s, city grow to north, very fast. And today almost two-thirds of Bosphorus is populated, densely. The building typology by Bosphorus coastline is limited. There is a law, Bosphorus law for 30 years. It is to define the rules of construction along the coastline. The rule is very simple. If you own a plot along the coastline of Bosphorus and if you want to construct on it, you have to find the evidences of a former construction on that plot. Paintings, photographs, even the remaining of a foundation. And after that, you can only build a replica of the former design on coastline. So the first building typology along Bosphorus is mentioned. Historical mentions. Today we have 600 of them. Originally they are all wooden. This one is the oldest one dating to 15th century. Secondly, we have stone rectangular prisms, palaces on the coastline. Today some of them are used by governmental institutions some of them by universities and hotels. And lastly, the points, the monuments along the Bosphorus, the mosques, fountains and paths you can find. This Google map shows the southern corner. This is the historical peninsula. This is the first continental bridge. And these points are palaces and mosques in that portion of the city. You see this part witnesses a very busy daily sea traffic carrying people from one side to the other. The maritime museum is number nine. The location of the maritime museum is a very busy one. You see these perpendicular axes from the depths of the city and this one parallel to coastline and ferry lines. They all meet at that point which is called Beşiktaş and maritime museum with one facade with faces to this plaza which is very energetic and lively for 24 hours. You see this parallel axis, traffic axis along Bosphorus it stops the city fabric and in front of it between this line and Bosphorus it is another typology of big boxes and maritime museum is one of them. It shows the situation before the competition. This is the lot. In the corner there is a two-story historical building a former governmental institution and this one is the warehouse, customs warehouse. The inventory, the collection of the maritime museum we can evaluate it in two parts the small objects and the historical boat collection. So in the former situation the boat collection was kept in the customs warehouse actually they were stored there. We cannot tell that that was an exhibition it doesn't have the proper conditions of an exhibition before and in the historical building there were small objects. This is the preserved historical building, it is registered and this is the former Bosphorus facade of the warehouse and this one at the back is the neighborhood building it is also a customs warehouse and it is converted into a luxury hotel today. Maritime museum collection is a unique one it is the largest, it has the largest boat historical boat collection in the world. It has 30 boats from the Ottoman Empire the important thing is these boats they were not found in the depth of marmaracy and restaurated by marine archaeologists. They were kept intentionally for centuries as a historical boat collection by the Turkish Navy. This one is the main piece it is 30 meters long and 5 meters, maybe 6 meters high at the back. This photograph is from the 60s in 1960s they decided to found the maritime museum on that location I showed to you and they transferred these boats from other warehouses and start to found the museum. This one is called Bastardo and it is originally it is an Italian word Il Bastardo Bastard This ship typology is a transition typology between the sailed boats and the oared boats so because of that it is called Bastard, Il Bastardo and in Ottoman Bastarda you see these photographs from the existing situation in 2008-2005 it should be and the small objects were also in that condition. This collection of boats actually they belong to another time and another location they belong to a Mediterranean of 19th, 18th and 17th century Mediterranean is a landlocked sea it is a reservoir where people shared common things like clothes, food, construction techniques, architecture all the culture it is carried by ships throughout Mediterranean between the harbours you see this is a gravure from Istanbul and this is Venice and this is Arsenale in Venice the shipyard and this is the Ottoman era shipyard in Golden Horn and you see we can in Mediterranean we can of course we can talk about a common architectural language particularly in the context of marine architecture the ship sheds the ship sheds you see in Venice shipyard is very very similar almost the same with the ship sheds in Istanbul by Golden Horn and this map shows the past and present shipyards and harbours in Istanbul in that corner number one is Yenikapu harbour the harbour of Byzantine era around 10th or 11th century the second is Halic Golden Horn shipyard and harbour it is the harbour of Ottoman era and the third one is in Galata it is the harbour of the republican era and fifth one is the existing harbour today the trade port of Haidar Pasha and the number four is Maritime Museum you see these ship sheds it is around 17th century I think these are buildings perpendicular to sea they are dimensions and shaped according to the dimensions of the ships you see these series of shipyards ship sheds here and warehouses and this huge one is a wooden one it is a how do we call it? wet pool Mehmet? wet pool yes I will leave it to you thank you we are partners I need to use the typology of the ship sheds which we call in Turkish göz which means eye which is exactly which takes on the shape and dimension of the boats in Italian Volte as you have seen so we decided because we had a beautiful collection with a number of holes we decided to use the typology and how they are combined together we had this let's say the simple representation of the collection here and we had the straightforward chronological organisation because this boat gallery the most probably would be the most important space and we decided to face it against boats and when we used the chronological order of course there would be let's say discrepancies dimensional discrepancies so it has to be almost like a fractal facade towards both sides to allow us different lengths for the boats but this section reveals the idea that we are using let's say separate Volte ship sheds for each boat at the same time creating a holistic space a single space so these two let's say arguments they stand in a paradox but as usual architecture is a good let's say activity let's say deal with paradoxes actually to build paradoxes this is revealing how we dealt with that paradox to individualise the space but at the same time to create a single space we use a structural idea as you see we have here seven bridges detached from each other and these bridges have dimensions from 25 to 50 metres and the space is not a box an enclosed and sealed box it's a series of bridges and then a series of closings of course that number of let's say opportunities to provide daylight from the facade and also from the roof so it's like a fibre structure not a single let's say sealed box that's usually the engineers and the museum specialist would suggest so this shows the idea and how we deal with the boat inventory these are some study models I think during the competition which was in 2004 if I'm not mistaken and this was the latest and this is showing you how we let's say weave the space with this structure and these are some let's say panoramic inside perspectives that we produce for the competition and here it is important that this facade is facing kind of risky so there is also another paradox a museum with a delicate exhibit inside is as I said suggested to be sealed from exterior but here is both for the saw we decided to use alternating a rhythm of openings so that we complete the panorama of both forms using these let's say kind of refrained type of closures and openings this is showing the context I would elaborate on the context Besiktas where the museum was located the Bosphorus village because Bosphorus still maintains the ottoman let's say urbanism which I summarize as juxtaposition of villages in light on the waterfront and Besiktas is one of those villages that is probably closest to the city center and on the European side so it is inevitably a hub for the rest of Bosphorus it's a hub transportation interchange between let's say water transports and the asphalt public transport embedded in a series of so it belongs to a palace silhouette on the Bosphorus and because it belongs to the city center it is exempt from the type of let's say urban code that R2 was telling you because on the Bosphorus it's forbidden to build the contemporary structure the only contemporary I would say if I'm not mistaken was the bridge itself or the bridges built on the Bosphorus so this was the very unique opportunity for architects to build something contemporary on the Bosphorus I think there would be as it stands now there would be other opportunities for architects to build something not as a replica of an existing waterfront kiosk so I think I will fast forward these slides it's showing you you know the horizontal movement that is parallel to the waterfront this is the boulevard connecting all the palaces and this is Beşiktaş we have a transversal action which is important because this is a valley and this valley is at the same time the center of Beşiktaş and the historical shopping for Beşiktaş and it almost culminates at where we take the entrance so we created a small entry square in front of it which was difficult actually because this property belonged to the military and they are not used to that kind of property because what they do is they want to fence it so we had to convince each and every let's say admiral to leave it open open to the city because they keep changing every 4 years so if you know think of it we started in 2004 they changed so many times and each time we are going to fence it probably in the future we will keep on doing this practice and by the way the museum is not open I mean this part is built which is the new part, the listed part the existing part is still not open so the circulation is not complete so this is that boulevard that I was telling you and then the palaces you see the boulevard it's a very beautiful boulevard surrounded by really old ancient trees walls, bridges that are connecting the palaces to the gardens on the other side of the boulevard of course I mean it's not the case, we wish it was the case but the implication is to connect the boat gallery the shades to both floors and that's the type of fjords that I was telling you the fractal let's say front opening up to the both floors at the same time part of the palace silhouette system the square the square also works as you know because we put the line here so that the existing building stands in the foreground as the object of the composition and from this side the courtyard is framing the Besiktai square today it's a little bit deteriorated because of the the ramp that is connecting the big boulevard but here there is a statue of Barbarossa Barbarossa and this courtyard is framing that and this is the section the boulevard and the both floors and it truly looks that is I guess the only building when you are let's say on this boulevard that you can see through and you see the both floors so it also acts almost like an optical box here that's why we treated the entry stairs down to the both gallery the boulevard almost like a theater like a theater enhances this effect of opening up to the both floors so the idea here it shows you three dimensionally the circulation pattern which is a straight forward museum circulation scheme the entry from the boulevard and it spirals up to the second level of the both gallery where you can have a second peek to the exhibit downstairs and also the rest of the battery and via a bridge you pass to the other listed building and then you spiral down and come back to where you started it's a very close-circuit circulation and it's as you see here gently touches the existing building either via a bridge which is a single story structure or just a single story let's say a ground floor connection so that touches it but what here it is convenient the idea that during this promenade it also acts like again an optical instrument for you to observe the city through the openings running out of time right are we cool? so this is showing you the points and the vistas offered in the building interesting thing this is downstairs the both gallery as you see it's a space totally free of columns there's a good contrast between upstairs and downstairs downstairs is free of columns and upstairs is it's polluted with structural elements I don't know you can choose for example in the competition I was an upstairs or the grounds were downstairs I don't know upstairs okay so this is showing you as I said a second chance to look at the boat from a different angle this is the boat Artur was telling you a gallery very old more than 400 years old it's a very similar piece I think it's a bit and very delicate of course on the bridge you go down some drawings the basement the grounds no still the basement the ground floor where you enter the boat gallery the existing one upstairs the mezzan connecting bridge you know the mezzanin maybe have auxiliary functions here as you see but the thing is this also had this shape of the side but then we shifted the orientation and as you see from inside when you go to the building you'll understand what these eras are because here this is more facade starts from here goes back does these moonwalks where we also provide some glazing so inside and outside really mix you cannot make which is which and you know from downstairs you take this ramp up and then the mezzanin and then the bridge ok the sections that facing we put some slides for facing because it was important as you see it's a very limited site and we were not allowed to use another site for logistics of this construction and we have very delicate exhibit here especially this one and we cannot move it three dimensionally so much level and x and z direction we cannot move it so because it's very risky it could be broken so nobody took responsibility and we had to design the logistics of this construction how we can construct this thing while keeping these boats on site plus there was another difficulty this is a channel which is collecting all the values water which create more eventually the building is 1 meter higher than originally proposed ok so this is showing you know we had to make a juxtaposition of the new building to the existing one so that we can especially for this piece design the logistics of how we move it and we had to demolish certain parts of the existing building to take this out because it was at hope built on top of each other so we built a temporary structure here luckily we moved it without breaking it and we moved the rest we built the boat gallery we removed the temporary building and finished up the composition and these are some let's say photographs of today this is the both first facade you see these masses piano facade some photographs inside this is the upper floor downstairs again downstairs and we tried to accentuate the idea of these let's say the vaulting, the ship sheds in the floor, in the structure where we treat the finishings also, you know, the skylights and all this is the entry facade you know, it is it's a suspense because this huge wall suspended in the air you enter underneath it creating that suspense and it's a compressed space and then it gets more volumetric towards the boat gallery you see most walls the materials in and out while the couple are rusting outside they stay shiny that wasn't our intention, we proposed some kind of coating but the construction company and that setup was not the ideal setup so there are some accidents construction accidents in this particular building this is the entry stairs I said it's like a theater, it is actually used as a theater it's hosting a lot of events at night when the museum is closed there are a couple of events here a bar concert this is our presentation of the Venice Biennale project we designed for last years Venice architecture Biennale which is I can link to what we have done in this project because in this project in maritime museum we had a beautiful collection and we designed a shed for them using the shipyard typology and in Venice Biennale the Turkish pavilion is situated in the Arsenaale and we were working then on the Istanbul shipyard and the master plan of it so we wanted to make it connect the two shipyards Goldenhorn and Venice shipyards via a design so there this case was vice versa we did not have the boats but the spaces I will be very proud of you so this is Goldenhorn shipyard this is the ship shed and this is the Venice Arsenaale shipyard they are very similar so this time the boat was lacking we built the boat and we took it back to Istanbul modern museum thank you very much thank you for this beautiful presentation I like the way Selva put it it's really nice to introduce friends to friends and Amar Hamash our invited guest from Jordan has been a friend of Studio Ex-Haman but also of Columbia School of Architecture for several years he is very generous with his knowledge and expertise to students as a critic and also as a co-teacher here at the school so it's great to have you back Amar Hamash has been working as an architect, anthropologist and artist for over 25 years and after studying architecture he went on to study Ethnoarcheology his work is celebrated both in Jordan and internationally for his knowledge of the landscape of the country and how he incorporates this deep knowledge into his designs he's an expert in local and practical building traditions he's renovated many historical structures in Jordan and the Arab world and is an expert on innovative environmental and sustainable design solutions I think one of the really incredible aspects of Amar Hamash's architecture is the way that his designs interact with their environment in a large sense of the word being both very specific to their environment but also having kind of a larger position on this kind of positioning on architectural positioning in the world in the context of this presentation we'll be talking about architecture practice in the city but both from within the city and without so his work includes commercial projects, hotels, sustainable tourism residential renovation and restoration, cultural centers landscape design and so on the project that we'll hear about today is the Royal Academy for nature conservation which was shortlisted in the 2017 Aga Khan Award in architecture so join me in welcoming Marcin thank you Noura I'll start with the site the bigger site this is the central part of Jordan and we are somewhere the site is somewhere just to get an idea where we are in the bigger context this part is actually the greenest part of Jordan it's the Ajloun mountain area which has the highest rainfall and we have to also remember that unfortunately in the 70's, 80's and 90's we have to be the target for stone quarries because the whole landscape is made from cretaceous not metamorphosed but rather hard limestone that Jordanians like it a lot and they polish it, they call it Ajloun marble but it's actually just nice beautiful cream color limestone that brings the suppliers the best price in the market unfortunately this has created a lot of falls in the mountain if we are looking here and like those two examples of about maybe 200 such cuts in nature so it's a landscape that has been invaded by these wounds these cuts in the bone and at the same time the Royal Society of Conservation of Nature had this fantastic legal arrangement already in the 60's with the Ministry of Agriculture highly density oak forest which is very rare in Jordan it's like Jordan has maybe 1% of its area is forest land so this is like rather dense shrub oak they are not tall they're probably as tall as this building maybe a little bit this floor maybe like 4 meter 5 meter at the most so the RSN actually the Royal Society of Conservation of Nature then is managing this site as part of their collection of about dozen different reserves in Jordan and the different reserves are covering the total biodiversity of the country so they are in different ecosystems Jordan has a wide range of ecosystems all the way from Sudan a Terranean in the Rift Valley where also that sea and above it is the Mediterranean which is this ecosystem and then the Iranian Terranean and then the Sahara Arabian and the beauty in Jordan that these 4 ecosystems sometimes get very close to each other and then find different flora and different fauna I have to say that I think important architecture comes from important clients because important clients listen and they don't insist on ruining their chances and they also accept that they also accept that you can revolt on the program or even the project or the intention and this is one of our latest tools well I mean this project started almost now 8 years ago but I've always been questioning the client's initial assignment and about 2 months ago there was another client government and I read the terms of reference and I wrote my own terms of reference I told them look I work if I do this not what you have written because you know sometimes you don't want to get involved in something that from the beginning the genetics of it will produce just mediocre, lousy solution the client RCN actually initially asked me to design this institution, small institution or academy right here inside this is the line of the reserve of course the reserve has a little bit private land encroachment like here but inside the reserve they have small lodges like tents now they became a little bit huts and a restaurant and they wanted to actually put the academy right here actually the story is even longer, the academy was first in Azrak in the eastern desert and then we were doing master planning for the Royal Court of all of Jabal Ajlouni on this whole area then we with RCN decided we would put in Ajloun and then it was this was the site that was given and while driving to the site for two, three trips and looking at it and finding ways of I don't know hanging the building above the trees or removing the trees because the trees are very dense or you know have a building that is that has I don't know holes in it so that the trees are growing in the middle of the spaces it's impossible and then on the way I always noticed this quarry and I funny enough I know I saw the quarry as a beautiful feature because I've been in the last 15 years obsessed with understanding how Jordan came to be geologically for the last 500 million years and how every layer has been put in place and how it is now exposed and that little wound here actually gave me a beautiful section it's like you know somebody obsessed with medicine and you go into an open surgery and you see and you know half a body cut in the middle and I as a fossil hunter and as somebody obsessed with paleontology and paleobotany and paleozoalogy paleoclimates and the whole complexity which actually puts architecture into like one paper thin and I wondered if we talk about geology is like it's a much bigger lens and now every time I have to switch lenses but I find how small architecture is so those ones are really fantastic this is another wound and I've been driving this way and to the site and then I told them look I'm not designing the building there so if I either do it here or get another architect but you know I'm lucky I've done most of the buildings so they now listen to me now this query has been abandoned in the 80s, late 80s the government became a little bit more serious to conserve the land they've lost the forest here because the locals were clearing the forest vegetation cover to claim lands and get the land but that was stopped already in the 80s and also like in the 90s they stopped this guy who was extracting stones from here so this was just like an abandoned pit if you will in this beautiful landscape and this is less visible because you miss it when you drive this way but when you come here this is like a quite dramatic cut in the mountain I don't have images of the site I do have images of the site before the building I didn't put them but you can imagine that every time you would see that line right here which for me was very impressive I always loved this beautiful elevation it was like a found elevation and there's something maybe has to do with Petra how the Nabataeans found this beautiful 90% of the city finished and they just added their façades almost like stickers small reliefs and few spaces and adding the 10% they gained the 100% I feel that sites have already their own intelligence and their own architecture and in my office I always say that the site is the architect I'm not the architect, I'm a draftsman I help the site to draw I listen to the site, I take the advice of the site and package it to deliver to the contractors so that something meaningful happens and for one reason because if we look at this elevation which is the lower part of the total elevation it's so complex if I want to draw this on AutoCAD whatever construction documents give it to any contractor the file size will be impossible or the cost of building this so unfair how much we try to outsmart sometimes existing things that are so much more powerful than us so the idea was as simple as saying to nature look we have wounded you we have cut you and now sorry we have to celebrate the cut and say sorry at the same time and actually enjoy if you will an elevation that compliments the cut and I always say that the front elevation of this building was really designed by the last mines or bulldozers or explosives because they drill in these quarries they drill like vertical holes and they explode them so whenever this was abandoned the people who were in charge of that quarry never knew that they were designing an elevation of a future building because it's just you know I've followed the line in fact what I've done there I went with a spray marker with a red marker and marked the edge of the line after the survey gave me their drawings I marked a red line myself on the edge of the cliff and sent the survey again and told them can you just pick that line and put it on your survey and bring that line to my office and this is what happened so the building is very very simple I took that line took the needs and program of the client put it in a wall, a linear and just you know along the line as simple as that and this elevation faces south and Jordan is very hot country can be very hot in the summer this is the nicest part of Jordan but still in the south I wanted just to make sure that we have a back you know back bones like a turtle back you know so the building really is like a pomegranate half open and the opening is all to the north with the opposite of this elevation so this is the skin which really kind of continues and this red mark is here and now it's fading it was you know for a while I could see it but now it's all gone so this is where the line happens and what happens here is just we go to extend foundation so we could save we did calculate it's not morphology and it's not just form but I just was trying to see how much we could stop foundation and take that concrete and just put it here as maybe you know wider side walls that are carrying the load and of course this building has minimal foundation it was a big pushing with the structural guys who are always worried for legal purposes but we try to avoid much foundation because this rock actually is as hard as whatever we do here so here this is the very simple none architecture none just an envelope really and also it has whenever I needed a bit of lighting or fenestration I kind of hit it with these little you know sharp stones that really come to an edge like a blade and behind them this would example would be toilet areas that have like a small courtyard with some oak trees left you know growing inside and so to minimize windows of such spaces to become part of the front elevation this is one solution and also it actually does a good ventilation because this works like thin fins and they collect the passing air and bring it inside the building and you can actually sometimes they disappear completely and I like to people to look at an elevation and see find this very sharp edges and you don't see the thickness it almost looks like a photoshop you know and people do this kind of like you know what's happening how do they it's like a little visual game but these things actually you see in geology you know this how geology brings matter to very very fine and sharp ends the bridge is the entrance we enter through a very simple we cross the we cross the quarry right here with this bridge and it's a big bridge it's 30 meter which is if I'm not mistaken the same span of the Iosofia in Istanbul don't and it's a it's a masonry bridge with reinforcement together the stones work and it has some reinforcement for a reason because I don't want I didn't want to make the client pay for big blocks of stones you know I could have done it in the Roman big you know cubes of stones but those every stone will be because every you know if I would have made those big ones and I think maybe that much of the bridge would be the cost of all of these ones because these are just simple stones that we didn't even order for this bridge we just took from the market pre-cut stone 12 centimeter from any stone cutter and I took the bad ones because they don't like the thick ones so I told them okay give me all the thick ones actually are the extras from the quarry which were all dumped here so this is all collected from here those were from stone cutters from the surrounding towns because you know the quarry the quarry takes the stone from here they cut them and then sell them so those we have to take from stone cutter because we have to then you know put the alignment right and this was also another thing to tell the structural guys that you know they draw things but inside I don't listen to them I just throw their drawings in the garbage and because you know they make they dig all of this up and they put reinforced concrete inside the mountain and I always tell them look you know I do like this I don't need I don't need to I'm lighter than the bridge you know I don't need to cut the hole here and put my hand in a niche because with all the friction it's not going to do that you know it's a lot of lateral thrust in here and the quarry is bracing the bridge and the bridge is kicking outwards between the two bedrocks so there's not a chance of one millimeter of movement right here and there's no bending in a bridge and so anyway plus this is an important thing structurally and when the structural engineer put steel which I didn't look at I only look at the side at the end how the steel is you know they worried about the cantilever so but then they didn't put any important things on the edges and I insisted to do big bars on the edges for side buckling which for in in case of earthquake so it became like a side rigidity to the also here was a little bit interested in the here we see the you know just touching nature what we did here we cut very little at the beginning and this is how the Navathians did the first stone so you do the springs if you want to call them so it's just the angle the first stone has to sit at right 90 degree and you don't need to do much cutting you can cut a little bit here and you can do a little bit of cutting if you want you know just that it's it's more perpendicular to the stones imagining that the quarry cliff is a stone of the arch itself so as simple as that this is how the site looks and if you see the floor below the bridge it's a fantastic sedimentation level it's almost flat it has luckily the right inclination about 3% inclination widths which means it can drain itself very well and that actually is a beautiful floor it's just a sedimentation layer that the quarry stopped and they didn't take one more stone layer below it and now we have we have cleaned it after with water so now it can be used for activities like vegetable markets and organic produce for the villagers once at seasonal time so and a car could drive in here and they could do some event especially like nothing permanent though also here I was interested in playing with concrete very low cost I don't like to spend money on architecture I mean the Royal Society for Conservation of Nature they have to protect nature I don't think they should make iconic buildings but financially I don't like to force them to bring very high end contractors this building per square meter costs something like $600 and it can see the very cheap way of making it this is just you know I specified for the contractor that we need to make you know a shuttering and then with plastering so he priced the boring typical item like any house in any village and then I tricked him I cancelled the item of plaster and okay he got a little bit angry but then also the edge it's like torn paper and they were saying oh it will fall apart and I said okay I mean all of that has been falling apart nicely so it is actually when you tear a piece of paper you see the fiber you really understand how the paper is put together and I like this I don't like to design it I like to design the process but not the product so it's now as you can see it really goes almost to zero and this is why we pushed the metal railing about that much in from the knife edge so that you know people don't step on it even if they do, even if it breaks and shows the odd steel it's not the end of the world because again we have a lot of that happening here and it's as long as it's structurally safe that's the main entrance and you can see here the end of the bridge no tiling nothing just like a bone one piece monolithic polished very simple and also to save money reinforcement bars as railing so the contractor doesn't have to go to a special blacksmith or buy different sections but again I mean they're designed in a way that they don't bend and there's lighting here so we do a bit of cheating sometimes we add to the section some things that can serve other purposes this is where the building actually ends towards the west and it has this water this air channeling funnel actually and the whole building works like people think we have huge fans in the summer which we don't we just if you open these windows and then the whole institute or the whole academy is like people always feel it in the main circulation we have to remember that this building is like two thirds of it is institution academy for teaching and one third is a restaurant is a back to back academia and hospitality or fine dining if you will so that the dining income can then support the education and it's a beautiful combination also because if you've done any academy then we need already a cafeteria or an eating place and a kitchen so instead of doubling this up we just made a bigger kitchen and an eating area so students could have special meal, a cheaper meal for the students etc and here you can see those you know catching the wind from here in here I played the same detail the concrete goes to zero so that we don't have much elevation it does the job and then disappears without creating this is elevation that is to the forest and actually here again whatever happened on the inside created the outside this treatment was to pull our foundation away from the forest because the forest here drops very fast or very quickly downhill and we needed that balcony space because it's between lectures students have the meals or they could even have classrooms up here and now they're using down as a classroom between the forest and the building smaller groups but this was all a needed space for outside and it's very popular terrace and I wanted to make sure that I'm not invading more with the foundation into the forest so again it's very rough and if you look here I think the contractor was always very worried that I will cause trouble I kept quiet because for me it doesn't matter I kind of think that trees do that here and maybe if this happens I don't want to design it I will never tell him to make it like this I tell him I want it nice and perfect but then when the shattering goes down this happens and he's and then they start polishing the concrete because it was a little bit higher than the tiles because I didn't want the tiles to go to the edge so they make dirt here and they panic again and I said okay it doesn't matter and or they're dripping here anyway you know it is a very rough building and I think in time in Jordan we get the Khuma scene which is the sandstorm that came out of North Africa and Africa and this will become sorry it will become more rock like if you will less gray and maybe a little bit more golden color in time because you know cement concrete ages very nice you know it's a beautiful material this is the space up where students are using it you know also for smoking breaks sometimes they do special events and they put tables the restaurant part is the other you know the other end of the building right there and again this you can see here the railing going away from the edge as a here I was also playing with this you know concrete fins where they just put the wood very very simple cheap any contractor of any village can do it you know we didn't have an urban expensive contractor again if the money goes to education and to conservation it's much better for a client like this this way I just wanted I look at how people in the everywhere build ugly building schools and I use the very technology that produces bad architecture but that same techniques I use it to produce something almost with the same price it's a little bit more meaningful and again you know things happen and we just take decisions on the design actually doesn't stop you know until you finish the building and in fact sometimes continues throughout the life of the building and I don't like to protect my buildings you know if people want to change them in the future let that happen you know I think buildings are alive and they should change and involve this is the outdoor seating area for the restaurant these shots now before the operation before the place was operated but here I have to mention these columns go about four meters down with one foundation like these two columns have one foundation there are you know there are branching columns that are like 45s because again I didn't want to cut too many holes in the floor of the forest so we actually mimic the trees you know they actually if you go down they look like trees but you never see them you know I don't design for people to enjoy the beauty of my design it's just it's solving problems as simple as that and trying to take permission from the trees to actually place our foundation between the trees and you know tell them sorry but this what can happen and negotiate with them and this again you know this I actually took a yarn a thread you know or like a piece of plastic tape if you will and I circulated myself the trees the canopy because it's a bit complicated I didn't want just the trunks and actually the surveyor went back again and I told them okay I need that line brought to the office again because I think the trees are taking design decisions here more than I and this is why I took that approach inside the building it's a very simple linear building you can see here the end where the restaurant area and when you enter you go to the restaurant to the right or the academy to the left and when you enter you almost exit to the forest is in front of you so this is hardly an entrance really very thin thing and then I don't like when buildings become dark in the center because we have a central spine which all the students would go to the academy and then classrooms even there's a craft room here for local produce of the villagers and there's admin so all that spine I wanted the hierarchy of traffic or you know when you go in a building if you put signs in a building means that as an architect you have failed if you put arrows means that the building doesn't read well you know so here when you enter immediately you can see the restaurant tables on the right the first in front of you on the left you see that you know like sheet of light that falls from the ceiling and then you follow it so and this is like the main you know spine also here I was interested in what happens with the light when it falls on different textures and the way it produces like sound you know I have something in my brain that mixes sound and sight and some times I look at this and I can hear you know the light falling on those stones which are also extra stones nothing expensive just to tell them that simple material you can do that and they ending up a bit slanted they end up with about that much of glass on top and the glass is not skylight aluminum it's just the sheet of glass with silicone on the sides and just small hooks so that the silicone stays in place really cheap stuff you know yeah so this is a central spine that and those actually make beautiful drawings you know they keep making like sundial also we made I made it a little bit following the plan but also you don't see it at once it has again bit of the seek in Petra effect and again you know these solutions for me they come from my obsession in cryptography and how rock layers and how shapes and colors and that form in this way also in situations like this where you can see water is actually making generating forms and negative spaces and finishes and textures the whole issue for me is how nature makes shapes is a very very big interest and I don't have to use it direct you know in a very direct way but it's always present in my understanding of the bigger picture and I think when I design it always infiltrates and you know and sneaks in design decisions in a subtle way sometimes I only actually discover these connections when I'm talking about it like today I would discover something to myself when I'm showing my work to others and I would see it for the first time thank you both or all three I think for amazing presentations I think Ahmad you said it quite beautifully that the site in a way it was wonderful phrase something about the site determining the architecture you said the site is the architect actually and it seems that in both projects that on one hand you have this amazing quarry that becomes a kind of constraint that determines the project and a set of boats that in fact really becomes a driver but it's very much about the site of the Bosporus in its own history and I think they really point to a kind of dialogue around how the making of architecture really has to be engaged with a set of constraints that is determining and allows the mind to in fact imagine what buildings can be and become and I was curious whether that has happened in other projects was there any point also in these projects where you really thought this is impossible in fact that the constraint was insurmountable in that regard I think the site is is not just the property for me the site includes the local knowledge and the local community and what is possible there includes the climate the vegetation the bigger region if you will the eastern Mediterranean so we have one site in a way between Jordan and Turkey roughly compared to the rest of the world so the site is like rings and rings and rings not from the bigger ring and all the way to the clustering which is the property of the site itself in a physicality but for me the site again it's what is acceptable socially what is acceptable morally how much you want to put money in an area where people have where there's a lot of poverty and the architect not to try to outsmart or kind of show show money to the local community this is all part of the site and for me I mean the word constraint for me it's always a chance it's not part of our dictionary I think one technique of architects or let's say this discipline is also it's not like the project is totally revealing what is already there or giving itself completely to the site it transforms it and one technique is actually to graft something on top of an existing site you can't import it from elsewhere it could look impossible sometimes that it's not compatible with that site but that is also one technique and the tension between what is existing there and what is grafted onto it be it landscape or an idea or a space conceived perceived somewhere else and appropriated here that creates a lot of energy and dynamism both conceptually and also after a certain time physically where the site is so I would perceive I would also not like to rule out this possibility of architecture actually you want to add something yeah maybe I'll also on the site I wanted to maybe ask in relation to one of the questions that we were going to bring up is also something that you're both both of the projects are working through the notion of conservation and you're both working through both natural but also cultural and historical elements that define the projects and I was wondering how you would approach the divide between the natural and the cultural and how that comes into the projects and specifically for example for Ammar where the program itself is not only determined by the requirements of the clients but also by the site itself and the climate and also the Bosphorus being very much part of the the conception of the project okay I come from now even more than often I am kind of on the edge of leaving architecture and going into botany and habitats and why certain flora favors certain parts of the landscape and how the landscape ends up being the demarcating itself in different lines according to different species and different geology and different soil types that state of mind is pushing me even further into the whole argument or dilemma or conflict of architecture that is endemic compared to architecture that is epidemic of course the very urban I mean if you look at Manhattan that's another issue altogether it's a minus central park but in general I really believe that there is a lot of qualities and a lot of good chances to use very high technology and the latest of design approach and design even augmented design you know look I'm not a traditionalist at all I mean some people in Jordan think that I'm the architect that does arches and rubble stone but this is not the case at all in fact I'd rather take the latest you know nanotechnology if you will and new materials but at the same time go super local or super hyper local you know really zoom in and make sure the ecology of the very very specific site is making the uniqueness of that architecture otherwise it becomes you know epidemic like what we see now all over the world you know to look at it from another perspective the preservation thing that you were asking right I find it interesting because it opens up a discussion because when it comes to preservation it usually puts us in a very awkward situation architects because we cannot advise people to preserve something or not vice versa it's not an advice or it's not a decision that is arrived it's usually a really strange mode of thinking where you oscillate between there is not a categorical stance or point of view there it's a discussion that is really you know very intricate and very and it sucks you in as a human being as an individual and also the intricacies of your tools your technologies and the site there you offer something but it's not a formula at all so it's a very tough let's say activity preservation and that part of our discipline but it creates that very interesting discussion that's why I value that part of our activity I think I'm going to ask a couple questions about the building part of it because it seems like maybe some of the intentions and the context and the way you both presented the projects I think were quite similar in some ways but then when it came to the actual building and I know from the Maritime Museum being from Istanbul the process of it was actually not possible to be a hands-on with the project and what I'm curious actually listening to Amar's presentation where there is a chance to intervene in the site and where in the Maritime Museum there was probably very little chance to actually be a part of the actual building correct me if I'm wrong and I take that there's also a lot of learning as an architect where you are not able to access the site and I'm very curious what you have learned in that process that then does it make a difference now when you're working on the Izmir Opera House for example where again it will be a process where you won't have access to the site and Amar for you what happens when you don't have access to the site or do you go into projects like that? In our case it was a very unique situation because the competition was opened by Turkish Navy and then when we won the prize and go for the contract we learned that we are going to sign the contract with the municipality because they have some older relationships municipality gave some services to the Navy so they said you are going to talk with us but you will be paid by municipality and at the same time these years the municipality was somehow representing the conservative let's say understanding in the country and Turkish Navy was on the secular side and there was a very strong fight between these two institutions so in all these meetings I remember we were always in between and they couldn't give any decision and of course we were always patriotic for the project but trying to persuade generally the Navy part for for some of the points in the project like Mehmet said the fences around the border on the other side we were trying to to get paid by municipality that was really a hard struggle but actually we have been assigned as the controller one year after the construction but they don't listen to us but sometimes I mean when I turn back and look to the result I mean if we wouldn't be there for that two years the result would have been worse than this of course I mean we did we struggled to be there and I see that today it was valuable but I think there's a mode of design acknowledging that we are not going to be there on the site and they might manipulate what we have already proposed in drawings and models there could be a mode of design I think we were not prepared to that one that much there are certain moves we did last moment thinking of that should we take questions from the audience but I'm curious how hard do you go on the projects where you can't have as much hands on or is this a unique experience or is this a typical experience for you actually it's look if the rules from the beginning that we are not to have access to the site that becomes part of the site which is the architect then we play by those rules and we design in a very tricky way we design that something can be built without our control and with less possibilities we go completely wrong probably by materials and technique of putting materials together maybe but of course we haven't had these cases and I don't think these are really very usual cases where architects don't have access to the site or even for me I always retain the right to change anything I want for the whole building except program or major spaces but throughout the construction now we even have it in the contracts I can go and of course negotiate with the owner whatever but you can't you can't design a building like you're designing a Boeing an Airbus that's a different class of design altogether I mean buildings are like trees they have a site and they grow in that site and they change in that site and trees point their branches in different directions according to a dialogue that is on before construction, during construction they have to behave like a tree does not like a car architecture is more connected to botany and cars and airplanes more connected to zoology because they have no site and for me I'm lucky because my clients now understand this kind of vision and they come to me because of it so we have less of a problem not that we don't have the Turkish type contractors in your country you should defend your country as Turkish contractors actually some very good stuff the pipe from DC was done by Turkish contractors and Turkish pipes but that's engineering and it's a fantastic tech war pipe just wanted to see if we had any questions from the audience yes actually this building has been a continuation of an earlier building called Wild Jordan for the same clients for the Royal Society for Conservation of Nature and Wild Jordan is an extremely urban building which was built now 15 years ago overlooking downtown and downtown Amman is like San Francisco really sharp mountain sides and that building is very different it's raw concrete but it's no stone or very little stone and it's just like two towers that have something that looks like trusses out of concrete beams and tie beams but again it's a building that has been created to allow the downtown space to go under the building because it has two streets and upper street with seven floors the difference of seven floors between them and the lower street is very busy and has very bad access so we connected everything from the upper street and allowed a building where normally a cube would have for elevation or the roof would be fifth elevation six elevations because you see the bottom of it and the birds and cats and everything can go under the building and now trees by the way also the geology and the footprint of it is very minimal again what trees do I mean trees can provide this beautiful canopy with very nice and shy and low key footprint small trunk but look up and they have this fantastic canopy that is doing what all buildings should do by the way I mean buildings should do the checklist of trees they should collect the dust they should you know take CO2 trapped carbon they should provide food and shade and habitat for birds and psychology and health for people and I don't know you know you check the benefits of any tree on the internet and put them on the building and harvest dew and all kind of you know probably 20 things they do and buildings should do that and architecture should do that or it should die you know in the future yeah I think you know I would love to do a very very urban project and I don't mind to surprise and shock people but also shock them how very very simple technique and very simple material that is not imported and that is not you know something out of some factory in Stuttgart you know brought to Jordan but it can I mean if this was functional I would even take you know high-tech German or Swiss material and use it fine but I'm always surprising people that a very simple thing using very badly everywhere can produce a very high end very contemporary solution. Maybe I could add a question on the practice it's mostly directed to Mehmet and Attu I think several touched upon it in the introduction I'm curious to hear what let's say the impact of the museum on your tradition of your practice have had let's say eastern Bolles a very commercially driven place still you have managed to let's say create a portfolio or work of projects that are not necessarily hyper commercial which is the typical modus operandus in Istanbul could you explain or let's say share with us a little bit how you managed to let's say stay away from the most hardcore yeah no I agree with you it's not very much common practice in our Turkish architectural scene to work like this it's not easy I mean actually that was our intention I think to work like this and not too much I mean a lot of resistance but if you have if you start the resistance and start behaving in a certain way as a career throughout a career things find you in that sense you know we have the saying that you know the pot and it's lead well how do you call it the pot and you know so you find the lead you know or the lead finds the pot are we lead or the pot so you know you start certain way and that things happen to you the other way I mean of course it's painful a lot of the times but you know it accelerates it has its own life almost it's not like you know you are deliberately consciously pushing it life evolves that way you just need to pull certain strings in the beginning and then observe it and stay patient and a little bit you know strong you have to stay strong you have to cultivate your market you actually grow your clients in time and you know you have 20 years to do that and if you have an argument and then people start to say ok I see you know we agree and they get the right people in time any other questions from the audience you know materials we had a different set of materials proposed in the beginning especially we wanted to use more wood than we got rejected but the logic of it is important because please note that shipsheds built in Venice or in Istanbul actually the boat builders built it especially the roofs of it not the masonry but the roofs of it it's almost like a boat turned upside down so you know there are those times in a shipyard where you don't make ships because you need a defeat a good defeat so that you start building boats again so in between in the peace times they built roofs and these spaces so I think without going too much too graphic I would say our design is a type of roof or a type of enclosure that is not as we described not a box but strips and roof structures supporting it which is about boat building the idea of tectonics is coming very much from how you join the members of the boats plus the ropes so I mean it's very naturally fits into that that's my take on it in addition to that the continuation of the materials from exterior to interior is also important you know we talked about the location of the project it's a very chaotic spot in the town I mean for 24 hours it's full of I mean ferry traffic cars and people so we don't want to add this pollution with too many materials and we try to create a silence in that spot so all the mess of the maritime museum is like interlocking three materials on the facade they continue through the facade first is the stone it's the pair of the historical building sandstone white is fiber cement the color of navy we can say and the last is the copper and copper is also a material that they should they use in not old ships but the navy is familiar with this material I think we all the time do it it's a practice but we do it in degrees where in the museum the level is low because we already had an existing collection it would not increase or decrease so we almost designed it as a glow fitting the hand but still we made some moves and some we succeeded some we didn't for example we provided a very nice basement in the competition for storage and they okay whenever you create a nice space they want to use it so they want to include it to the museum which was totally out of the circulation of it pattern that we proposed and it was a little bit below sea level so we proposed okay let's do this let's say you dive into it and you get up so we thought this is the best place that we can use the submarine remains in the garden and we actually first convinced them so we designed this underwater world there but they did not build it they said we sent the submarine and the submarine was no longer there so I mean we did some but in other projects we even changed the briefs the programs it all about it starts there they give you a brief a program I wouldn't say only program a brief or let's say a kind of scenario like thing and then we manipulate you define it again for yourself you don't take it like a functional let's say diagram never always change it conditions like the basement but it would be actually great to see like what if it has the basement and the submarine so it is a good point I need to create a dialogue so because of your dialogue there is also a whole story behind that and I know that how we built it in Spelti it is very tricky actually for a dialogue we also didn't know this kind of covered conditions or dialogues or stories behind it but then one time when we were on the story I know I know and I just had to know this kind of submarine and the basement there are many stories actually some very discreet I think we have time for one more I think Pedro would like to we are talking about two ways that the physical session overflows one way is that you mentioned at some point some things went different during construction than in this conversation some things really somehow the ways that we don't know and Avans said about this but it was open to crack for the project to adapt and change on time so I think there is this we are always getting this tension on the project as something which is totally controlled by the architect and that should remain like this and the project is open and will be transformed over time and again I don't think there is a right or wrong way adapts to a certain situation but Amar said one thing in the very beginning in his presentation about the important projects and important clients and I think that this is totally true I mean sometimes the smart clients they come from the business they make us change the approach sometimes we feel frustrated in the first moment but then we start to understand that they have a knowledge about what they are talking about so my question is what do you expect what do you expect a client to assume what are the things important that a client recognizes on you what do you expect I think clients should be looking or shopping for methodologies for firms or offices or individual architects that have methodologies but not a style and and definitely offices and architects that don't have like a superstar international brand if you will that becomes a jail to everybody but also a very good milking cow to the owner of that brand I think both of these projects come from a genre of architecture and architects that are working the hard way because we have to reinvent the wheel every time it's not like we have any finished program or methodology or style or anything and it probably would be much more well off if we would have a good office library and that has some kind of I don't know I think a good client should actually put the hierarchy and the order right in terms of spend on that site and what kind of statement that you want to do out of that site to the general to the public and whether urban or rural but now in this world there's very little division I mean even rural buildings have in fact the building in the users are all urban people you know they're not the villagers the villagers can use it probably get some employment some of their produce but most of the receiving of that experience are people who come from the city so again I think that quality of clients to not look for a monumental building or for an image that will publish well on a cover of a magazine I mean if you can educate a client to think on these lines and not look for a fashion architecture as fashion but architecture as people and some degree of modesty all architecture should have some degree of modesty and when it loses it it becomes a nightmare like big names that I don't want to mention I don't believe it's always nice to have a loving and kissing relation with a client it's not interesting sometimes it's a lot more interesting when people confront each other and change certain things so what you would look for for me is the capacity to transform but that cannot be one sided for example I am expecting from the client the capacity to transform to change show that flexibility throughout the process but then I have to for myself I have to show that capacity to my client too to be able to change, transform in the process as long as I and I start with it probably so that I create an appetite for it for another person for me it's not always very good it doesn't result always very good to work with a client who is a little too much like you and you love each other it would be nice sometimes so no romance, no romance for you I think that it's really the dialogue when you can be educated by the client but the client is also educated by you that good projects actually emerge but I just wanted to take the time to thank our tag and Mehmet, also Amar, Salvador and Gregor and Nora I think for really illuminating conversation I also wanted to give a special thanks to Paul for all the help setting this up and Malvina as well and the AV crew for helping us out today