2020 Skyscraper Competition

Yusuf Aras Kalkan
Turkey

This Re-habitation project aims to achieve a special recovery and reevaluation process for large scale industrial wastes. Parallel to this idea, the project locates on a region where a power plant is operating for a couple of decades but facing a threat of being shut down because of its age and new filtration regulations for power plants in Turkey.

Rather than imagining how massive the natural and spacial impact will be caused by left-over structure, this approach of “re-habitating” the old structures tries to see the bright side of this condition and challenges to create a typology which offers a collecting and gathering system of industrial spaces which than proposes new ways of living and the concept of “residence” and “resident”.

Çan is an Industrial region of a low-population town in Turkey. As the numbers of the factories, ateliers, and offices keep increasing, due to the job and employment opportunities, the population keeps increasing, too. This situation results in a rise in the number of dwellings in the region which starts to contradict the natural character and the “small-town people” profile of the area.

The Re-habitation project sees this change as an opportunity of creating a reverse cycle and generate the neighborhood feeling that the town has started to lose, and eventually end up with a way of living which proposes a potential communal life which might be developed by the residents of this Vertical Village in the future.

The future scenario of the power plant which the project’s idea originates from starts with the investigation of the remaining parts of the Çan power plant. These mechanical and special pieces get classified according to their size, form, and material. Then get carried to the site. After transportation, the pieces get clean up and get into revision for its new use.

For the construction process of the project, There are mainly two techniques of forming the structure, which is stacking onto each other and interlocking onto the concrete core. The structural formation of the tower is mainly defined by the individual support systems of the units. While the ones with concrete bases or heavy steel structures are mostly used on the ground level, the lighter units are used in a way that interlocks with the concrete core. As this concrete core also works as a vertical circulation axis too, as an addition to that, there are 2.5m radius old steam pipes added to the system that helps vertical circulation. This nature of the structure generates a system that works for more public functions such as bazaar, library or concert area on the ground level, privacy increases as moved upwards with the functions of living units, communal kitchens or inner gardens. The semi-public open area works as a boundary between these two different levels of privacy and allows the transition to other public spaces by connecting with a bridge.

Other than these mentioned uses, there are two specified functions on the tower for the sustainability of the unit production. Firstly, the production area, located underground where the pieces coming from the power plants and other factories are processed, and secondly, the design center located on the very top of the tower where the manipulations of the units are planned and the positioning on the site is determined.

Besides all, rather than challenging to be a finished project with a fancy appearance, the Re-Habitation project tries to exemplify one of the thousands of different creative production scenarios that can be presented to the building ruins and material pollution that will occur in the near future.

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