This project is part of the Europe- Asia road tunnel under the Bosphorus in Istanbul Turkey. It was a 4 Billion dollars infrastructure project with a deep two level roadway below the Bosphorus straits. There were many different surface buildings including ventilation shafts, power stations, maintenance building and control buildings. This project focuses on the maintenance and control  HQ building.

 

The site was next to the tunnel entrance on the Asian side and it was an old industrial area. The site was chosen so that emergency staff could access the tunnel easily and that its entrance could be seen for security surveillance.

 

The clients brief was for a building for administration staff, maintenance staff, storage of maintenance vehicles, control rooms, welfare facilities and small medical centre. There was a strict hierarchy of staff facilities and for security reasons the building had to operate with some staff never meeting casually. The control room had to have a view of the tunnel and staff facilities and to have external social areas.

 

Our approach was to create a multi level building with a fully glazed control  room overlooking the tunnel and a split level with the maintenance storage vehicles parked underground next to the access. The external building design resembles an external camera in form with the lens being the control room facing the tunnel entrance. The building axis was east -west which meant the majority of the building was south facing. To environmentally control the building and a double layer external skin 1.5 off the main envelope wraps around the entire building. This secondary skin was made from perforated aluminium sheet which allowed the building occupants see  clearly out but significantly reduces the solar gain. This in turn reduces the building environmental cooling loads so reduces plant sizes. Below the control room area is the staff restaurants which have external terraces set within a landscaped park area. 

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Location: Istanbul, Turkey

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Photography: Yercekim 

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In collaboration with GMWM