The street is a building's first floor

The easiest mistake in a mixed-use project is to reduce the ground floor to a lobby. Yet street level is the only floor where a building speaks with the city; however well the upper floors are resolved, if the ground is silent, so is the building.

On Tovis Cadde we therefore drew the first line not from the facade but from the pavement. The 4,900 m² program in Beylikdüzü opens with a permeable arcade at grade; the shop line steps back and the colonnade is given to the public.

The upper floors take the opposite stance: 38 units step back from the street with a calm rhythm. The generosity of the ground is balanced by the quietness above — the program is segmented at human scale.

We kept this decision through construction. In concept, permit and site phases alike, one question stayed on the table: what does this detail give the person on the pavement? Details without an answer left the drawing.