The archeological findings discovered in an excavation on the project site in Antakya which is close to St. Pierre Church (an important Christian pilgrimage site), directed the employer who was planning to build a five-star hotel, to build a museum-hotel on the site. The dichotomy between the public program of an archeological park and the private use of the hotel becomes a major input in the design process. The findings discovered during the excavations and the physical and sociological characteristics of Antakya act as primary sources of contextual information. The hotel, a placeless building-type defined by its own programmatic codes; turns itself inside out to deal with the specific characteristics of this unique situation and place. Since the hotel will be situated on a site characterized by archeological findings, in order to deal with this unique situation the program elements are considered as individual units spread on the site under a protective canopy, rather than building a compact, introverted, conventional hotel building. The location of the findings discovered on site determines the exact location of the columns. The composite columns are situated on the trace of former riverbed that goes through the middle of the site and on the periphery of the site in order to minimize any potential damage to the findings.

The canopy supported by these columns acts both as a marker for the archeological park and as a platform housing program elements such as the ballroom, meeting rooms, swimming pool and fitness center. This platform creates vista points to enjoy the view of the city and St.Pierre Hill and sustains the local tradition of roof terraces. Slits on the platform act as skylights for the archeological site below and provide a visual connection between the findings and the hotel amenities located on the platform.The main body of hotel is consisted of prefabricated hotel-room units stacked on top of each other. The room-units placed on the steel sub-structure are connected to the main circulation with walkways and bridges. The rooms are located under the main canopy and this semi-open space creates an inner world where one can experience the climate and local conditions and has visual contact with the excavation site all the time. Terraces and gardens located under the canopy enhance the experience.  The lobby, restaurant and lounge are located on the lower levels in relation with the archeological site.

With its characteristics, the hotel becomes a site-specific building without compromising spatial standards of a five-star hotel. The open-air circulation path, composed of ramps and bridges, allows visitors to experience the archeological park from different perspectives. The InfoBox marks the beginning of the path and displays information about the findings on the site.The pre-fabricated components of the hotel help minimize in-situ fabrication. The building is assembled on site rather than being built there and reminds one of the temporary structures built by archeologists during the excavation.

Yalıkavak Palmarina, 2014,Muğla, Turkey

Yalıkavak is one of the lagoons on the southwestern coast of Turkey, which is becoming a popular destination for blue voyages along the Turkish Riviera. Unlike its provincial center Bodrum, which has faced a building boom in 1980s with the increase of touristic activities, Yalikavak is still a relatively calm, smaller scale settlement with its natural landscape. The project for the extension of the existing marina complex for the use of middle-upper class in Yalikavak has the burden of welcoming a big investment in this area that will also bring its own facilities. The “island” part of Yalıkavak Marina, which is the first phase of the complex, is planned to house retail, restaurants, beach-pool club, sanitary and mechanical units for needs of megayachts that will dock in the marina. The main motivation for the design of the “island” was to search for the possibility to reconcile the needs of ‘outcomers’ with the genius loci of Yalikavak as a Mediterranean settlement.

Instead of a generic design that can easily become an alienated object for this place, an architecture derived from the local character, interpreted as composition of masses with different heights, merging with landscape and with the sea has emerged as a way to be integrated with the place. Alongside the masses that follows a gridal structure in plan, atypical additions such as a lineer wall and a tower accompanies the complex. Following the ancient cities like Kos, Rhodes and Siena, cladded with one material, travertine is used to render the whole complex which is regarding itself as a new-comer, but one of a familiar, not a hard-shell foreigner. At the second and third phases of the complex, shopping units are designed along the shore of the marina, continuing the Mediterranean aura with wide overhangs creating a continous shaded path, that sometimes turns into a collonade alongside the shops. All the shops are fragmented in planning and  overhangs are designed in different levels overlapping each other in order to keep the building scale. the shops reside as glass volumes along the composition of vertical and horizontal planes of travertine stone. The complex also includes a boutique hotel, customs office building, a spa and fitness, an office building, storages and a shipyard for winter maintenance.

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