CommonLab
Büyükada Phaeton Square
Urban Design, Competition
Type: Urban Design / Status: Competition Entry / Client: Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality / Location: Büyükada, Istanbul / Year: 2021
Work in Collaboration / Team: Aslı Aydın, Dide Dinç Üstündağ, Zeynep Hagur Sorguç, Emel Akdemir Mut, E. Derya Erten Şen
Consultants: Elif Çelik, İlknur Uygun
Among the finalists selected to participate in the second stage of the competition
Büyükada (Prinkipo) is the largest of the Marmara Archipelago, which consists of nine islands also known as the Princes’ Islands, named for their historical use as places of exile for nobles, princes, patriarchs, and emperors. Büyükada is also referred to as the “Red Island” due to the reddish color of its soil, caused by iron deposits. The Princes’ Islands consist of Büyükada (Prinkipo), Heybeliada (Halki), Burgazada (Antigoni), Kınalıada (Proti), and Sedefadası (Terebintos), all of which have permanent settlements, as well as Sivriada (Oxia), Yassıada (Plati), Kaşıkadası (Pita), and Tavşanadası (Neandros), which remain uninhabited. Throughout history, Büyükada has preserved traces of modern urban life and today holds a distinct natural and cultural heritage, reflected in its historic squares and streets, as well as in architectural examples from the Byzantine, Ottoman, and Republican periods. With its multi-religious and multicultural structure, the island has developed a rich social and cultural life and collective memory, and has long hosted various artists, writers, and political figures.
Ada consists of both urban and natural conservation areas. Throughout its history, motorized vehicles were not used as a mode of transportation on the island, where walking and horse-drawn carriages were the primary means of mobility. With the use of motorized vehicles prohibited, the island has long embodied a pedestrian-oriented mobility model and a slow pace of life, making it a natural precursor to what is now increasingly recognized as the slow city movement. In recent years, however, the uncontrolled increase in electric vehicles and the large number of unregulated bicycles have begun to threaten this pedestrian-priority and slow-living character. Motorized vehicles also put at risk the safety of other living beings on the island, such as cats and dogs that inhabit and use its streets. The island’s characteristic urban fabric is defined by its organic street pattern, historic squares, and the built environment shaped around them. Typical settlement patterns include row houses with gardens, detached two and three-storey residential buildings, and attached mixed-use buildings with commercial functions on the ground floor and housing above. The island’s conservation status and the absence of motorized transportation until recently have helped to keep development pressure partially under control. The introduction of motorized vehicles, together with the lack of regulation, is likely to intensify this pressure.
The main focus of the competition, Arabacılar Square and Saat Square, are among the island’s historic public squares, together with Çınar Square, Emniyet Önü Square, and Birlik Square. Through a historical timeline centered on Büyükada’s urban core, the proposal aims to reveal the historical layers of the town center, the pier area, and in particular Saat Square and Arabacılar Square. The study of Büyükada’s built and natural environment, together with its various actors, seeks to identify the elements that shape the island’s characteristic texture, as well as the open-space components that influence public life. This abstraction can be understood as a starting point for a broader inventory study. The inclusion of non-human living actors also emphasizes that the island does not belong to people alone, but that its open spaces are collectively shared.
The mapping of the island’s religious buildings aims to highlight its multi-religious and multicultural heritage. In parallel, the mapping of late Ottoman and Republican-era modern architectural heritage seeks to foreground the architectural examples, particularly residential and everyday buildings, that give the island much of its distinctive character, while also establishing them as part of a cultural and walking route.The museums, cultural buildings, open and enclosed exhibition spaces, clubs, and associations marked along this route point to both the existing and potential cultural, artistic, and social activity spaces on the island. Following restoration, buildings such as Taş Mektep and Trotsky House are proposed to be reused as cultural and event spaces.
The proposal aims to reveal the potential of the island’s open spaces, shaped by a long-standing tradition of strong street use and pedestrian priority, and to improve their quality where needed through minimal intervention. At the macro scale, the proposal approaches the island’s streets, existing squares, and potential pocket squares as an interconnected “Open Space Network.” Through this framework, it seeks to create high-quality public open spaces where people can gather, spend more time outdoors together, socialize, and meet, and where children can play, primarily by enhancing the island’s existing spatial qualities.
At the island scale, the public space network identifies small neighbourhood squares that can gradually gain character over time in response to the needs of residents, through limited interventions such as surface improvements, planting, and the addition of street furniture. In this way, the island’s curbless streets are reimagined as part of an integrated urban landscape in which private gardens extend into one another and connect continuously from garden to street, from street to pocket square, and from pocket squares to the main routes. This approach increases the number of places within each neighbourhood where people can gather and spend time outdoors.
