D8 School

Yahsibey is a small Aegean village north of Izmir with a bird's-eye view of the sea. The architect has built seven summer houses in this village at different times since 1999. The common denominator for these designs can be summarised as follows: 'not to forget why one has left the city for the village nor why one is there: to heed the call of the place'. Therefore, the points of departure for these designs are the same. Concerning their silhouettes the buildings are designed so as to be in harmony with the other houses of the village. Like the houses of the village, they are closed to the eastern wind swooping down the hill and open out on a view of the sea from their gardens. They are built with the stone walls that give the village its character. As with the houses of the village, they conceal themselves from the street behind their garden walls and open up their interior to their gardens overlooking the sea. The custom of making buildings with inflated garden walls, which is repeated in most houses, is also preserved here: thus, both walls and open spaces (gardens/courtyards) are used economically.

As in the entire village, construction is completed insofar as possible by using the stone unearthed in the excavations. The design, which up to this point imitates the building customs of the village, intervenes at certain junctures. The walls are reinforced with concrete string courses to render them earthquake resistant, which allows for larger spans and galleries, and faCades that are more transparent. Thus, instead of echoing the compartmental spatial conception of the village houses, it was possible to use a conception with open spaces enriched with galleries.

The D8 School, which was designed for short-term workshops and summer schools, is formed of two masses. One is for accommodation and the other a workspace; these two masses open out on a shared courtyard. By linking these two masses on the ground floor the courtyard transforms them into a single space formed of closed and open areas. Apart from this the pattern described above applies as well to the school. In brief, the process oscillates between customs and intervention, between context and ideal type. In other words, like life itself it goes to and fro between surrendering itself to the flow and decisive moments.