This is the story of transforming a typical 1960s three-storey apartment building into a contemporary architect’s studio. In this old Bosphorus town whose largely lost original late-19th-century building stock bore horizontal wooden cladding, the vertically clad wood facades echo tradition yet subvert it. The building was made seismic-resistant by renewing the foundation, placing L-shaped curtain walls at the corners, and replacing the terrace floor’s parapet with concrete beams. An added steel structure partitions the space within. Ceiling-high vertical windows on ground and first floors at front and back surprise passers-by with a deep transparency through to the garden behind. A meeting room is the only closeable workspace in the otherwise open-plan office. Storage, kitchen, and toilets are stacked in opaque plywood boxes by the closed wall. The single interior space on the second floor is pulled back from the front and rear facades and glazed on all three exposed sides.

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture