This seven-storey office building topped by a canted loft floor on a prominent site at the junction of two heavily trafficked thoroughfares faced multiple design challenges. The municipality demanded a chamfered corner, forcing the client to compromise on lettable floor area; the city’s metro passes close to the site; and an electricity transformer had to be relocated underground. Nonetheless, the building offers flexible office space above ground-floor retail - and a rear, landscaped courtyard connects its café to the main streets. The facade’s striking rhythmic randomness - achieved in black brickwork, anchored to the floor slabs with a void between for climatic control - allows an impressive number of permutations for the relocatable office partitions, which are also unconstrained by beams as the structure uses flat-slab concrete floors with few suspended ceilings. These efforts allow The Mercer to take an important stance against the otherwise careless built environment in Izmir, and Turkey generally.

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture