Interior garden
Commissioned by: SALT
Location: SALT Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Turkey
Year: 2018
Photography by Ali Taptık, ONAGORE
Process photos by Aslıhan Demirtaş
Almanac of Architecture, Turkey, 2018
Arkitera interview
YAPI
“City gives the illusion that earth does not exist.” (Robert Smithson)
Winter Garden is a common ground, open to public, on the fourth floor of SALT Beyoğlu situated in one of the densest neighborhoods of the Istanbul megapolis. Composed of a rammed earth platform of clay-rich soil, sand, crushed stone and lime, surrounding low walls and plants at its periphery, it is an elevated and revealed earth on which everything stands and grows, yet is often invisible. This public space is a physical contemplation of the possibility of an unprivileged status for our species by asking the question “how can we coexist?” Comprised of a green veil of plants at the periphery of the earthen ground establishing a threshold between the city and the soil, the Winter Garden intends to place soil as a ‘thing’ in and of itself excluding its anthropocentric and therefore utilitarian perception as an useful medium to be benefited from for growing food and onto which to build shelter. As a space that enables a pure and unmediated encounter with soil within an urban structure, the Winter Garden’s air quality and comfort is set for the plants as opposed to its human users. Some of the plants are on loan from Alfred Heilbronn Botanical Gardens Istanbul University, Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanical Gardens and Zeytinburnu Medical Plants Garden, in hopes to establish a sisterhood of plant centered institutions.
Design team: Aslıhan Demirtaş, Ali Cindoruk, Dilşad Aladağ, Seçkin Maden, Ayçıl Yılmaz
Site supervision: Emirhan Altuner
In collaboration with:
Rammed earth application: Can Cumalı, Nilgül Özgür, YBE
Robotic production: FABB (Burcu Biçer Saner, Efe Gözen)