Turkey based Aboutblank Architects have been awarded an honorable mention for their housing project for the Istanbul Kayabasi Housing Design Competition. The young firm focuses on urban design approaches, while working on a multidisciplinary level.

Aboutblank Architects utilized the principles of folding to create an urban pattern. The horizontal rows of buildings were conceived as strips of paper that, when folded in strategic locations, created a series of connected buildings varying in height.

Since the folding defines the heights of the buildings, the lower buildings allow sunlight to reach the garden spaces that are interwoven between the housing components.

These green areas form a shared atmosphere users can enjoy together while the fold at the ground level ‘connects the ground with different heights and carries the green to vertical counterparts.’

Project :  Istanbul Kayabaşı Housing Project
Date : May 2009
Type : national idea competition
Program : urban, housing
Size : 225000 m2
Client : Toki : Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry, Housing Development Administration of Turkey
Collaborators : Gökhan Kodalak, Tuğçe Akbay
Location : Istanbul
Status : 1st Prize (equivalent)
Description : A housing project on the periphery of İstanbul, in Kayabaşı district, which tries to create a non-centralized rhizomatic urban tissue with recreational and social hybridizations. Modular customizations, interactive social environments, economical and ecological solutions are also the main subjects.

More pictures: www.aboutblank.cc.