Mangut Mimarlık İşliği, Murad Adalı Mimarlık The Merzifon Business and Life Center project, which was awarded through a national competition organized by Merzifon Municipality in 2017, aims to integrate with the urban form and find its place within its contextual surroundings through its defined spatial narrative. The building is located in the city center,… View Article
Mangut Mimarlık İşliği, Murad Adalı Mimarlık
The Merzifon Business and Life Center project, which was awarded through a national competition organized by Merzifon Municipality in 2017, aims to integrate with the urban form and find its place within its contextual surroundings through its defined spatial narrative.
The building is located in the city center, where classical Ottoman-era caravanserais and dense commercial activities are concentrated. The spatial and morphological network of relations in the area shaped the architecture of the Business and Life Center. The design is based on a systems logic that supports the view that the whole is different from the simple sum of its parts.
Proposed to replace an old commercial inn that had completed its service life in the center of Merzifon, the project accommodates commercial units of various types, offices, and a cultural facility. The habits formed by ongoing commercial uses in the city center have led to the transformation of vehicle roads surrounding the parcel into pedestrian spaces. The pedestrian streets located to the north and east of the site, as well as the sequence of urban open spaces connected to the historic inn district and Cumhuriyet Square, became key factors shaping the project’s spatial and mass organization. The distribution of the required program within the parcel was carried out accordingly; the cultural facility was positioned to the north of the site to enable a stronger connection with the city’s cultural axis. The commercial inn units cluster around a central stone-paved courtyard within their own organizational logic.
The building is situated among perimeter blocks formed by adjacent structures produced on a parcel basis. Although it was initially planned and constructed as a single operation, similar to the old commercial inn, the changing urban and spatial dynamics of today have influenced the massing of the building. Instead of a monolithic composition independent of the relatively small parcels surrounding it, the building carries the concern of integrating into the urban fabric created by the parcel layout. Accordingly, the Business and Life Center, composed of simple architectural volumes and unions of units with straightforward spatial arrangements, is designed to blend harmoniously with the surrounding structures.
These concerns are reflected throughout various production stages, from spatial organization to detailed manufacturing, and are shaped by the modest construction budget of the client administration. The initial construction cost is intended to be covered by selling the commercial units within the inn, and due to the district’s distance from the city center and the lack of advanced structural technologies, the aim was to create a building that could be constructed quickly and at low cost using simple construction techniques.
Although the building is located on a municipal plot and occupies a single parcel, the variety of uses it contains required the planning of units/parts, demanding detailed examination of its place in the urban context. The Merzifon Business and Life Center is a spatial organization built on public land by the state, but the ownership passed to private individuals and institutions during the construction process. Accordingly, the public and semi-public open spaces related to the building, though still owned by the municipality, aim to be a part of their context rather than just a reflection of the municipality’s public space identity. This approach has been evident since the beginning of the competition process. The concern for interaction between space and context highlights that the spatial pattern design can influence the project at different scales and stages, from production to the shaping of the building envelope.
The city’s cultural and commercial past is also reflected in the spatial patterns and usage habits in the region. The study of spatial behavior patterns developed around active “cell unit-circulation network” structures such as inns, bazaars, and caravanserais provided significant data for the design. In this context, the importance of courtyards, arcades, and colonnades in establishing transitions between units and the overall building was recognized. The stone-paved courtyard, connected to the city’s open space sequence through passages and arcades, supports the continuity of behavioral habits in the region, enriching the spatial layout by offering users the advantages of both indoor and outdoor environments.
The shaping of the building envelope was influenced by local stone architecture, which is well-versed in traditional production codes of the region. The material was considered significant in establishing a meaningful relationship with the place and its context. The building’s composition of fragmented and massive volumes presents a simple architectural expression with stone and plaster surfaces. Additionally, the use of the local natural stone “Merzifon Beige” on the facade supports the sustainability of construction economics through local material utilization. The voids on the surfaces were designed to align with the nature and tectonics of the material. The ground floors were designed to be relatively more permeable and open to maximize interaction with the urban space. The organization of commercial units on the ground floor, which require active visual communication, enriches the pedestrian flows and transitions between open and enclosed spaces around the building, creating a lively urban experience.
The organization of the units in the building according to a flexible planning approach accelerated construction and allowed for future changes in use. The sale of commercial units diversified the user groups’ demands, leading to combinations, separations, and additions within units during construction. Under the increasing number of stakeholders, the management of the site and process was based on balancing the client administration, contractor company, and rights holders.
The Merzifon Business and Life Center aims to integrate with its context through its production logic and relationship with place. While similar in use to surrounding buildings, this structure attempts to align with the city’s morphological understanding through its spatial variations. In this respect, simplicity in architecture has gained importance in defining the building’s relationship with the city, site, and context.
Ultimately, the Merzifon Business and Life Center seeks to harmonize with the city’s morphological fabric through its flexible plan organization and spatial diversity.