TAKSİM MEYDANI TASARIMI / 2020

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Uluslararası kentsel tasarım yarışma projesi (katılımcı)

İstanbul - Türkiye

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‘This set of very obvious problems can easily be analyzed and understood through the principles of the discipline/studies of the formal grammar of the urban spaces. Based on this formal and critical analysis, a judicious strategy of transforming and amending the grammatical errors is proposed. Therefore, the proposed urban design scheme is not only an act of re-reading the urban text through this deeply-rooted grammar but also an operation of re-writing this text in line with its geometrical essence.. Not only historical documents and studies focusing on the formation and transformation of Taksim square but also researches on the intersection area between ‘shape grammars’ and ‘urban morphology’ on the case of Taksim square reveal the underlying structure of the formal grammar of this specific urban space. This underlying morphology can be summarized as; two gridal fields rotating over each other taking the Taksim Republic Monument as the pivotal center point of this rotation. These two fields are; firstly the urban grid determined by the Talimhane Neighbourhood while the second one is the field determined by the Gezi Park. Consequently, the tectonic forces of surrounding buildings that act upon the square suggest an angular orientation instead of the existing alignment of the current square. Furthermore, behavioural and perceptual forces acting upon the square also imply an angular orientation particularly when the movement patterns of the people in the periphery of the square are considered.Based on these critical observations and geometrical analyses, the proposed urban design intervention concept is simply the rotation of both organizing axis and the primary orientation of this urban space. This operation is intended to be revealed to the user by exposing the evidences of the superpostion of these two layers / underlying grids via patterns of pavement throughout the proposed urban space.This urban tactic which is based on the rotation of primal orientation from existing ‘polarization axis’ which lies between Maksem and the AKM building towards the new ‘axis of infiltration’, enables to integrate the former dichotomies of urban - natural as well as traditional - contemporary. Thus, ‘The New Taksim Square’ is organized along the cross axes of infiltration and integration. In this manner, a holistic, legible and permeable urban realm is achieved.