The format and supplies of conventional Turkish buildings knowledgeable the US Embassy in Ankara, designed by New York studio Ennead Architects to “steadiness openness and safety”.
Positioned on a 3.6-hectare campus within the new central enterprise district Sögütözü, the constructing contains a chancery, safety guard residence and neighborhood services.
It takes the type of a sequence of rectilinear, stone-clad kinds, damaged up by three inside courtyards and surrounded by landscaped gardens that Ennead Architects has used to reasonable ranges of entry and privateness.
“Classical Ottoman structure was a significant inspiration and level of departure,” Ennead Architects associate Richard Olcott instructed Dezeen.
“Particularly, we regarded to the work of Mimar Sinan, the famend Sixteenth-century architect chargeable for designing lots of Turkey’s most iconic buildings,” Olcott continued.
Amongst Sinan’s buildings that had been used as a visible reference was the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, which is “a posh of many buildings with a steady sequence of courtyards, gates, and thresholds”.
“That typology and method of sequencing – shifting from public to extra personal – informs our design method to the diplomatic campus,” defined Olcott.
Set again from the road is an “arrival plaza” with bushes and planting, supposed to melt the boundary between the embassy and town.
Here’s a slender pavilion to manage entry that bisects the positioning, alongside further gardens and a patio shaded by the golden travertine-clad overhang of the chancery.
“The positioning plan creates a proper organisational construction for circulation throughout the campus, progressing from public to personal as one strikes additional away from the road,” Ennead Architects principal Felicia Berger instructed Dezeen.
“The slender constructing is an entry pavilion for all embassy guests. It’s the entrance door of the campus, and as such, presents an vital representational picture welcoming guests, employees, and dignitaries alike,” she continued.
A big courtyard on the centre of the chancery constructing acts because the embassy’s main social area. It’s lined by gridded concrete partitions knowledgeable by conventional mashrabiya screens in Islamic structure to permit gentle and air to cross by way of.
On the rear of the positioning are extra personal areas, together with the safety guard residence that can be buffered by the landscaping wrapping the positioning.
The interiors of the embassy are designed in collaboration with New York-based structure studio Spacesmith and, very similar to the outside therapy, deal with the usage of native and conventional supplies.
“Utilizing native and conventional supplies for this diplomatic facility is a method to materially deliver two cultures collectively, representing American values whereas referencing the wealthy architectural traditions of Turkey,” mentioned Berger.
“A cloth palette of Marmara marble, travertine, heat woods, ceramic tiles and pops of turquoise reference lots of the wealthy supplies accessible throughout Turkey,” she added.
Ennead Architects is a New York studio previously often called Polshek Partnership, which was based in 1963 by James Polshek.
Alongside engaged on the US Embassy in Ankara, it has just lately accomplished the refurbishment of the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in Manhattan and developed a proposal for Wuxi Artwork Museum.
The pictures is by Scott Frances.
