Cappadocia Kepez

NUTSHELL

Legacy Reimagined: The Cappadocia Kepez

Type
  
Residential, Hospitality, Recent, Experimental
  
Location
  
Türkiye
  
Construction Area
  
  
Project Site Area
  
  
Year
  
2020
  
Status
  
Planning Stage
  
Architectural Project & Design
  
Gokhan Avcioglu&GAD
  
Team
  
Nesime Onel, Tansel Dalgalı, Burak Paksoy, Volkan Buluc Kutal, Seda Tugutlu, Beste Dabakoglu, Emre Bilol, Aysu Acar, Umut Sert
  
Awards

2020 Architecture MasterPrize, Honorable Mention in Architectural Design | Hospitality Architecture

APPROACH

Cappadocia in central Turkey is an important historical center dating back to ancient times. The geography and geology of the landscape has been instrumental in the types of settlements found there. The soft stone weathered over thousands of years has created an iconic shape that has been identified with Cappadocia and the civilizations that took shape in the center of Turkey for thousands of years.  

Most importantly we can point to the early Christian period during Roman times when Cappadocia was a place of escape and sanctuary from religious persecution.  Stone dwellings inside and underneath the ground became areas of refuge as networks of vast underground cities with notably, spaces for religious rituals in the form of the many stone churches and chapels found throughout the region around 3000 according to archaeological examination of early Christian civilization. This combination of religion and dwelling generated a system of architecture, voids and masses, open and closed spaced in and under the ground; a highly original morphology of architecture and geology that is unique and with great importance as heritage but also for its use as a zone of cultural heritage and tourism in our times.

The natural history of Cappadocia with its original physical character reaches back thirty million years when eruptions from nearby volcanoes spewed ash and covered the whole region creating a geology of rocks primarily basalt. Transformed into tufa through thousands of years of erosion, the soft weathered tufa took on the iconic form of the numerous pointy” fairy chimneys” that have survived to our days and become the visual identity of the region. GAD in their design has taken this geology, chimneys and cave dwellings as a point of departure for the architecture of this hotel and leisure project, CAPPA. In this way, the design focuses on conceptualizing the context as a hybrid of landscape and building with functional and habitational strategies geared to the engagement with nature.  

The site lies in the newly launched archeological excavation zone of Kepez. The design strategy is derived from the archeological heritage and investigations there using it as a point of departure and engagement with the ancient and the archaic spatial knowledge located there. The notion of a microclimate, places for human habitation that optimize climate and functional needs, became a wider urban strategy of GAD's design. Here applied to the contemporary programmatic needs of this hotel, leisure and extended stay residential function of the building but also critically, to the needs of new visitors as a new experience of nature.

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GAD Project Documentary Films

The natural beauties and cultural riches of Avanos and its surroundings have attracted the attention of historians and travellers for centuries. The geological structure of the region and especially the carved-rock settlements where people have lived throughout history make this particular location one of the most special zones of Cappadocia. In this film the architect Gokhan Avcioglu and client, Omer Tosun of the Indigo group take us through the abandoned and destroyed quarry that will be turned into a hotel facility by GAD.

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GAD FOUNDATION
DO?

GAD Foundation works to positively affect practice and theory in architecture and urbanism with a focus on education, society and their intersection with architecture and urbanism.

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