Unisite II / Edirne / Turkey

Unisite II is a dormitory campus designed for students and academitions near Trakya University in Edirne, Turkey.

 

Edirne is an important cultural identity carrying rich heritage until today, reflecting all qualities of the developments and cultural relations between Anatolia and Europe. Edirne is a bridge between European and Balkan countries. In Edirne, with a quality of simply an open-air museum with historical background; Selimiye of Architect Sinan, The Complex of Sultan Bayezid II, Health Museum within the scope of Trakya University. In addition to historical heritage, Edirne has a growing young people potential due to the Trakya University. There is a distinct need for new student housing due to rising student numbers in the last years in Edirne. Nowadays students have become more demanding when it comes to the standard of accommodation and prefer specific, often central locations. Since Trakya University draws students all over Turkey, it is essential that the dorm provide the amenity of home. Uniste II is designed by considering the high expectations and the new trends. GAD’s proposal is to generate a dynamic social space for students with a various facilities while providing the comforts of home.

 

The site includes 280 rooms (mixture of one-room apartments & two-room apartments), a public use zone consisting a library, studying rooms, cafe, theatre room, fitness area, barber shop and a stationary shop. The program enforces the use of the ground floor, and the courtyards are utilized as an informal living room for the dormitory campus as a whole. To obtain more public space in residential levels, bridges are used in between the blocks to connect the buildings to each other. To reduce the scale of the blocks and to provide compelling visual interest, building surface façades were algorithmically folded and distorted. This undulation of surface form humanizes the scale and allows a dialogue between the structure and the street.