Dirk van der Meij

Public Building

Subtractive Affinities

Istanbul’s current building developments, too big to appropriate the hills, punctuate the landscape and reveal a hidden truth: the hill is more than a surface condition - underneath the pavement, the beach!

When we take a close look at the beach, we can distil three types of creators: the kid, the dog and the tourist. The kid makes sandcastles, leaving  behind a pit; the dog creates pits, leaving behind a heap of sand; the tourist creates a pit to seek shelter from the wind, the excavated sand surrounding the pit contributes to the goal of blocking the wind. Building is a process of subtraction and addition.

The project, the hotel of a glass research centre, is located on the edge of a quarry. The building reflects on the nature of building: building as collection of subtractions and additions and building as a linear process, glass being the irreversible product of sand.