As the Kartal Pendik masterplan takes shape, a new urban centre is rising in the city of Instanbul following the redevelopment of an abandoned industrial area.

This new city-within-a-city will comprise a central business district, high-end residential development, cultural facilities including concert halls, museums and theatres, alongside a new marina and resort hotels. Kartal Pendik is strategically placed at the confluence of several important infrastructural links – the point at which highways connecting Europe and Asia converge, meeting the coastal highway, sea terminals and rail links to the greater metropolitan area. Indeed, these very elements form the starting point for our masterplan design, which utilizes lateral lines to stitch together major road connections from Karal to the west and Pendik to the east.

Integration of these lateral connections with a central longitudinal axis creates a soft grid – the underlying framework for our concept, its fabric further articulated by an urban script which generates different typologies – buildings that respond to the different demands of each district within the whole. This calligraphic script creates open conditions – open conditions which can transform from detached buildings to perimeter blocks and ultimately, hybrid systems – together forming a porous, interconnected network of open spaces which ‘meanders’ throughout this new urban centre.