ANADOLU UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF OPEN EDUCATION
Eskişehir ︎ 2016 ︎Constructin Area: 30.500 m2 ︎ Site: 17.500 m2 ︎ Eğitim ︎ Çiğdem Mahsunlar, Hakan Deniz Özdemir, Nevzat Sayın, Serkan Çakıt





This school has 1,500,000 students, but they don’t ‘go’ to school. Therefore, it is quite different from other school buildings; it is treated more like an administrative building rather than a school. It is based on a main building that constitutes one side of the open area it is set on with the length of 100 m and buildings fastened to this main building. While the main building accommodates the rooms of faculty members, the other buildings contain various common areas of different functions such as meeting rooms, seminar rooms, library, conference halls, and cafeteria. The courtyards between these buildings not only let in sunlight, but they also serve as open foyer areas.
The connection with the existing building contributes both to the daily circulation of people and makes room for large celebrations. The three departments were taken as a whole, but separated from one another. It is not easy to read this distinction when viewed from outside because although they are separated for reasons of functionality, both in terms of their relations with the former building mass and the large void they are in, the north view appears as an monolith building, but the buildings containing the common areas in the south are scattered enough to carry the park in the south into the building. We believe that even if there are no students in it, an educational institution should be big, low, and not high as these features are important in terms of the relations within the academic world.
As we thought the solid void relationship would allow us to use bricks on the façade, we used this opportunity to design a building of “Eskişehir”. Thanks to the widespread use of brick on campus, we are hoping that this large mass won’t appear out of place.