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MIXED USE BUILDING IN IVORY COAST
Abidjan/Ivory Coast ︎ 2015 ︎ Construction Area: 86.000 m2 ︎ Site: 19.000 m2 ︎ Mixed-Use ︎ Çiğdem Mahsunlar, Dilara Sezgin, Nevzat Sayın, Sibel Özdoğan





We are not used to working in unfamiliar geographies, but an invitation to work in Africa was quite provocative. The Ivory Coast is a former French colony, but it still feels like one. It gives the impression that all its assets are being run by a handful of families connected with France. It has an amazing geography with equally unpleasant conditions. Every single place is loaded with filth, poverty, raggedness, and anxiety. Therefore, the first sentence is “gated community.” They want a place protected by walls. The program includes houses, a hotel, offices, and a mall.
        We began thinking if it would be possible to construct a building that would be a wall itself. We tried to understand the conditions of building in a tropical zone as much as we could. In that respect, Sibel Bozdoğan’s article “Modern Mimarlık ve Tropik Coğrafyalar” (Modern Architecture and Tropical Lands”) was quite eye opening. The “wall building” allowed us to settle on the perimeter, settling on the perimeter created a large interior courtyard, and a large interior courtyard helped design houses with two façades the windows of which you could open to facilitate the circulation of air.  
        When the green shell in front of the balcony preventing sun from directly hitting on the façade supported the circulation design, we were able to create passive air conditioning and improved these conditions with high ceilings. While mechanic measures were unavoidable for the hotel, office, and shopping center, we can say that we were able to create passive air climatization conditions for the houses.  
        Raised on pillars, the air tunnels underneath the blocks cool the courtyard and the courtyard cools the houses. The shaded and sunny areas in the interior courtyard surrounded by buildings create winds due to the change in temperature and enhance the circulation of air.