- Designer: Superspace
- Work: “Colliding Lines and Lives”
- Infrastructural System: Water
- Type + Intervention: Wooden Housing Addition to Fourth-Century Aqueduct
- Location: Istanbul, Turkey
- Year: 2017 (Competition: 2nd classified)
- Reference: archdaily.com
Sinan Günay and Nurhayat Oz of Superspace have won second prize in the MetsäWood competition, “The City Above the City”, which called for architects to design wooden extensions to city centers. With their project, “Colliding Lines and Lives”, the team designed a series wooden housing modules to be appended to a fourth-century Roman aqueduct archway in Istanbul.
Built by the Roman emperor Valens, the archway was an important water supply for the Romans and Ottomans but later lost its significance and functionality with technological and infrastructural advancements, leaving it an unutilized landmark in the city.
In the district of Fatih, 921 meters of this archway remains, which becomes the foundation for the Colliding Lines and Lives proposal.
A [grid] structure, located above the archway, referencing the openings of the arches, serving as a vertical but linear underlay for the wooden housing modules shot with the pattern of the surrounding, is exposed to and separated from the archway to create a promenade with overlapping the fabric of wood and stone, [old and new], history and future, hard and soft, day and night, heavy and light, and ultimately generating an alternative elevated life, keeping tabs of the city, instead of just being watched, explained the architects in a recent press release.
urbaninfrascape 