Nowhere Yet Always There

 

Concept Statement
The theme of “In-Between” not only signifies a physical or temporal transition but also points to a conceptual and emotional field of tension. This work aims to interpret structures in Turkey’s urban landscape that remain unfinished and have been excluded from urban life over the years through the lens of this “in-betweenness.” In this context, the long-abandoned and unfinished Çankaya Hotel building in the heart of Ankara is approached as both a real and symbolic case.

This structure is the physical embodiment of an unfulfilled promise, an unrealized economic expectation, and a form of structural violence imposed on public space. Far from creating a void, its very presence exerts direct pressure and threat on its surroundings. In the urban memory and sociological narrative, it represents not “what it is,” but “what it
failed to become.” For this reason, the project approaches the building—laden with the weight of this in-betweenness— as an attempt at architectural re-signification. The transformation of the hotel is proposed not merely as an architectural adaptive reuse but as a social gesture aimed at reparations for the pressure it once imposed.
 

The work speculates on how this incomplete structure might one day be transformed into a “public utopia.” The visual representation will serve as a materialization of this transformation, depicting the building’s reactivation through interconnected micro-units, biotechnical capsules, energy-harvesting systems, green textures, and layered public platforms, rendered in a digital sketch language. The building, shedding the shell that carries the weight of the past, reweaves itself with new extensions, living surfaces, and public layers—thus transforming the traces of the past while germinating the possibilities of the future.