Manchester School of Architecture BA(Hons) Architecture Portfolio

Studying architecture in MSA offers a unique opportunity to interact with the city's rich architectural heritage while benefiting from a university campus life and comprehensive curriculum. When I was visiting the city, I found it as a living laboratory for architectural exploration. There are remarkable instances of Gothic, industrial and modern architecture that have impressed me. The city is also subject to continuous development projects such as renovations and skyscrapers, which would provide me with exposure to urban redevelopment and iconic buildings. Besides architectural location, MSA is distinctive through its two-university program, large student society and practice specialist lecturers. Getting access to twice the resources, being in a collaborative culture and learning from expert guidance attracted me as an international and open-minded student.

  I have recently visited the Isbank Painting Sculpture Museum in Istanbul. With its mix of historic facade and contemporary core structure, the renovated building presents over a hundred years of history and spatial atmosphere. The newly built core structure connects the floor and historical shell while layering the exhibition floors. The shell consists of light colors while the core highlights darkness; however the historical staircase which lies on the center of the new core breaks the contrast between protected shell and new core. I used artline in this piece to emphasize the specialities of the museum. The historical structure can be seen through the clean lines and details.

The architecture holds a deeper significance when its history attracts numerous generations. The fact that the Colosseum is over 1,900 years old makes me wonder what the amphitheatre has hosted throughout history. This unique combination of stone, concrete and tuff is an engineering marvel of its time and pioneer to those which were built after. I believe that this timeless amphitheatre shows the strength and endurance of materials and design principles of Roman architecture. In this piece, I used artline for clean lines to highlight the architectural features. I examined the structure of the Colosseum as seen in my sketches.

I would like to visit Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in Poissy. The iconic building is the prototype of the International Style. The reason that the Villa Savoye interests me so much is because it is the realization of Corbusier's five points of architecture. It emphasizes how we should re-design buildings to be functional, flexible and modern. I think it is a timeless building that captures how to use a space beneficial. Pilotis are the most fascinating part of the building. The idea to lift the building over pilotis frees the ground floor for the circulation of people and vehicles. I love the idea and appearance of the pilotis in this building, they complete each other.

  Cappadocia is a UNESCO World Heritage region in Turkey, recognized by its landscape of rock formations, fairy chimneys and cave dwellings. Cappadocia was my inspiration in this clay work. My intention was to investigate the cave house formations by shaping the clay.

Based on my theme “Cappadocia”, I created two watercolor works of houses that are adapted to Cappadocia’s environment. My aim was to understand the structure of cave houses and rock-cut architecture of Cappadocia. I combined my two works to create a living space in the environment. One of my work was to turn fairy chimneys into a livable place and the other one was to make a cave functional by turning it into a modern house.  

  When I was thinking of a cave house, the landscape of rock formations of Cappadocia, which I saw during my travels, reminded me of the shape of a cube. I was inspired by the designer Larry Bell who designed the red cube. In this piece, the photo taken by me shows my idea for a cave house’s placement in Cappadocia. First by sketch trials, I made investigations on how well is my understanding of cave houses. Then inspiring from Bell’s red cube I made my final work red cube cave house by watercolor.

In this model, my aim was to bring my red cube cave house to life. As seen in my process, I used materials like model cardboard, styrofoam and plexiglas for my 3D model. By styrofoam, I made the appearance of cave and rock formations. Red color was also a significant choice to relate Bell’s red cube design. So my final work is a cave house made of red cube shapes surrounded by fairy chimneys and rocks. 

In my last piece related to my theme “Cappadocia”, I made a 3 storey house. I designed my model by cardboards and used digital techniques to give the final work a rock appearance. Also by digital techniques, I add fairy chimneys to my model.

In this piece, I was inspired by Notre Dame Cathedral and the incident happened to it in 2019. The fire that happened in 2019 destroyed the cathedral's wooden spire and most of the wooden roof and severely damaged the cathedral's upper walls. So first in my piece, by charcoal I made the Cathedral. Then by markers, I add red color to the circle glass on the Cathedral as a symbol of the fire. Finally, by using digital procreate I gave my work an effect.

This piece is from my sketchbook. In this piece, I examined ancient structures and architecture. The ancient architecture have always been inspired me. Thus, starting from columns I made lots of sketches and ancient building exteriors with charcoal.

  In this work of mine, I sketched out two artworks that I loved. In the background, there is my sketch of the Guggenheim Museum. In the front, there is Louise Bourgeois' "Maman" who protects her precious eggs in a steel cage-like body while provoking awe and fear. In this piece I used charcoal and pastel.

In this sketch, I used charcoal and markers to make an urban space inspired by Ancient Rome architecture. Later, with procreate I edited my work to make the environment more realistic. 

This green building retirement home project combines sustainable design and provides a peaceful, eco-friendly living environment. I used cardboards for my house, wood sticks as columns and architectural furnishing. First, I did sketches of my building and plan of the building. Then, I started to shape cardboards in an order and finalized my project by adding architectural furnishing and figures. In terms of finalization of my project, I went to a retirement home to gather information about how to apply this design into reality.