From Shelter to Home: Architectural Design Begins with a Question About Life

Cüneyt Onur Every architectural design begins with the same question: what kind of life will be lived in this space?

We answer this question not with a style but with a method, because every design begins with the right analysis. That is why our first step is not a drawing but a reading.

The first line

Humanity's first home was a cave. It had no walls and no plan, yet it still had an inside and an outside: wind and darkness outside, fire and sleep within.

In ancient Egypt, the word for "house" was written with a single sign: the drawing of a one-room plan with a single door. In essence, what we draw today has not changed: an interior that protects people from the world, but also knows how to connect them to it.

Today, that line is drawn jointly by a plot, a set of regulations and a budget.

Analysis: architectural design looks at people, the site and the investment

Analysis looks first at people. Who will live there, and how? The home of someone living alone and a home where three generations meet start from the same question, but they don't reach the same answer.

Then it looks at the site. Here we read the topography, orientation, view, wind and neighbours. The cadastral plan shows the boundaries of the plot; the zoning status tells us what can be built within them: the floor area ratio, the site coverage ratio (TAKS), building height and setbacks. The level survey determines at what height the building will sit relative to the road and the land.

This framework is set by Türkiye's Planned Areas Zoning Regulation — and in large cities such as Istanbul, the municipality's own zoning regulation is added to it.

Finally, it looks at the investment. The floor area ratio tells us how much can be built; the gross floor area is the whole building, while the net area is the space that is actually lived in. Investment and user meet in the balance between these numbers, and lasting value is born of that balance.

Concept: the idea that emerges from analysis

What happens when the need for privacy meets a sloping site? When a zoning limit conflicts with a view, which one leads? These questions show where constraints turn into opportunities.

The concept is the analysis distilled into a single sentence, which is why every decision that follows comes back to that sentence.

Architectural design: turning the idea into a building

Architectural design is the translation of the concept into plan, section, material and light. That is why we don't start from a style or a reference image; the style emerges from the space's own story.

In the architectural project, we also coordinate the structural, mechanical and electrical projects at this stage, because the invisible systems must not conflict with the visible space.

The same method, different buildings: a hotel and a home

A hotel and a home can rise on the same plot with the same floor area ratio, and the design method is the same. But the analysis says different things.

A hotel welcomes different people every night. There is a sequence of privacy from the lobby to the room, and a service side the guest never sees, so durability, maintenance and fire escape are among the very first decisions. A home, by contrast, carries the same people for years; there the measure is not flow but habit.

At Provia Hotel, whose interiors we designed, our aim was for guests to feel at home. Still, a hotel can only borrow that feeling from a home.

Bertan D. House: privacy born of a slope

A sloping plot in Yalıkavak, next to the village of Sandima. A retired couple who had lived in the Netherlands for many years. Children and their families visiting in summer.

The analysis showed us two needs together: to be together, and to be able to retreat into one's own space. The slope of the site seemed at first a difficulty. In the end, the concept brought the two together: together and apart.

So we gathered shared life around the kitchen and the pool, and gave each child's family its own guest house, each on a different level with its own terrace. The slope stopped being a problem and became what creates privacy, while local stone on the façade ties the house to its place.

Explore the Bertan D. House project.

Tankut Y. House: built around a passion

A horse farm in Kemalpaşa, Bursa. An owner whose day starts and ends with horses.

The analysis showed us a rhythm of life more than a housing brief. The house had to carry a life immersed in nature and among horses, without compromising on comfort. The concept interpreted the character of an English country house in a contemporary language.

In the design, we combined natural brick, timber and dark metal details, and shaped the landscape so the building does not break away from the land.

Both projects are rural homes, yet they look nothing alike, because their analyses are nothing alike.

Explore the Tankut Y. House project.

Construction and outcome: architectural design is tested by time

Construction is about realising design decisions on site without compromise. In architectural projects, we prepare the permit drawings, and construction begins with the municipal building permit.

The outcome emerges over the years. We designed Bertan D. House in 2004, for example. Whoever lives there today, the plan of that house carries the same idea: together and apart. For us, the outcome is a building's ability to carry the idea that gave birth to it through time.

Goethe described architecture as "frozen music". We read it a little differently: every space is a score that is played anew once life begins inside it.

Since 1993, we have followed the same architectural design method in more than 400 projects: in restaurants, hotels and homes. The approaches to choosing a location and technical infrastructure described in our restaurant articles are part of the same thinking. You can find the scope of our architecture service on our Architecture Service page.