Here & There

This is the construction site I told you about 3 days ago. Here is a view from the other side. All the buildings you see on the picture, including the ones on the rights are new.









I went to see Ekin at work today, here is where she works. This is a mall called Akmerkez, she works in the offices in the towers, the mall itself being at the basement of the whole. I believe she works in the left tower, 9th floor.









Took the subway to work.



Mobile operator ad





Bank ad




Here is the office at it is from this week on. Two new guys started up here so we had to make room for them. I believe we are going to move to a bigger office soon.



Serdar and Sukru presenting the show. Timur (the other host) is in Orlando for 10 days attending the Blackberry meetings or something like that.

A Day Out

Today we went to Burger Bar again, with Engin and Reyhan, it was really good. Reyhan has never been to The 'new' Shopping Center Istinye Park so we decided to bring her and see it ;) since it's pretty close from Burger Bar.
Istinye Park is the last shopping center built here. Istanbul is the city of shopping Centers, There's a new one opening every 5-6 months.


in front of the Rainforest Restaurant.

Turkish Style

There is this high school under construction in our neighborhood. It looks nice but then I noticed the two small roofs on the main roof and wondered what they were there for. I took a look at the project picture and found out that there was a small error...

left side







right side









project picture





All jokes aside, The raw materials such as plaster and concrete used for this building are (supposed to be) environmentally friendly. They used the same material they did to build the brand new mall center 'Meydan' near Ikea in Umraniye.
For the first time in Turkey and still a fairly new concept in the rest of Europe, new heating technology is being used to create energy. This technology converts earth heat into energy that can be used for heating and cooling the shopping center. This environmentally friendly technology emits no harmful gas or waste. Even the roofs of the buildings have been designed as green spaces.

Turkish Style Architecture

This morning I dropped Ekin at her office and on the way back home I took some pictures of the upper part of the Arnavutköy district. The lower part (by the Bosphorus) is very wealthy, on the other hand the upper part is more dodgy, as you can see.






Most of the houses are constructed without permits.
What you should look for. The walls ar't straight. The windows ar never symetrical or straight or of the same size or whatever. The roofs aren't straight. Here are some samples :







on the image above, none of the yellow house's windows are of the same size. the building is leaning on the left. the upper right window is not straight... the right wall of the green house is not straight.











very thin building














The owner of the gry building on the right probably planned on doing a balcony as well but then, apparently, changed his mind as you can see a door on the second floor (third floor for some of you).









The roof looks weird at the jonction of the yellow and pink colors.



on the way back...


















On another subject I went to this mall center called Cevahir (remember that the letter 'C' is read 'dj' in Turkish) to get some stuff from the dry cleaner and I saw that a Yoga class was going on right next to this amusement park. Yes there is an amusement park in the mall. It's the second biggest mall in the world. The thing is that there is a rollercoaster and some other crazy attractions in there so people are screaming. It must be very nice and relaxing to do yoga there.

Serhat is still here

We went to see the new mall center in Istinye,called Istiniye park. Serhat being an architect, he was really looking froward seeing this new place. Everytime he comes to Turkey, there is a new mall opening. Last time it was Kanyon mall center in Levent.













after only half an hour we went back home and played with Oreo.









Then went out to meet with some friends and Ekin.









Ekin went to Yoga with Meltem and when they came out, we found out that someone had ran into Meltem's car. The ying and the Yang ...

Bimbo

Today I went To Ikea with Jake, we took a look at the new outlet (Meydan) adjoining it they recently finished and went into this new hypermarket (Real) in which we found this amazing cherry juice.
This new outlet is an open-air shopping center. The air-conditioning is provided by one of the largest geothermic units in Europe. The center is heated and cooled using mainly geothermic energy.