“In the realm of ‘Architectural design’ that we find ourselves in at this moment, it is the tremendous back-and-forth between the indescribable pleasures of excitement and enjoyment in every second of life, and the anxieties experienced during revisions and final project processes.

Everyone experiences life with different intensities of emotions. I believe our genes determine the intensity of these emotions, and the culture we belong to influences them:

I am the child of an Aegean and Cretan family. From my childhood, every story I heard from my family contained colors belonging to Izmir, Crete, or the entire Aegean. Because everything related to the Aegean had such strong colors that even in imagination, colors defined objects. Bornova’s huge muscat grapes that oscillate between yellow and green, olive trees resembling an endless sea with their velvety green glowing in the wind, dark green semi-glossy tangerine orchards unseen from above and from the end, thyme and scrublands matte green with grey anthracite rocks, and thousands of hidden nooks and crannies embracing turquoise to navy blue enchanting Aegean Sea…

And of course, the Aegean Sun, the hidden magician of this geography, painting it with a color changing from yellow to red at all times of the day, and giving it a different feeling. Here, the blend of all these colors forms the Aegean and its culture.

Myself, my father, my mother, their parents, our grandparents, regardless of the century they lived in, laughed, were happy, cried, danced, and dreamed with the harmony of these colors. They lived life to the fullest… And even after death, they became part of the pigments of the Aegean’s color palette within these lands.

Even when determining the location of my architectural design office in Izmir, this culture that shapes me subconsciously was certainly guiding my decisions. On one side, Izmir with its bustle, and on the other side, the Gulf and all the colors of the Aegean had to be present.

Looking out the window, I had the square in front of me, the silhouette of Izmir to my left, and to my right, the Aegean Sun that illuminated and colored that silhouette all day long.”

I hope this translation captures the essence of the original text accurately!

The main criterion in designing my office is to create a simple and pure white space where I can comfortably design, free from crowds. Because when I place a white sheet of paper on my desk for designing, it blends into the environment, allowing me to imagine vividly with my colorful pencils on pure white. However, there are moments when I feel overwhelmed and stuck in a design.

At that moment, I turn around at my desk and look out to the Aegean Sea from the window. Then, I lift my head and bring the tranquility and peace of the Aegean, encompassing all its colors, into the office with a tensioned ceiling illuminated from behind. The pattern I design merges with the colors created by the Aegean Sun on the horizon during sunset. Because sunset encompasses all the colors of the Aegean. Let’s not forget that in the Aegean, the Sun always sets over the sea.