The Faculty of Architecture and Design has been awarded!

Within the scope of the Necip Fazıl Awards 2023, our University’s Faculty of Architecture and Design was awarded the Necip Fazıl Architecture Award.

Our University’s Ballıca Campus is making a name for itself by transforming historical tobacco drying warehouses into a modern and functional campus. The transformation of the tobacco warehouses into faculties was carried out with an approach that reuses every type of material available and preserves the memory of the space. The project for the transformation of Tobacco Warehouses No. 1 and 2 into the Faculty of Architecture and Design was deemed worthy of the “Necip Fazıl Architecture Award.”

The award-winning team includes; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Halil İbrahim Düzenli, Dr. Faculty Member Abdullah Asım Divleli, Dr. Faculty Member Emin Selçuk Taşar from the Faculty of Architecture and Design at our University, and Architects Ahmet Yılmaz, İbrahim Hakkı Yiğit, and Bekir Sami Ateşçi from Mi’Mar Architecture.

Prof. Dr. Mahmut Aydın, Rector of Samsun University: “We Have Built a New Approach for the Educational Field”

Our Rector, Prof. Dr. Mahmut Aydın, made a statement about the transformation project and the award, saying, “We set out with the aim of creating a unique Faculty of Architecture. We decided it would be more appropriate to have an open area where the hangars are located, rather than a closed area. With the inclusion of important names in horizontal architecture in Turkey, like the late Turgut Cansever, represented by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Halil İbrahim Düzenli, Dr. Faculty Member Abdullah Asım Divleli, Dr. Faculty Member Emin Selçuk Taşar, we aimed to transform the hangars while preserving their architectural features. With the project prepared by our professors, an authentic and unique Faculty of Architecture emerged. This is an industrial heritage, an old factory area. We believe a university should have a story. We could establish a university with a new building, but it remains bland without a story. We wanted to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge. After receiving theoretical knowledge, our students aim to familiarize themselves with the material and understand its underlying meaning through practice in the workshops and laboratory areas we have created. We aimed to create a sustainable campus and, with the ‘Absolute Zero Waste’ approach in our campus area, the restoration of the hangar areas, which are industrial heritage, resulted in a completely eco-friendly and sustainable Faculty of Architecture and Design. The awarding of the first two hangars of our Faculty of Architecture and Design with the Necip Fazıl Architecture Award has been a significant source of motivation for me and my team in rapidly bringing our targeted campus area to life, reinforcing our belief that the remaining 32 hangar areas awaiting restoration will be realized in the shortest time with the cooperation of the public, civil society, and philanthropic businesspeople. I heartily congratulate the professors of the Design, Architecture and Urban Studies Practice and Research Center, and the Faculty of Architecture and Design, and the Mi’Mar Architecture team for their great effort and dedication in the process of receiving this award.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Halil İbrahim Düzenli: “We Aimed to Fill the Hangars with Art, Craft, and Knowledge”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Halil İbrahim Düzenli, Director of the Design, Architecture and Urban Studies Practice and Research Center and Faculty Member of our Faculty of Architecture and Design, commented, “You need to visit the Ballıca Campus to feel the soul of the space, to understand its memory. You can sense the spiritual memory of the Kızılırmak, where 300 species of birds fly freely in the Bird Paradise. But this is not just a place; it is also a memory, a feeling, and the spirit of history. The regional vision of Samsun University was to transform the historical Tekel tobacco drying hangars into a modern educational and art space. With this major project, we aimed to fill 60 hangars, each 1000 square meters, with art, craft, and knowledge. With this transformation process, we aimed to change the interiors while preserving the original texture and memory of the hangars. Thanks to our sustainable and eco-friendly approach at the Ballıca Campus, it was possible to recycle these historical structures and give them new life. This not only saved costs; it also showed that history is accumulated, experienced, and how its memory is preserved today. Our approach of preserving wood and steel structures and reusing materials allowed us to transform the past spirit of the space into a renewed one; this vision and effort emerged as an important architectural transformation project and our project was deemed worthy of the Necip Fazıl Architecture Award.”

The project evaluated by a jury consisting of Prof. Dr. M. Fatih Andı, Prof. Dr. Hicabi Kırlangıç, Prof. Dr. Turan Karataş, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Murat Özel, and Necip Tosun, was described in a statement as follows: “The projects of the transformation of Tobacco Warehouses No. 1 and 2 into the Faculty of Architecture and Design at Samsun University Ballıca Campus” were deemed worthy of the Necip Fazıl Architecture Award for reincorporating the wood and steel of the hangars into life, carrying the past spirit of the space into the renewed one, creating a sustainable campus area, and realizing an important architectural transformation project.”

Our University continues to play a pioneering role in both education and architecture by successfully demonstrating how industrial heritage can be integrated into modern architecture.