Adding character to Istanbul's varied architectural landscape, Vakko Fashion Centre and Power Media is a dramatic and unusual building predominantly in glass, designed and constructed by REX architects in Istanbul, Turkey.

Vakko Fashion Centre and Power Media Centre are designed by the prominent American architectural firm REX in Istanbul, Turkey. The contemporary design and construction of the two Turkish sister companies is a significant example of adaptive – reuses and has added character to Istanbul's varied architectural landscape. Vakko Fashion Centre and Power Media Centre will act as the corporate headquarters of Vakko, Vakko Fashion Centre is Turkey's prominent fashion house and Power Media is Turkey's best known music and television network. The corporate headquarters of Vakko fashion center will include offices, showrooms, conference rooms, auditorium spaces, etc. and the headquarters of Power Media will contain television studios, radio production facilities, screening rooms. 

The architectural firm, REX was approached to design and construct the headquarters of these two companies within a time period of a year, adapting the abandoned construction site of an unfinished hotel. Such a restricted construction and design timetable would normally have been impossible. However, REX's design for another building, California Institute of Technology's Annenberg Centre, had been cancelled recently. This discarded project's design concept, plan dimensions, floor-to-floor height, etc. were the same as that of the unfinished hotel construction site in Istanbul. So the architects at REX came up with an innovative design solution for the project; using the skeleton of the abandoned hotel site as an ‘outer ring’ and also completely designing a new core within the ring.

The construction documents for the Annenberg Centre in California were modified to fit the abandoned hotel skeleton in Istanbul, Turkey. In doing so, REX could start the construction on the perimeter block of the Vakko Fashion Centre within four days of being approached by the CEO of Vakko and Power Media.

The project was thus distinctly divided into two distinct engineering parts; the existing U-shaped skeleton which was completed by building, the fourth side called the 'ring' and the ring's center. The ring's center was a new building called the 'showcase', which was detached from it and designed from scratch. As the original concrete structure of the 'ring' could not be hidden, it was clad in glass to permit views through it to the showcase, which was also clad in mirror-glass. 

The glass enclosed 'ring' contains the conventional, flexible office spaces and studios, while the mirror-glass clad 'showcase' houses contain the auditorium, showrooms, meeting rooms, executive offices as well as all the vertical circulation and restrooms.

 

The separation in the construction process of these two distinct structures allowed the architects an eight weeks to design the remaining building and also work on the more unique portions of the program, simultaneous to the construction of the glass 'ring'. The most significant parameter of the design and construction process was speed. REX's engineers had only two weeks to submit the steel orders for the mirror-glass clad 'showcase'. So the engineers developed a unique concept for the ' glass showcase', which allowed the design of the building to evolve significantly even after placing the steel order. 

The engineers could do as by designing steel boxes which could be joined and fixed in myriad configurations, while still retaining the showcase's structural efficiency. The final placement and assembly of the mirror-glass clad steel boxes was decided by the slopes of the auditorium, showrooms and meeting rooms, which create a circulation path form the bottom to the top of the 'glass showcase'.

 

A striking dramatic design was essential to maintain the public profile of these two sister companies and the architects and engineers at REX have achieved this in a very short-time-span. As it was impossible to hide the undesirable structure of the existing building, the designers decided to enhance the same by designing a transparent and extremely thin glass facade. 

Each glass pane has been strengthened by slumping a structural 'x', which has thus reduced the thickness of the glass and eliminated the need for mullions at the perimeters. The 'showcase' with its faceted mirror-glass clad steel boxes is visible through the clear glass facade of the 'outer ring'.

The glass showcase has a mirage-like effect, which gives a kaleidoscopic effect to the buildings. This design-building is a dramatic addition to the architectural landscape of Istanbul, Turkey and the design is a unique example of adaptive reuse.

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