YUMAK

YUMAK is a multi-level community center that steps down a sloped site in Üsküdar, Istanbul, threading a continuous public route through a stack of workshops, gathering spaces, and terraces. The name — Turkish for a ball of yarn — describes the building's logic: a single strand of circulation winds through the section, binding disparate programs into one connected whole clad in warm brick.

Inside, the programme is deliberately intergenerational. Pottery, music, dance, textile, woodworking, stained-glass, and candle-making workshops sit alongside a library, café, conference hall, open-mic area, and analog and console games rooms. Children's activity zones share floors with elderly lounges, so that making and learning happen across ages, side by side, throughout the day.

The section is bioclimatic by design. Rooftop terraces and stepped setbacks capture daylight and prevailing breezes, while the massing shelters courtyards from wind. Material choices, natural ventilation, and rainwater strategies work toward a zero-carbon ambition — a civic building that gives energy back to its neighbourhood rather than taking it.