Yahşibey Village is a partially enclosed, quiet, calm, unobtrusive village with 116 dwellings between Dikili and Çandarlı. Like other villages we know of, it has an organic structure and it reflects this feature into its own structural style. The village houses almost consist of a wall for those in the streets. While life in its entirety goes on behind the wall, you can only hear the voices in the street outside. When you wander around the streets, you also move with the walls. The walls of the structures then become the walls of the street. They never tell us anything about the inside. The structures of the village always settle down to a zero line border, leaving a semi-shaded area in front of them, and a garden afterwards. All houses are built with traditional masonry system by the use of stones. The dominant wind does not blow from north but instead it glides from the mountains (east) behind them. For this reason, the east-facing sides of the houses are blind and have no openings. Almost all of the houses made good use of the land. According to the ground profile, the half or the entire back side is buried. This makes them invisible. As for climatic conditions, it is dry heat during summer, harsh and cold during winter. Because it is a place where the heat is dominant, the houses are covered on top and open at the front (life), or a completely enclosed space consisting of mounted rooms. In fact, the climate determines everything. In other words, we are talking about the intervention of geography in the architectural language. This makes the structures in the neighborhood belong to their own locations and evokes a sense of belonging.
Yahşibey village, because of maintaining the local life, mostly constructs their structures with stones or masonry systems. The fact that this condition continues throughout the village, keeps the existing stonemasonry and craftsmanship alive. However, the fact that the stones found in the village are volcanic and not very suitable for building, decrease the amount of existing stone masters. It is known that these stones are indurable and difficult to dress. Fortunately, we have Mr. Yılmaz who set his heart on stones. Mr. Yılmaz is a stone master who performs many stoneworks in the region and protects the localness. At the same time, he is the master who built the Yahşibey houses of Nevzat Sayın. When we look at the sharp edges of the new constructions, we immediately see his craftsmanship and dexterity. It must be really difficult to obtain a sharp-edge stone from a stone that is challenging to dress and then add it to the carrier system of the structure. Mr. Yılmaz rises to this challenge in a very good way and maintains it with the new constructions he builds in the village.
It is undeniable that the transformation of the Yahşibey Village which was designed through the technique of villagers and the drawings by Nevzat Sayın, made a great contribution to the village. Nominately; it is highly precious and valuable that the styles of projects drawn in offices are far away from the local construction technique, and that they construct them by using stone and concrete. There is a significant amount of mutual information and method exchange.
I met this village owing to a summer internship. As ten students who participated in the Yahşibey design studies, we encountered with these buildings for the first time ever and this first acquaintance required an introduction process. However, the working environment and living space offered by the structure, kept this process to a minimum. Actually, these were what the structure did not offer. Because during the internship, there is no private room, restroom or bathroom for you to use. The dormitory consists of a single room with only a cheesecloth between beds. There are no doors for the bathrooms. The thin linear pool defined between the two masses, contributes to the working environment by limiting what you do in the space. In such short notice, we found the opportunity to understand the village and its transformation.
We can easily say that Nevzat Sayın, who established the education system along with the subject of architecture as a geography lesson, and Emre Senan Design Foundation, who hosted us in the village; have ultimately reached their goals. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the workshop executives Nevzat Sayın and Michael Edward Young, as well as Emre Senan, the founder of the foundation.
