File:EAA YALIKAVAKPALMARINA.jpg
popular destination for blue voyages along the Turkish Riviera. Unlike its provincial center
Bodrum, which has faced a building boom in 1980s with the increase of touristic activities,
Yalikavak is still among relatively calm, silent and untouched bays of the peninsula.
The project for the renewal and extension of the existing marina complex, for the use of upper
middle class in Yalikavak, has the burden of welcoming a big investment in this particular
area, which consequently would also bring its own facilities. The main motivation of the
design aimed both to correspond fully to the needs and desire of the new comers and to
create a dialogue with the authentic qualities of the place, that would find its belongingness
in the built and social aura of Yalikavak. This tendency may briefly be described as “being
Mediterranean.”
The complex was developed in three stages, constructed in consecutive years. Firstly the
so called “island,” that was connected to the mainland by a narrow passageway, to include
mainly restaurants, the pool-beach club and some retail units was designed and built. Theprogramme also included sanitary and technical rooms needed for the mega-yachts that
will dock at this part of the marina. Instead of a generic design that can easily become an
alienated object for this place, an architecture derived from the local character, interpreted
as a composition of masses with different heights, merging with the landscape and with the
sea has emerged as a way to be integrated with Yalikavak, as a Mediterranean settlement.
Alongside the masses that follows a grid structure in plan, atypical additions such as a linear
wall and a tower accompanies the complex. Following the ancient cities like Kos, Rhodes and
Siena that are fully cladded with a single material, travertine is used to render the whole
complex which regards itself as a new-comer, but one of a familiar; not a hard-shell foreigner.
This design approach was followed in the consecutive stages this time with wide overhangs
creating a continuous shaded path that sometimes turns into a colonnade alongside
the public circulation path. These stages are mainly composed of various shopping and
recreational units, including a small boutique hotel and some offices. Sanitary, technical and
storage rooms of the marina were again dispersed. Various rows of shopping units are united
by series of overlapping overhangs on different levels.
Above all, the intensive use of the complex by all levels of the society was given priority, which
mainly conflicts with worldwide acceptance of such marinas, to be so called “elitist” spaces
with limited access. At Palmarina, architecture-management conformity succeeded in vast
amount of public use just adjacent to the exclusive marine world.