Placemaking installations revealed across Istanbul
Global Design Forum İstanbul, Placemaking Installation
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Designers and architects reconsider the relationship between the human body and architecture through the notions of transience and permanence.
Part of the Forum’s Placemaking programme are 7 public installations sitting within the curatorial framework Praise of Transience by Artistic Director Melek Zeynep Bulut.
Together, the installations consider the structure not as an object resistant to time, but as an organism that works with time and accompanies the body.
Yakîn
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Yakîn explores the idea of space through the lens of Islamic mysticism. Instead of seeing space as something purely physical, the installation invites us to think of it as something that exists within us. In this view, space is not just defined by walls or boundaries, but by human experience, with the individual as the ultimate space where all possibilities exist.
At the centre of Yakîn is the idea of the human self as layered and evolving. Flowing silk curtains represent these layers, moving between two states: the busy, ever-changing energy of the city, and a quiet, deeper sense of inner unity. As visitors move through the installation, the curtains shift - light and animated at the edges, then gradually becoming still and dense toward the centre.
Walking through these layers becomes a journey inward. As visitors pass through the soft, moving fabric and reach the calm core, they are invited to reflect on a more essential idea of space - one that is not physical, but personal, infinite and deeply connected to the self.
Designers: YAKIN Kolektif, Dr. Nil Aynalı (Marmara University, Architecture and Design Faculty), Furkan Türkyılmaz, Muhammed Arif Aksu
Architecture Department students: Ahmet Selim Avsallı, Bennu Yorulmaz, Ceren Gül, Melda Köse, Melek Nur Öztürk, Mustafa Burak Yırıkoğulları
Venue: Topkapı Palace Complex
Dates: 13 May - 7 June 2026
Oblique Land
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Oblique Land is a site-specific installation created for the Bosphorus-facing grounds of Kabataş High School. It rethinks how we move through and experience space, using a sloped surface to create a new connection between people and the city. Rather than being a staircase or a flat platform, the structure sits somewhere in between. Its angled surface encourages visitors to move differently, shifting their balance and perspective as they engage with the view. In doing so, it recalls the historic hills overlooking the Bosphorus and invites people to reconnect with this shared urban landscape.
The installation challenges the idea of the ground as something passive. Instead, it turns it into an active element that guides movement, shapes how we look, and makes us more aware of our own bodies in space.
Oblique Land also functions as a flexible public space. It can be used for sitting, gathering, or simply observing the view, offering a new and unexpected vantage point over the Bosphorus. It becomes a meeting point between the individual, the city and its landscape.
Designer: Alper Derinboğaz & Salon Architects
Team: Rumeysa Karacuha, Ece Akbay, Selen Tüzün, Belinay Parmak
Venue: Kabataş High School, Bosphorus
Dates: 13 May - 7 June 2026
Wall | Tribune | Gate
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Located along the entrance axis of the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Wall / Tribune / Gate is designed as a temporary installation that reflects on İstanbul’s layered history and urban form. The installation takes inspiration from the ancient Hippodrome, once one of the city’s most important public spaces during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Specifically, it references the tribune (sphendone), much of which now lies hidden beneath today’s ground level. The design draws directly from archaeological measurements, grounding the structure in the site’s history rather than treating it as a purely contemporary object.
By lifting visitors slightly above ground, the installation creates a new way of seeing the surrounding architecture, including the façade of Ibrahim Pasha Palace. In doing so, it brings back a sense of the area’s former scale and importance, turning history into a physical experience. At its centre, a gap between the seating elements forms a visual and spatial opening aligned with the museum’s exit.
This feature works both as a frame for movement and as a subtle reference to the entrances and exits of ancient arenas. At the same time, the installation acts like a low wall or tribune, offering a place to sit, gather, and observe. Lightweight and temporary in structure, Wall / Tribune / Gate connects past and present, using simple architectural gestures to reveal the hidden layers of the city.
Designers: Ali Derya Dostoğlu & Uğur Özer
Team: Berrin Sezer, Samet Şahin, Uğur Sağlam, Statik Danışmanlık, Mithat Bora Bulut, Tayfur Somer Tasarım Atölyesi
Venue: Sultanahmet Square, Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts
Dates: 13 May - 7 June 2026
Patterns of Possibilities v2
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Patterns of Possibilities v2 is a digital installation inspired by the curatorial idea: “There is no such place as İstanbul, there is only knowledge called İstanbul.” Rather than presenting the city as something fixed, the work explores it as something constantly formed through perception, memory, and chance. At the centre of the installation is an algorithm that continuously generates changing visual patterns.
Every 6 minutes and 39 seconds, it combines 2,916 possible elements in a new, unpredictable way. When the cycle ends, the system resets and begins again, producing a completely different outcome each time. Each visual sequence is accompanied by corresponding sounds, which come together to form an evolving audio landscape.
As these patterns emerge and dissolve, visitors are invited to reflect on probability, coincidence, order and chaos. The work suggests that, much like the city itself, what we experience is shaped by countless overlapping possibilities rather than a single fixed reality.
Patterns of Possibilities v2 is a continuation of Candaş Şişman’s previous project from 2015 with the same title. The version presented at Global Design Forum İstanbul, titled Process, captures one full cycle of this system, offering a recorded glimpse into a continuous and ever-changing formation.
Designer: Candaş Şişman
Venue: Hagia Irene
Dates: 13 May - 16 May 2026
A Melting Tomorrow
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A Melting Tomorrow is an immersive dining installation inspired by the curatorial idea: “Time is not a linear structure but an endless flow, and to live in all times simultaneously.” The work explores time through food, presenting an eating experience where nothing is fixed or permanent. Each element of the menu appears briefly, changes, and slowly disappears, turning every bite into a moment that cannot be repeated.
Rather than thinking in terms of past, present, and future, the installation suggests that everything exists in a continuous flow. What we experience as “now” is only temporary, always shifting and dissolving into something else. Melting becomes the central idea. The installation also reflects on memory and history. Just like taste, they are never fully preserved, but constantly reshaped through repetition and experience. What seems stable or permanent reveals itself to be fragile and always in the process of change. Through this sensory experience, A Melting Tomorrow invites visitors to see time differently; not as something fixed, but as something fluid, unstable and continuously unfolding.
Designer: Tanrı Misafiri
Venue: Hagia Irene Courtyard
Dates: Thursday 14 May
Pavilion of the Moment
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Pavilion of the Moment by Waugh Thistleton Architects in collaboration with the National Wood Association and TORID (Turkish Forest Industry and Business Association) – is a timber structure composed of slender boards of Turkish Pinus Nigra, whose rhythmic repetition evokes the transience embedded in traditional patterns. The pavilion draws on the geometry of the adjacent Hagia Irene, abstracting the relationship between cube and sphere to create a meditative space.
Lightweight and demountable, it offers a deliberate counterpoint to the surrounding monumental architecture. Rather than asserting permanence, it proposes a public space for reflection - one in which architecture is experienced as temporal, rhythmic and regenerative. Designed by Waugh Thistleton, a global leader in timber construction, the pavilion also signals a necessary shift towards more sustainable building practices. Timber, as a renewable and low-carbon material, brings proven benefits for health and wellbeing.
Designers: Waugh Thistleton Architects in collaboration with the National Wood Association, TORID and People Places Ideas
Dates: 13 May - 7 June 2026
Venue: Topkapı Palace Complex
The Red Room
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Hagia Irene, located within the grounds of Topkapı Palace, is one of the few surviving examples of the atrium church typology in the world. The Red Room at the heart of this atrium treats the Forum venue as an installation in its own right.
Standing since the 7th century, Hagia Irene’s atrium has long served as an open-air threshold, enclosed by monumental walls yet exposed to the sky. The installation gently transforms this void into a temporary, intimate environment. Formed from layers of delicate red tulle, the structure creates a light-filled room within the colonnaded courtyard, evoking the softness and fragility of a dreamlike interior. The installation’s monochromatic red palette draws on İstanbul’s architectural heritage, referencing the warm red ochre tones found in traditional yalıs and historic timber houses.
This contemporary intervention bridges past and present, opening a dialogue between the church’s enduring stone fabric and the city’s more recent residential identity.
As daylight filters through the translucent material, it washes the space, and its visitors, in deep red tones, altering perception and atmosphere. The glow extends beyond the installation itself, subtly announcing its presence at the entrance and guiding visitors inward. The Red Room transforms Hagia Irene from a monument to be observed into a living, sensory forum where light, colour and history converge in a temporary yet powerful act of placemaking.
Designers: NUN Architecture & People Places Ideas
Dates: 13 May - 15 May 2026
Venue: Hagia Irene, Topkapı Palace Complex
