Date: Spring 2026

Tools: AutoCAD, Revit, Enscape, Procreate

İplikten Yuva is a community support hub for individuals displaced by the February 2023 Türkiye earthquakes who are navigating a long, multi-year recovery while working to rebuild stability, routine, and belonging.

Located in Yenimahalle, Ankara, the project brings together essential services including psychosocial support, educational support, child protection, and legal aid within one integrated and welcoming setting. The concept, “a home woven from threads,” shapes the project, viewing each displaced person as a distinct thread shaped by different experiences, needs, and strengths, while the hub becomes the loom that gently reconnects these lives through care, routine, and access to support.

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​From this concept, the design intent was to create a space that avoids institutional harshness and instead offers warmth, dignity, and emotional safety. The project therefore prioritizes a home-like atmosphere through soft, layered materials and lighting, supports personal agency through privacy gradients and user control, and encourages healing and reintegration through spaces that balance quiet retreat with opportunities for connection. It also integrates culturally relevant design elements to create a stronger sense of familiarity, identity, and belonging within the space. In this way, İplikten Yuva is not just a support centre, but a home where diverse threads can be gently woven back into steadiness, belonging, and resilience.

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İplikten Yuva was a semester-long project completed during the second semester of third year, and one of the main design challenges was creating a trauma-informed environment while designing for an unfamiliar cultural context and a religiously sensitive user group in a way that felt both respectful and relevant. The project strengthened my ability to design with empathy by carefully considering sensory triggers, emotional safety, and user control through clear zoning, multiple exit points to reduce feelings of confinement, and spaces that balance privacy with connection. It also deepened my understanding of how cultural familiarity, religious considerations, and spatial comfort can work together to support healing, dignity, and long-term recovery.

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Conceptual Framework