Yemeksepeti Park by Erginoglu & Calislar Architects; Turkey

Yemeksepeti is a food delivery service company, which serves online in 64 cities of Turkey and in North Cyprus. At the beginning of 2000, the company was established as a start-up company and in 2015 it was sold out to ‘Delivery Hero’, which is a German food delivery company. Since the time Yemeksepeti was established, the company succeeded to surprise people with its colorful, dynamic and unusual identity. Because the company provides services for 7/24, the continuous dynamic lifestyle has formed the base for the main concept of the project. During the design process, the combination of different concepts was discussed and designed.

‘Yemeksepeti Park’ is located in the center of the financial district in İstanbul. It covers an area of 9,283 m² and serves as the headquarters of Yemeksepeti. The color schemes of the floors were derived from the company’s logo. The colors start with a yellow tone and finish with a dark red tone. Each floor’s design was based on the different departments’ needs and as a whole. The design expresses the differences of these needs through the use of colors, themes, and ideas. Since the previous building of the company doesn’t have the sufficient capacity for workers, the new building must be planned for maximum capacity for future scenarios.

At the entrance, people are welcomed with a five-floor high gallery with five flying bridges. Bridges all have a unique name and theme color and they bind the floors with sleeping rooms. With the idea of sleeping rooms, the unusual situations were questioned like the ‘Red Light District’ in Amsterdam. How having striptease displays in the center of the city is an unusual decision, having sleeping rooms in the middle of the office and sleeping during working hours is also something you don’t see every day.

The sleeping rooms also follow the theme colors and names, and each has an area of 8 m². They operate as self-refreshing areas in the building.

The information board which is called ‘Split Flap’ was located behind the information desk on the wall. Once this board was used in old train stations, now with this installation, some special information which is based on company identity can be shown like special days, food delivery records, special data related with the firm.

On the 2nd floor, there is an enormous loop table which has the area of 161,2 m² with 3 arcs to enter the center area and continues all the way to the west wing of the building. Lighting was designed on the upper level according to this endless table, and this continuity forms the main idea of the floor. With the mirror cladding on columns which locate in the middle of this loop table, the perspectives were multiplied.

Each floor works as the open-office concept with 10-18 pack workstations and various capsules, which have elliptical shapes, are placed to serve as meeting rooms and director offices. However, with the changing world, in the new concepts of offices, refreshing-leisure activities are needed.

Called the ‘game area’, the east side of building on the 4th floor was designed as a leisure-activity area. The ‘Clouds’ area is one of these areas with 33 indirect circular lamps and hammocks below. From the 4th floor to the east wing of the 5th floor, the existing floor was cut to place Tribune-like stairs with screens facing the seats on the stairs. The area is aimed to generate a gathering point where the users can watch a movie, a sports game or have a conference. There is another opening cut to place a hammock net and a 2 story high bookcase. The net can be walked and sit on, also serves as a social area. Chess and other game features are the part of these leisure time activities.

What makes this project one-of-a-kind?

The most unique feature of the project is the integration of social spaces and leisure activity areas with working spaces. Thanks to this feature, office life became dynamic and serves 7/24 on the area 9283 m² with 500 employees and reflected the company’s spirit.

About the authors

Erginoglu & Çalışlar Architects is an Istanbul based, independent firm of architects founded in 1993 by Hasan Çalışlar and Kerem Erginoğlu. The firm specialises in urban planning, architecture, and interior design projects together with providing assistance for planning applications.

The ethos of the company is to view each project within its individual context and contribute to it through innovative architectural solutions. The firm has vast experience gained through successful completion of a wide variety of both national and international projects on a range of scales.

Text provided by the authors of the project.