TECTON / Zeynep Hazal Öztürk
Located in Üngüt, Kahramanmaraş, TECTON emerges from a land shaped by recurring seismic ruptures. Rather than rising above the city, the building settles into it.Following the slope of the terrain, echoing the fractures beneath. The architecture speaks not through height, but through weight, ground, and silence.
The project is composed of four distinct structures: a research center, an earthquake museum, a holographic visualization building, and a public café with a gift shop. Each serves a unique role; scientific inquiry, public education, immersive storytelling, and community engagement. The research center remains closed to the public, reserved for seismic experts, while the other buildings create an open, accessible space.
Materially, the structure relies on exposed reinforced concrete and glass, embracing a raw, ecobrutalist language. This is not a decorative shell, but a surface for memory. At its core stands a concrete memorial wall, cut by narrow openings that spell the phrase “Ben Buradayım” (I am here). These abstracted letters filter daylight into the museum and face a series of memorial stones inscribed with names of those lost in the 2023 earthquake.
More than a museum, this is a civic space, a place to remember, to learn, and to prepare. The fractured roofs of nearby communal houses echo the museum’s form, tying memory to everyday life. Here, architecture holds not only space, but presence.
