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Architects: r.a.f.studio
- Area: 4000 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Gürkan Akay
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Lead Architect: Hasan Agah Erkan
Text description provided by the architects. KOS Mosque is a renovation project of one of the typical mosque projects in the Konya Organized Industrial Zone, which is not only considered a religious building but also considered an intervention in a place with structural and fictional deficiencies. This project is a new proposal on how to re-design existing mosques, whose number is approaching 85,000 in Turkey and increasing daily, instead of demolishing and rebuilding them. The data from existing buildings has always been used as a guide in the design process, and the main goal was to provide harmony between the existing building and additional volumes.
KOS Mosque is located at the intersection of two roads with dense circulation in the industrial zone. The existing structure had a single building entrance raised from the ground and a garden entrance directing the users to this entrance. During the design process, the main goal has been analyzing the increasing circulation caused by the new number of users, which will almost double, and ensuring that the continuity of the entries and exits is provided. In light of these parameters, the existing street entrance was preserved and enlarged, and another entrance was added from the other street. These entrances intersect at the new mosque's courtyard, which is the center of the ablution place and the main entrance of the building. Also, the new minaret is positioned at the intersection of the courtyard and ramps, with the highest visibility.
Accordingly, with the increasing capacity, four different entrances have been designed as a center of the axes at the ground and basement floors. In the trace of the carrier system of the existing mosque, five exposed concrete blocks, the longest one of 12 meters, were added to both sides of the mosque, which became the main prayer hall. The new mosque mass is formed by adding a mihrab, entrance, shoe shelf, courtyard, and ablution place to these masses, and it consists of 11 main axes in total. A 2-meter curtain wall was added to the southwest direction to emphasize the mihrab area on both floors. The basement floor was completely exposed to solve the natural light problem, and the two different levels were connected by terracing the landscape.
