Kocaeli Congress Center / OZER/URGER Architects

Most of Turkey's industrial infrastructure is in Kocaeli and Izmit Bay. However, most of the factories remained inside the city because of the rapid growth of the population in recent years, and thus moved to new places. Today, the abandoned areas by the factories offer new opportunities to overcome the accessibility problems of the coastal zone and the lack of public space. This process is first started with SEKA park stage 1 project in 2007 and the SEKA park Stage 2 project in 2009, both of which offer an uninterrupted park through the seafront. The project is the transformation of a 3-block factory structure, which stays inside this park, to a new congress center.