Night aerial view of the breakwater in İzmir Bay, its upper walkway crowded with people, wooden piers along the edge, a lit beacon tower at the end and a floating concert stage beside it

Competition Project

Körfez

Agora Nova

Year: August 2025
Classification: Competition Project
Status: Competition entry
Location: İzmir, Türkiye
Team: Gökalp Kalfa
Denizhan Şallı
Zehra Çelik
Deniz Çıray
Göktuğ Yiğitol
Ceren Çamlıca
Gökçe Dede
Göktuğ Ünlü
Consultants: Marine SciencesProf. Mustafa Ölge
Organizer: Terraviva

'Körfez' — meaning "the gulf" in Turkish — refers not only to İzmir's inner bay, but also to a symbolic void in the city's collective memory: the fading connection between citizens and the sea.

In ancient times, Smyrna was a maritime city that built its identity through its dialogue with the sea, a place where trade, culture, and everyday life converged along the water. Today, that dialogue has been silenced. The shoreline, once a stage for civic life, has been cut off by highways and polluted waters. Despite being the geographic centre of the city, the gulf has become something to look at rather than live with. Agora Nova seeks to heal this rift through a tactical act of urban acupuncture, reinterpreting Smyrna's "maritime agora" as a contemporary public and ecological network.

The project responds to two intertwined crises, ecological degradation and socio-cultural disconnection. Through a single spatial gesture — a permeable breakwater — it redefines the boundary between land and sea. Reused concrete fragments from İzmir's urban transformation are cast into modular blocks that form both structural protection and marine habitats. Mussel lines filter the water naturally, while integrated waste-collecting platforms create an active ecological loop, establishing a symbiotic relation between human and marine life.

The breakwater consists of three main layers: the outer edge, inner basin, and upper walkway. The outer edge is made of modular concrete blocks whose gaps provide habitats for marine life, while piers allow citizens to engage with the sea through amateur fishing. Wooden poles with mussel lines naturally clean the water, and the voids beneath preserve the flow of deep currents. The inner basin serves as a public water area for sports and leisure; at its centre lies a fixed platform that hosts concerts, screenings, and collective events, with waste-collecting modules below filtering surface debris. Above, the upper walkway reinterprets the stoa of the ancient agora with shaded paths, green corridors, and terraces, ending in a climbable beacon that becomes a new public threshold between the city and the sea.

Körfez / Agora Nova is not a monument, but a living public threshold, a place where İzmir reclaims its dialogue with the sea, and where ecological and social renewal merge into one continuous urban tide.

Daytime aerial view looking across İzmir Bay towards the city, with the breakwater and its piers in the foreground, kayaks in the inner basin, a ferry and a sailing boat on the water and clouds drifting below. — 01Aerial view across the bay towards İzmir.

Line-drawn isometric of the breakwater in İzmir Bay, with its walkway, piers, mussel-line poles, beacon tower and a floating stage casting light beams, beside the coastal highway and apartment blocks. — 02Isometric view of the breakwater and the floating stage beside the coastal highway.

Long section through the breakwater, from the concrete block edge and fishing piers through the tree-lined walkway and inner basin with kayaks to the floating screen platform and the beacon tower, with seabed habitats below. — 03Section through the breakwater, from the fishing piers to the beacon.

Strategy & Details

01 / 05

Two photographs of cast concrete tetrapod models on a workshop table in front of a perforated board, one showing two interlocking units and one a single unit. — 01Cast models of the recycled-concrete tetrapod units.

Six-step line diagram of concrete reuse in İzmir — mapping abandoned sites, removing and transporting construction debris, crushing it into aggregate, pouring it into steel tetrapod moulds and transporting the finished units. — 02From demolition debris to breakwater units, in six steps.

Map of İzmir Bay with breakwaters at Çiğli, Karşıyaka, Bayraklı, Konak and Balçova, each with an attraction zone, linked to urban nodes and to one another by public and event ferry routes, with protected artificial reefs in the bay. — 03The breakwaters as a network across the bay, linked by ferry routes and urban nodes.

Five isometric drawings of the floating platform used in turn as a dance stage, an open-air concert hall, a concert venue, a cinema with giant screens and a screen for major games, each with a short description. — 04Five scenarios for the floating platform, from dance to cinema.

Exploded isometric of the floating platform with its truss frame, screens, deck and DJ stage above a base whose built-in trash catcher collects floating waste from the water. — 05The platform's trash catcher filters surface debris from the bay.

App & Event Programme

01 / 04

01Körfez app — home screen and upcoming events.

Calendar screen of the Körfez app for August 2025, switching between breakwater and ferry events, listing morning sailing, a symphony orchestra, match night and a film screening at different districts. — 02Körfez app — the day's events across the bay's breakwaters.

Phone screen of the Körfez app showing the Match Night event on 17 August 2025 at Göztepe, with its duration, a quota of 100, 80 percent full, and a Register Now button. — 03Körfez app — booking a place at Match Night.

Unfolded concertina brochure for the week of 11 to 17 August 2025, with a column of events for each day from Monday to Sunday and a map of the breakwater locations in İzmir. — 04Event brochure — a week of activities on the breakwaters, 11–17 August 2025.