The ES-lab is an Innovation Center located on the campus of Özyegin University in Çekmekoy, on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. The campus is undergoing transformations and the ES-lab is the flagship building of the new campus.
The project consists in transforming the concrete shell of an existing structure, originally meant to be the campus cafeteria, into an innovation center. On a larger scale, the shift in the program is meant not only to reorganize the building but also the campus. Located at the heart of the Educational District of the University, the ES-lab will be the new focus point for the students.
The ES-lab itself is a 80m x 40m new facility, located under the ground level, and is organized around a start-up incubator led by the University, surrounded by laboratories for students from both the Engineering and the Architecture Faculties. A large makerspace links all the various laboratories together by offering services to all students and incubees.
The ES-lab will foster interdisciplinary / multidisciplinary projects and teach product realisation from design through to manufacture, bringing into one space various stages in the design and manufacture process and blurring between academic and business spaces.
