Our park is in Bodrum Umurça neighborhood Yaka Street, Turkey. As you can see the city map, it is very close to the city center. We designed the project in 2018. We started to build it in October 2018 and finished it in one year. Our park has been open since 27 October 2019.
This area was previously used as the construction site where the municipality’s carpentry, blacksmith, car wash stations, material warehouse etc. were located. The neighborhood was complaining about the noise and demanding that the construction site be moved. We decided that this area should be a park due to the high number of children in the neighborhood and the location being easily accessible. We aimed that people of all ages can use it and that those who come to spend a long time comfortably in the park.
Bodrum on the Aegean coast, it has a mountainous geographical structure. And like every touristy seaside town, it’s a place where lands are expensive. We do not have large areas of land as parking or playground areas. For this reason, every square meter of an area of 20000 square meters in the city center was very precious to us. We had to use the space in a versatile way.
Our Park and Gardens Directorate office is also in this park. We have a small greenhouse of 250 square meters. Its open all day. This small greenhouse is actually a small model of our big production greenhouse.
We aimed to show everyone that plant production is a long but fun process by showing that we exhibit plant production by the method of cutting, plant production from seed, perlite beds, rooting, greenhouse heating stoves and irrigation systems. The children are very interested in our greenhouse. They come and plant with us. Due to the pandemic, the greenhouse and library have been closed to such activities for a while.
As a result, it was important as an idea to build a recreation area on a 20-acre site in an Aegean town, which is still growing and is worn out by construction and tourism. We have used materials that are most compatible with the region in both structural landscaping and vegetative landscaping. By increasing the amount of green space, we aimed to reduce carbon emissions during the previous use of the area and during the construction process.
You can google our park under the name of “Bodrum Belediyesi Umurça Parkı” in Turkish.