Mihalıççık: Public Space as Rural Infrastructure

Mihalıççık is a district very rich in natural resources and possibilities in Central Anatolia. It is the ideal place to set an example for the sustainable development of the countryside in Türkiye. We want to build a model of sustainable development here.

Mihalıççık is a district town in Eskişehir province, in Central Anatolia. Its municipality asked for a plan that would make the town centre a working example of sustainable rural development — one that produces current, fit-for-purpose knowledge for a countryside with a wide range of needs.

The dossier sets out eight projects that act as anchors in Mihalıççık's master plan. Each one develops a single city block and supports the wider strategy around it. Between them they cover public space, housing, early learning, education and sport, culture, digital skills, transport and play.

The dossier is prepared together with SANALarc and is delivered through Open Urban Practice. OUP is a new kind of architectural practice that combines the power of small, nimble, and highly specialized design practices with knowledge in social economy, climate change, and building technology.

Superpool authored the library square, the digital education centre, the bus station and Ali Metin Park, and co-authored the İyi Blok housing; SANALarc authored Cumhuriyet Square, the early learning centre and the education and sports block.

1 - Cumhuriyet Square and Car Park

The Cumhuriyet Square project gives the district a new focal point by rebuilding its central public square to suit the needs of a twenty-first century countryside. The square sits directly in front of the municipal building and invites visitors up to the higher plateau along gently sloping streets on either side. The shops and restaurants already around it make a lively, welcoming atmosphere able to host many different activities, while the square itself offers shade for hot days and wet ones, and places to rest for residents of every age.

Below the square are a generous retail space of over 140 m² facing Ömerköy Caddesi at street level, and a new multi-purpose car park for more than forty vehicles that can also take the weekly market when the weather demands it.

2 - Housing

Alongside the multi-purpose shared spaces that the central iyi blok — good block — brings to the area, the project introduces new housing suited to this new everyday life. Small local businesses, workshops and supporting public services such as the nursery contribute to a circular economy at neighbourhood scale, and to spatial and socio-cultural continuity.

Shared spaces, courtyards and streets are arranged in a hierarchy that runs from private to public. Squares and parks accompany the housing, bringing neighbourhood life into activity. Sensitive to urban ecology and taking in the habitats of the area, the block is supported by green mobility and takes on a permeable, pedestrian-first character that strengthens connections. The housing is low-rise and at human scale, in keeping with the urban fabric, and works with renewable energy, water harvesting and a local material palette.

3 - Early Learning Centre and Nursery

The early learning centre is one of the components that, together with the mixed-use buildings and the main square, makes up the central block. It brings a new approach to the daily learning spaces of children aged one to five. The centre sits on the main diagonal that connects it to the square, and the third floor and the voids around it aim to make a natural connection between the activities in this part of town and the movement of people through it.

Set within a quiet residential area, its landscape merging with the park and the surrounding streets, the project is designed around children and families, and its architecture takes its cue from the simplicity of its surroundings in massing, materials and construction method. A six-metre level difference allows two entrances. The lower one, widened, connects to the street and the homes around it and turns the building into a small multi-purpose public space for the neighbourhood. The upper entrance near the park holds an internal courtyard and a wide terrace, echoing the traditional house form found across the town.

The middle floor holds classrooms for the youngest groups. All floors are arranged as an active forum of levels and accessible ramps linked by a central stair, with a shared kitchen and alternative teaching spaces alongside the classrooms — practical functions that reinforce community and can be used in common.

4 - Education and Sports Block

Bringing the existing sports hall and high school into a single block, the education and sports centre is another example of the good block. This inclusive design sets out to create a new shared centre on the side of town where urban services and open space already are, supporting healthy active life across generations and lifelong learning. The square's non-directional, gathering form makes a point of attraction from which new spaces scatter outward, and the interrelated forms of everything around it communicate to make a new and dynamic urban area.

A series of smaller public spaces support use of the grounds and physical activity: a small square near the housing forming a commercial corner with shops, another beneath the school that passes between the park and the other spaces and would appeal to families, and a children's play area between the square and the outdoor sports zone. An indoor pool and an outdoor volleyball court are added to the sports hall, and four workshop spaces connected to the road at the lower level are added to the school grounds. The block also holds housing, and with its commercial, production and recreation functions stands as an example of a sustainable approach to social housing.

5 - Library Square

The library square project covers the grounds around the library — built by Afet İnan, one of Atatürk's adoptive daughters, for her mother, who lived in the district — and Library Street, which gives access to it. Taking the library as its centre, the work strengthens the connection between the street, the community centre, the football pitch and the main road, and turns the library garden into a new focal point: a public square.

Terraces stepped into the sloping ground make inviting places for a range of activities. Culture Street is conceived as a safe, accessible crossing for every age group, and the stepped street is redesigned with the comfort of the people using it in mind. Alongside the steps, a ramp lets people with prams or wheelchairs reach the main road from the square. Lined with cherry trees, it settles into the slope as a path worth taking in its own right.

6 - Digital Education Centre

The former prison building finds new life as a digital education centre. It makes it easier for people of every age in Mihalıççık to reach academic material from anywhere in the world, to produce material of their own, and to learn by sharing. The centre is a technology-sharing platform — the public education centre reimagined and brought up to date for the needs of the future.

The digital classrooms also open teaching material across many subjects to people who have finished formal schooling. Partnerships with institutions and NGOs in Turkey and abroad make it easier to share developments in fields from everyday life to permaculture, beekeeping to dairy farming, giving people of any age the chance to gain skills and to build on the ones they have.

The aim is a setting where people of all ages, and young people in particular, can reach current technology, teaching, mentoring and incubation services in the subjects that interest them — and where they can meet each other.

7 - Bus Station

The bus station sits on Mihalıççık's northern axis and connects the district centre to central Eskişehir. With capacity for twenty to thirty vehicles, it also supports transport between the district centre and the surrounding villages. The site is conceived as a complex, holding a multi-purpose hall and a variety of activity spaces.

8 - Ali Metin Park

In the centre of Mihalıççık, Ali Metin Park offers all children from nought to twelve a play experience integrated into the landscape, beyond plastic play equipment. The play landscape is designed to European safety standards, and to be produced in Mihalıççık itself.

Play is an important function of public space. Yet most urban play areas are designed without the youngest in mind — designed instead for older children whose motor skills are already developed. Ali Metin Park offers a play landscape that thinks about children of every age living in Mihalıççık, and about babies and their caregivers in particular. Beyond play, the whole park has walking paths of varying texture.