Construction Diary: An Artist Plays Architect to Design a Brutalist-Inspired Family Home in Turkey

Growing up in Turkey, one of Hakan Topal’s summer jobs memorably unfolded on a building site. His father, Cemal Topal, was an engineer and wanted him to learn the trade, "so I spent 15 days with construction workers," recalls Hakan. Today, Hakan is an artist and associate professor of new media and art and design at Purchase College, State University of New York. But before embarking on this creative and research-driven path, he followed in his father’s footsteps, pursuing engineering at Middle East Technical University (where he also snagged a master’s degree in gender and women’s studies) before heading to New York in 2000.

His background in art and science was a boon when he went to create Sandima Modern, a nearly 3,000-square-foot retreat and adjacent 323-square-foot cantilevered guest suite for his family near centuries-old Sandima village in Bodrum, Turkey. Between 2018 and 2021, Hakan spent ample time on the property, playing "amateur architect," as he puts it, designing and building the raw concrete dwelling within a scenic olive grove on nearly two-and-a-half rocky acres with help from his father.

In the past, Hakan had tackled small renovation projects and designed museum installations, but none were "on this scale," he points out. "It was a risk." Thankfully, he had a cohort of architect friends willing to offer guidance along the way. Here, he walks us through the ambitious process.

A Stunning Location

Hakan: The Aegean coast of Turkey is magical. When my parents retired, they relocated from Ankara to Bodrum to live in a co-op. (In this area, co-ops are small towns composed of tiny houses.) But they also wanted a farmhouse, something like what they had in Ankara. My father is a village boy at heart. We looked at a lot of different sites together, and when they bought this olive grove on a hillside, which was a farm with cows and goats, I jumped on it, and said it was going to be my project.

Based on the code from the municipality, we knew the maximum footprint we could build, and we wanted to make it as simple as possible. A flat area demanded where the house should be, and our goal was to not interfere with the olive trees. My mother, Zekiye Topal, helped with the landscape design. The grove retains its natural slopes and original wild flora—there were monumental olive trees already there—and we planted more than 100 new olive and fruit trees. They are growing now, which is so beautiful.