SELIM VURAL - ARCHITECT

Selim Vural is a architect based in New York for the last 12 years. As Retro Design, we have chosen 3 of his projects as prototypical pieces, defining his vision in art and architecture. Mr. Vural also has an academic career, teaching architectural studio classes. He is currently teaching a 3rd Year Studio at NYIT and is working on an internet project which would allow students and scholars of architecture to post their projects on the internet. He calls this the ARCHI-PORT, which is a term derived from the blending of words architecture and portal. If the project takes place, it is conceived of operating on 13 languages and multiple digital formats which can be translated to other formats around the world in a matter of seconds. The ARCHI-PORT would allow millions of scholars and students communicate, interact and compete in various architectural activities.

His latest 3 projects we would like to introduce is Delfino Handbags in the Upper East Side, Mountain Hut Hotel Competition in Nevada and a hypothetical tower project " The Horizontal Tower". Delfino Handbags is a showroom / retail store with a specialty on handbags and leather accessories. Mr. Vural' s interior design is composed of a series of cabinets, shelving systems and window exhibition units, which, when assembled in a group radically changes the experience of space and movement in the showroom. Mr. Vural says that " The idea behind the Delfino design is a constellation of elements which visually complement and communicate with one another through lines of energy and mobility." One experiences the energy of the exhibition units, all manufactured in wenge wood and glass, once one enters the store. The first impression is a group of masses swarming towards the spectator with tremendous speed. As opposed to conventional exhibition units which are based on he static stability of the object, the pieces at Delfino promote a flow of energy that constantly refers the subject to the next location . It would not be an exaggeration to state that the Delfino units hint at what might be the next generation of exhibition design.

The second project of interest is a hypothetical tower project for the congested metropolis Mr. Vural is currently working on . The project addresses the problems of urban centers and the disappointments of suburbia which Mr. Vural says "generate endless alienation and cultural isolation" . In his words, suburbia has created another vacuum in the cultural and social life of industrial societies and has failed to deliver the happiness and prosperity it once promised. Mr. Vural's Vertical Plaza is a proposition to revive the cultural, if not the residential qualities of city centers which have become dead carcasses after work hours. He argues that the city center will always be there to some extent no matter how advanced distance ignoring internet technology becomes. The project proposes a series of suspended gardens and cultural/recreational platforms of various activity. The images we have included show only one slice of what might be an infinitely growing structure, that centralizes or intensifies when necessary and extrudes when not. These are suspended platforms of wild spaces which remembers the glory of the European Piazza or the Middle Eastern Meydan. We are hoping to report more as the project progresses.

For the third project we provided two images and an internet link where you might acquire detailed information. The project is a hotel competition for mountaineers in Nevada and as a competition achieved international competition.