Motif House . Uluborlu

Project . Motif House
Client . Union of Historical Towns
Area . 180 m²
Location . Uluborlu / Isparta
Year . 2026
Program . Cultural
Project Team . Ali Sinan, Alp Yılmaz, Meryem Merve Başoda, Yiğit Kantarcı

In a settlement that has been called Apollonia, then Sozopolis, then Borgulu and finally Uluborlu, this registered house is among the last surviving examples of the town’s vernacular architecture. The project keeps the building’s own identity intact while reconnecting it to Uluborlu’s weaving tradition. The ground floor receives the public; production and learning take place on the first floor. To the east, where only the rubble-stone walls of the ground floor had survived, a contemporary corten shell completes what was lost. The result is a living cultural space in which craft knowledge passes between generations, above all among women and children.

THE SECOND LIFE OF A HOUSE

To conserve a building is not to remove it from time. It is the opposite: to return it to time, to give it back to the flow of everyday life. That was the question asked of the registered house in Uluborlu — what does this building remember, and what can it do today?

CONTEXT

Uluborlu is one of the settlements in Isparta with the deepest historical layering. Occupation here has been continuous from antiquity through Byzantium, the Seljuks and the Hamidids to the Ottoman period; the place has carried the names Apollonia, Sozopolis and Borgulu in turn. Uluborlu Castle, the Alaaddin Mosque and the traditional housing fabric are what remains of that memory. The house belongs to this fabric: its rubble stone and timber elements, its façade character and its spatial organisation make it a representative example of the town’s domestic heritage. Its proximity to the castle and the mosque lifts it out of being a single dwelling and makes it a link in an urban continuity. The nearby vocational school and high schools give the building a ready constituency.

THE DECISION: TO REMAIN DISTINGUISHABLE

The original domestic plan had been altered by successive interventions, the most conspicuous being the later absorption of the eastern courtyard into the building. In that part, where only the rubble-stone walls survive, decisions were developed from the evidence that could still be read, and imitation was avoided wherever the original could not be established with certainty. A contemporary structure and a corten shell were set inside the existing stone walls. The new work declares itself without overshadowing the old.

A corten line that begins in the street and continues into the building is the threshold element that carries the idea of the project. It is not merely a device for orientation; it is a narrative that ties the building’s earlier spatial traces to its present use. The line brings the visitor first into the courtyard. Defined by a fountain and by boundary walls, the courtyard is the building’s first public threshold: a place for exhibitions, open-air events, workshops and meeting.

PROGRAM

The ground floor is the social layer where the visitor is received and public life begins — a cafeteria, a supplementary space and service areas. The first floor is given over to production: a weaving workshop, a ceramics workshop, a study room, a multi-purpose hall and a display area in the sofa. The original timber ceilings, cupboard niches and door and window proportions were retained, and the new functions were placed with minimal intervention. Poor-quality later additions were removed; original parts that could still be read were rebuilt in keeping with the evidence.

OUTCOME

Motif House does not remain a conserved monument. It becomes a public centre organised around making, brought back to life on the traces of the past — a place where local practices such as weaving, carpet making and ceramics are taught, and where craft knowledge is passed between generations, particularly among women and children. Through the continuity it establishes between street, courtyard and interior, the house becomes part of a cultural route that makes Uluborlu’s historical memory something that can be experienced.