Author: OPENACT.architecture Team: Zuhal Kol, Carlos Zarco Sanz, Ozan Önder Özener, Zeynep Küheylan, Ozan Şen, Berna Yaylalı, Zehra Saday Aygün, Basak Demireş Özkul, Berrak Zeynep Yılmaz, Merve Özyalın, Ada Karadoğan, İpek Temizkan Type: Two-Phased UrbanDesign Competition Client: IBB Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Location: Prince Islands. Istanbul, Turkey Status: 1st Award - Commissioned Period: July 2021 - ongoing Emerged as an unplanned urban void in the busy Hora district of Prince Islands, “Phaeton” Square served as the main transportation node and the starting station of the famous tours of Büyükada (Prinkipo). Having occupied as a parking and rotation space, the square was a hidden backstage, away from the sight but constantly in preparation for the historically, socially and culturally rich acts of Büyükada’s daily life. Interpreting the current transportation decisions opportunistically, the project aims to explore the potentials of backstage (phaeton station) to transform into the main stage (main square) of public life, and to research its abilities not only as a space for its close vicinity but for the entirety of Büyükada and all the Prince Islands. This design mechanism proposes an intertwined way of engagement with public space by introducing collective program as a consequence of interactive superimposed layers, allowing flexible development; anticipating active participation of the user and ecology; conceiving continuous and legible spatial organization for more interaction; considering the significance of open spaces as public spaces; and addressing these issues in multiple program scenarios in the processes of multitudes of cultures. It offers soft urbanism strategies that are free of the controlling obsession with certainty, predictability, or permanence but instead dynamic, flexible, ad hoc.