When the need for apartments overwhelmed the Erenköy neighborhood of Istanbul in the 1980s, developers destroyed the local vineyards to put down concrete slabs for a new city grid. Aytac Architects paid homage to the old family vineyards with Apartman 18, a 10-story luxury building that evokes the former agricultural site with its vinelike, "intertwining" façade.
The façade was designed to climb up and wrap around the units, which feature large walls of glass and small balconies. By playing with angular shapes on the exterior and interior, the architects enlivened the sense of a vine with a mixture of convex and concave elements in each floor plan of the mid-rise, which was completed in 2014.
Apartman 18's nine units each spread out across one floor of the building with no adjacent units, due to the narrow site. The units range from 2,000 to 2,500 square feet in two- and three-bedroom floor plans. All feature an expansive master suite with an ensuite bathroom, and residents have the option to reduce the space of the suite to create another bedroom, for a maximum of four bedrooms.
The vine effect culminates at the rooftop, where residents can throw a party in the building's clubhouse or swim a lap in the pool overlooking the city.