Meydan Shopping Centre, Istanbul, Turkey

Client: Metro Group Asset Management
Architect: Foreign Office Architects
Contractor: ICS Ic ve Dis Tic. Ltd. Sti Yukaridudullu-Umraniye/Istanbul
Type of works: supply and installation of 54,000m² of Rhepanol hg green roof membrane.

Rhepanol hg played a key role in reshaping the urban landscape of Turkey’s most crowded city.

The vast 70,000 sq m M1 Meydan Umraniye shopping and leisure complex, in Istanbul, is the country’s first shopping centre to feature a green roof – at 54,000m², the largest of its kind.

Opened to the public in June 2007, the €34m Istanbul shopping centre has been hailed as one of the most exciting additions to Istanbul in modern times. The pioneering design won the process category of the 2008 European Business Awards for Environment for the geothermic technology used throughout the building.

Rhepanol hg, the product of more than 30 years of technological expertise, was specified because it provides a completely waterproof and root-resistant cover, allowing the roof to be planted up and thus offsetting some of the development’s carbon emissions.

Some 35,000m² of flat and sloping roofs were planted with vegetation, providing a much-needed rooftop green oasis for the city’s 14 million residents.

The remaining 20,000m² is gravelled to provide a public square – complete with lush vegetation and a water feature which can be used as a skating rink in winter.

Installing the build up on 700 pitched areas – unusually high for green roofs – was a major success.