Eminent Turkish fashion designer Ümit Ünal was recently recruited by insulation system cooperative Blue'Safe MaviKale to assist in the conception and implementation of an ad campaign that would raise awareness in the Turkish public about the role of home insulation in preventing consumer energy waste. The result is the “We're jacketing İstanbul” project, featuring a set of scale models of five historic İstanbul buildings -- the Galata Tower, the Haydarpaşa train station, the Sarkuysan building, İstanbul University's Beyazıt campus entrance and the Akmerkez shopping center -- each with their own designer-made overcoat.
Once placed on the streets in İstanbul, where the models will switch locations from time to time, the pieces are sure to attract attention. Accompanying the models, dressed up in fine fabrics in different shades of Blue'Safe MaviKale's company color, blue, are Ünal's notes on his choices of clothing for each building and the building's history. Speaking with Today's Zaman, the designer expressed his hopes that the public exhibitions would strike a note with everyday citizens and raise awareness about global warming and individual responsibility to prevent energy waste.
 Models of five historic İstanbul buildings clothed in “jackets” will be placed on the streets of İstanbul and change locations from time to time to draw attention to Turkey's energy waste issues. |
At a press conference held on Thursday to promote the project, Levent Pelesen, the general manager of Mardav Yalıtım, one of the three firms in the Blue'Safe MaviKale collective, noted the symbolic importance of the project in raising public awareness about the critical role home insulation plays in energy waste versus conservation. In Turkey, a nation heavily dependent on external sources of energy, a third of energy waste occurs in homes. “Turkey imports 88 percent of its energy, at a cost of $48 billion, but can save TL 10 billion annually just by properly insulating homes,” Pelesen said. “With insulation four centimeters thick, up to 50 percent in energy savings can be accomplished.”
Insulation can decrease Turkey's need for foreign energy
Echoing the project's slogan -- “İstanbul is keeping up with fashion, İstanbul is jacketing up” -- Gökhun Kurt, a technical sales engineer for the Dow Chemical Company, another Blue'Safe MaviKale partner, noted the need for Turkey to bring its home insulation procedures up to the European standard. “By 2020 the European Union plans to modify all state buildings and as many buildings as possible in general to fit the ‘passive housing' standard where each building only wastes 15 kilowatt-hours of energy per square meter annually. This can be compared to a figure of 300 kilowatt-hours of energy per square meter for Turkey,” Kurt said.
He asserted that if Turkey was to keep up with the EU on this issue, the state needed to provide incentives for better insulation, particularly by decreasing the value-added tax on insulation materials -- currently 18 percent -- to 1 percent. Drawing attention to the contrast between state policies on the issue in the EU and in Turkey, he said: “Taxes aren't so high on food because it's a necessity. Insulation is also a basic need.”
