PTM Project has broken ground on theOrtahisar Planetarium , a new 7500 square meter project  that will define a new identity for the Trabzon Science and Technology Museum in the Ortahisar district of Trabzon, Turkey. 

The Planetarium Pavilion is located on the north side of the Astronomical Park. The architects made it an open landscape pavilion integrated into the environment. The Planetarium Pavilion is designed with a dome-shaped screen. The setting of a metal shading and sound absorption window ensures that the presentation of the astronomical phenomena can be achieved at any time. The Planetarium Pavilion is shaped like an inverted round platform, the tiles on the top of which add the finishing touch to the building in appearance. The practice of the hollowing-out technique also makes the lighting of the campus at night more special.

The architects set up the empty courtyard in the Astronomy Pavilion. The upper part of the empty courtyard folds inward, thus eliminating the interference of the surrounding environment. The pure sky mutually echoes with the courtyard floor laid with white stones, thus forming a closed geometric space.

The periphery of the empty courtyard is designed with the intervention of a series of circles tangent with the inner and outer circles, and the reconstruction of the center of the circles, the different spaces for use are subdivided by the arc wall, among which the largest space is a place for exhibition and reading.

Inspired by astronomical principles, the design is centered on the concept of orbital motion. “Each of the building’s three principal forma—the oculus, the inverted dome, and the sphere—acts as an astronomical instrument, tracking sun, moon, and stars, and reminding visitors that our concept of time originates in distant astronomical objects."