When is a house finished? When the last tile is set, or when the acceptance report is signed? For us, neither. A house is finished when everyone whose labour lives in its walls can leave it with a clear heart.
That is why we do the same thing at the end of every project: we set a table. The craftsmen whose work is in the walls, the roof and the pipes of that house sit down with its owners. Food is shared, stories are told; the hard days of the site have already turned into stories to laugh about. And the work is handed over with helalleşme: a mutual exchange of blessings, together.
Why helalleşme?
Construction is, by nature, a tense business. Expectations, deadlines, budgets... For months, the labour of dozens of people and the dream of one family accumulate inside the same walls. Helalleşme closes that account on a clean page: the craftsman gives his sweat freely, and the owner says, with an easy heart, that the labour has been repaid.
There is also an invisible side to this tradition: the craftsmen's side. Having your work seen by the person who will live in it, hearing the thanks said face to face: that is the part of this trade money cannot measure.
"The reward for this work cannot be measured in money." (Sayim Akdeniz)
A table at Elmalı House
We held our most recent helalleşme dinner after handing over Elmalı House, a finalist of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. You can watch the recording of that day in the Helalleşme section of our home page.
We hope one day to meet around the table of your house, too.