Informatics Valley, locally known as Bilişim Vadisi, is the largest and most comprehensive of technology development zones (TDZ) of Turkey. IT Valley is a joint venture between several state owned institutions, and is administered by a public corporation financially and executively overseen by the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology; along with the Governorship of Kocaeli. Major shareholders of IT Valley include Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), Turkish Standards Institution (TSE), Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality and Gebze Technical University.
The board of directors announced the bidding process for project services in February 2014, and invited six shortlisted national project offices. Following a three phase elimination process, BÜTÜNER was awarded the commission in June 2014. The services involved the design of a master plan for the entire 3 square kilometer site with leasable floor area of 1.650.000 square meters. Complete architectural, engineering, landscape and infrastructure project packages and their respective tender documents were required for the first phase buildings with a gross floor area of 307.000 square meters. In addition to the first phase buildings and their surroundings, the project team was also required to design the landscape and campus infrastructure for the central valley, raising the area for landscape and infrastructure project services to 840.000 square meters. The project site was extended in early 2016 to also include seafront development, for which Bütüner designed 50.000 m2 compound of retail areas, a ferry terminal, technical & parking facilities.
