Milimetrik Architects' colourful family festival at Istanbul's Rami Library

Every so often a festival is designed rather than simply set up, and AileFest 2026 at Istanbul's historic Rami Library is a good example. Turkish practice Milimetrik Architects turned the library's courtyard and interior halls into one connected landscape for family play, learning and cultural events, spread across 91,000 square metres and visited by around 825,000 people between 26 September and 6 October.

The idea was to avoid fixed play equipment. Instead, the courtyard was scattered with modular geometric volumes, abstract shelters and brightly coloured gathering spots, sized for children of different ages and left open for them to work out how to use. Inside, the book fair dropped the usual grid of booths for pitched, house-shaped pavilions, display stands in primary colours and graphic floor patterns, with a continuous route linking the open-air courtyards to the old galleries.

Everything was built from temporary timber and steel, so the heritage building itself was left untouched. Worth knowing that this came to designboom as a reader submission from the architects.

The festival has now finished, so there is nothing to see on site. It's one for anyone interested in children's spaces, or in how temporary design can bring an old civic building to life.

Our summary of a story from designboom, published 31 October 2026. Read the original