PARTICIPANTS ITU – CIRCLE Project

ITU PARTICIPANTS

Ayşegül Akçay Kavakoğlu is an architect and associate professor in ITU Department of
Landscape Architecture. Her research interests involve design process, computational
design, fabric formwork, representation and moving image studies in general. Akçay
Kavakoğlu graduated from Dokuz Eylül University, with a Bachelor of Architecture degree.
She has conducted her master studies at Middle East Technical University and Ecole
Nationale Supérieure d’architecture de Paris-Belleville. She graduated from METU with her
master thesis focused on the representation of city images in cinema. She got her Ph.D. in
architecture degree from METU by researching the contribution of moving image to the
computational design process. She executed several workshops and curated exhibitions.
Akçay Kavakoğlu has worked on various architectural design projects and has awards in
national architecture competitions.

Ayşegül Akçay Kavakoğlu

Ph.D.

Begüm Eser

M.Ud

Begüm Eser is a designer and researcher specializing in urban studies. Her primary
research interests include planning theories, education, studio pedagogy, and studio
education in urban planning. She works as a research and teaching assistant at ITU
Department of Urban and Regional Planning. She earned her master’s degree from ITU
Urban Design Graduate Program with a thesis titled «Semiotics in Spatial Design and Its
Potentials in the Design Studio. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at ITU.

Bihter Almaç

Ph.D.

Bihter Almaç is a designer/researcher of architecture in the other end of the weird. And her
research mainly focuses on tactics for peculiar creativities to trespass to the wilder realms of
architecture to seek existentially clumsy formations. Her work consists of drawings;
architectural things – games, gadgets, devices; architectural essay films. These are
exhibited internationally in festivals, curated exhibitions and conferences. Recently, she was
selected as one of the Young Architects under 40 in Turkey, by The Circle O. She is an
associate professor in the ITU Department of Architecture. She received her PhD degree in
Architectural Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, with her thesis titled,
Designing in a State of Distraction: The Wild Fields of Architecture. She has a MSci from
ITU in Architectural Design, with her thesis titled: Folding of Places. She is a BArch graduate
from ITU.

Eda Yücesoy is an associate professor at the ITU Department of Urban and Regional
Planning. Her research focuses on spatial relations, social and economic geography, urban
history, public space. She is the academic consultant at Istanbul Institute. Her latest projects
include Community Participatory Model Proposal for Healthy Cities (TUBITAK 2019-2022),
Cultural Heritage Technologies for Sustainable Cities (Science Diplomacy Fund NWO
2020-2021), PIVOT Re-visioning Peripheral Geographies (UK Royal Academy 2020 –
2021).

Eda Yücesoy

Ph.D.

İmge Akçakaya Waite

Ph.D.

İmge Akçakaya Waite is currently an associate professor at the ITU Department of Urban
and Regional Planning, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. She
earned her PhD in urban planning in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Luskin
School of Public Affairs, with her dissertation titled “Planning, power, politics: Urban
redevelopment in Istanbul.” In affiliation with UCLA and ITU, she has participated in EU,
UN-Habitat and other internationally and nationally funded research projects on institutional
and community capacity building, urban and rural governance, and inclusive planning.
Among her recent fields of interest and teaching are decision-making and governance
mechanisms, collaborative and participatory planning, and urban redevelopment.

Zeynep Günay

Ph.D.

Zeynep Gunay is an associate professor at the ITU Department of Urban and Regional
Planning (URP). Her research explores heritage with a particular focus on critical narratives
based on conflict heritage, memory & heritageisation, and inclusive conservation as well as
everyday life commons and justice. She has several international and national projects
including Prizren Municipal Development Plan under the supervision of UN-Habitat and
UNESCO/WHC supported Istanbul Historic Peninsula Conservation Project, which was
awarded a Medal in Europa Nostra Awards. She participated in Horizon 2020 MSCA-RISE
Project on Art, Culture, Economy to Democratize Society (Trans-making) with her research
on alternative narratives on heritage, arts and conflict in Morocco, Chile, Bosnia and Sicily.
She acted as the academic consultant of Istanbul Planning Agency Vision 2050, besides
being a member of ICOMOS, and serving in the Board of ISOCARP for two terms as the
Director of Young Planning Professionals’ Programme.

THE NAME OF ITU

One of the oldest technical universities in the world, has become identical with engineering and architecture education. ITU provides undergraduate education with 67 programs in 5 different campuses, 13 faculties, 1 conservatory, and graduate education in 7 institutes located in the center of Istanbul.

Being the architect of countless scientific and technological advances, ITU has succeeded many firsts. There are more than 400 laboratories and 17 research centers. ITU has the most ABET Accreditation in the world, with its 25 accredited engineering programs.

Students participating in the International Joint Degree Programs are entitled to double degrees by completing half of their education at partner universities in the USA. Offering double major and minor opportunities at many departments, ITU has the highest number of Erasmus exchange programs with nearly 1000 partnerships.

ITU is home to science-industry-technology with more than 2500 R&D projects carried out in ARI Teknokent. In addition, entrepreneurial students are supported with ITU Seed, also known as the “entrepreneurship ecosystem”.

The first cube satellite, the first electric minibus, the first hydrogen-powered boat, the first unmanned automobile, and the first domestic computer were manufactured at ITU. Besides, Turkey’s first television broadcast was aired from ITU, and the first university radio was founded by ITU.

ITU’s institutional history, intellectual memory and its esteemed environment builds a strong bridge from the past to the future. With its development in line with the requirements of the age, its innovative perspective and its structure that cares about establishing relations with the world; ITU is the university of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Partners

For more information, visit ITU Main Page, and International Office ITU

This project commits to empower new generations of professionals working in a circular transition with a socio-civic compromise. To that end, we establish the Circular & SOC Learning (CIRC.LE) Hub; a meeting point for students, professors, transdisciplinary experts, society at large, and decision-makers, working together with a circular and sociocivic compromise. In the Circular & SOC Learning Hub, students reflect on challenges by evaluating social and civic implications and become co-creators and active part of the challenge. This humanizing approach is here considered as the perfect complement to the technical skills for a true application of circularity principles. The CIRC.LE Hub creates a multi-stakeholder, participatory, democratic mutual learning and knowledge transfer platform and puts on the table complex dilemmas and “out of the box” ideas for students’ social and civic development and promoting local action and global thinking. This contributes to boosting the concept of the European Engineer. The pilot Circular & SOC Learning Hub will be promoted by the participating Universities and Associated Partners and then grow beyond this partnership.