Architect and Chilean National Architecture Award.

Teodoro Fernández

Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) (1972). Postdegree in Landscape Architecture, PUC (1992). Associate Professor, PUC (1989-today).

He has practiced the profession as an independent architect since 1984 until 1997 designing prived and public architecture in association with various chilean architects, such as Smijan Radic, Cecilia Puga, Montserrat Palmer, Rodrigo Pérez de Arce, among others. Since then, Teodoro worked as leader and founder of “Teodoro Fernández Architecture” office, devolping architecture and landscape projects.

Awards: Gran Medalla Asociación de Oficinas de Arquitectura, Chile (2013). National Award of Architecture, Chile (2014). Honorary Fellow, American Institute of Architects, USA (2016). Among other Chilean awards.

Senior management architect OMA Rotterdam.

Alper Kiremitçi

Alper Kiremitci is born in Ankara in 1983. He received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from METU in 2005 and MSc in Architecture degree from TU Delft in 2008. He worked in various Dutch and Italian offices in Rotterdam until the global credit crunch in 2009. Between 2010-2014 he worked as an independent consultant in Istanbul coordinating international design competitions and advising big real estate development companies. He joined OMA in Dubai in 2015 as Architect – Business Manager and he worked in the Gulf countries for 2 years. Since 2017 he is holding a senior manager position at OMA Rotterdam in charge of acquisition, business and client management in North Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe, South Asia and Australia. 

Alper Kiremitci has strong ties with academia and served as a jury member in several prestigious competitions. He served as a part-time studio instructor in TED University Ankara between 2020-2022 for final year architectural design studio. He has particular interest in socio-economical dimension of architecture and under which driving forces (regimes of power) built space is generated and offered for public use.

Phd Architect UC and Doctor of Design, Harvard University

Luis Valenzuela

Professor of the Design Lab and the Business School of the Adolfo Ibáñez University in undergraduate, postgraduate and open courses.

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With publications in applied scientific research in public policy, articles, magazines and books. Founder of the Territorial Intelligence Center of the Adolfo Ibáñez University and member of the board of the Center for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion.

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He was a professor at the Catholic University in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the Schools of Architecture and Engineering and Director of the UC Cities Observatory.

Professor at the Department of Architecture at the Middle East Technical University (METU).

Berin F. Gür

Berin F. Gür received a Bachelor of Architecture in 1989, a Master of Architecture in 1991, and a Ph.D. in Architecture in 1999 from the Department of Architecture at the Middle East Technical University (METU). In the same department, she worked as a research assistant between 1992-1995 and as an instructor between 1995-2002. She became an assistant professor in 2002, an associate professor in 2010, and a professor in 2015. She was given a one-year scholarship for postdoctoral research from the Scholarships Foundation of Greece (IKY) and completed her postdoctoral research in 2001 at the National Technical University of Athens. Since 1992, she has been teaching architectural design, leading classes that focus on the spatial and formal analysis of buildings, their underlying theories, and the examination of architectural precedents alongside contemporary architectural topics.  She has various publications in international and national journals and books on the processes of architectural design, architectural design education, architectural criticism, ideologies and architecture, and the production of urban space. She was the head of the TEDU Department of Architecture between 2013-2019 and worked as the Vice Dean between 2019-2021.

Berin F. Gür was a visiting scholar at the Cornell University Institute for Comparative Modernities from August 1, 2022, to July 31, 2023. During her time at Cornell and the ICM, she worked on her upcoming book, ‘The Conquest of Istanbul and the Manipulation of Architecture: The Islamist-nationalist Rhetoric of Conquest and Melancholy’.

Visiting professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT.

Olgu Çalişkan

Having earned his doctoral degree in urbanism at TU Delft, the Netherlands, in 2013, he has lectured and instructed at METU Faculty of Architecture, Department of City and Regional Planning, as a professor of urban design and morphology. His publications include the guest editorial for the journal of Built Environment (2011, 2022) and several articles, including those in the Journal of Urban Design (2010, 2022), Urban Design International (2012, 2020), Urban Morphology (2017), Habitat International (2023) and Cities (2024). His primary research interests encompass physical planning and design, urban morphology, urban design theory and methodology, parametric urban design, and industrial urbanism. As the coordinator of the Master of Urban Design, he instructs the MUD studio at METU. He also teaches courses, including ‘Creative Thinking for Planners,’ ‘Parametric Urban Design,’ and ‘Collective Housing Planning and Design’. In the body of TEPAV (The Economic Research Foundation of Turkey), he consulted for the strategic vision project for the Gaza urban strip, which was proposed to both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities in January 2016. Since his return to Turkey in 2014, he has been a jury member in a series of national and international design competitions. Within different design teams, he has had award-winning projects within recent national and international competitions, including Konyaaltı Waterfront (2015), Antalya and Taksim, İstanbul (2020). He is presently serving as a visiting professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT.

Head of the Department of Architecture, Iskenderun Technical University.

Mert Nezih Rifaioğlu

His main academic and professional interest areas are conservation of cultural heritage, urban morphology, management, planning and interpretation of heritage sites, architectural design in historic environments. He has conducted academic research on interpretation and presentation of heritage sites in the United Kingdom and in the ICCROM, Italy. He has been in the UK several times as a visiting scholar and worked on the topics of key themes and discussions on heritage interpretation; and developments in heritage interpretation in the UK. Besides,he was a post-doctoral fellow of ICCROM, Rome. He conducted research on heritage interpretation strategies in multi-layered heritage sites.

He is member of ICOMOS Turkiye National Committee and selected expert member of CIVVIH-ICOMOS (Historic Cities, Towns and Villages) and ICIP-ICOMOS (Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites) international scientific committees. He has been extensively studying on understanding and appreciating natural and cultural heritage interpretation which should be fostered through a sound assessment and is needed to have holistic achievements not only for analyzing the heritage sites themselves but also for understanding their outstanding universal values for both local and non-local participants.

He has consulted conservation, urban design and adaptive re-use projects of registered monuments, traditional dwellings and historic quarters of Hatay dated to different periods such as Ottoman Period soap factories, khans, caravansary and dwellings, mosques and churches, Memluk Period Hammam Building, French Mandate Period public buildings, mansions, and cinema.

Currently Head of City and Reginal Planning Department at TED University, Ankara.

Baykan Günay

He was born in 1945. In 1963, he entered Middle East Technical University, Department of City and Regional Planning. He completed his undergraduate education in 1968, his master's degree in 1971, doctoral studies in 1995; later became Associate Professor in 1997 and Professor in 2011.

Between 1968 and 1981, he worked as a private city planner and took part in the South Antalya Tourism Development Project. From 1981, until his retirement in 2012 he worked in the Department of City and Regional Planning at METU.

He served as the and Head of the Department of City and Regional Planning at METU and Advisor to the Rector.   He conducted the First, Second and Fourth year undergraduate program studios and the Urban Design master's program that he founded. He also lectured in the architecture department.

In the national and international meetings and seminars he attended and his publications, he focused on theoretical frameworks on topics such as physical planning, history of planning, basic design, urban history, tourism planning, property and design relations, design of residential areas, university campus design, history of architecture, planning and design education, slums, the existential dimension of conservation, the reproduction of cities, and the history of planning in Ankara.

As head of the Department of City and Regional Planning in TED University, he is attending the first and second year studios and lecturing on Planning  and Urban Design Theory.

Dean of TED University Faculty of Architecture and Design.

Namik Erkal

Namık Erkal is the Dean of TED University Faculty of Architecture and Design. His academic research and publications focus on early modern urban morphology, architecture of city frontiers, the architectural history of Ottoman market places, customhouses and maritime ports, specifically the urban history of Istanbul. He has realized architectural projects, which specializes on museums and new buildings in historical settings.

Faculty member at TED University.

Cansu Canaran

Cansu Canaran received his doctoral degree from Middle East Technical University (METU - Ankara) in 2009 while holding a position as a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP- New York).

Dr. Canaran has been a faculty member at TED University, teaching at both graduate and undergraduate levels since April 2016. He has been serving as the program director of the ‘Master of Architecture and Urban Studies’ from 2021 and ‘Master of Urban Design’ as of 2023.

From 2005 to 2021, he worked as a part-time instructor in the Urban Design Graduate Program at METU. During this period, alongside his academic studies, Canaran continued his professional work at the confluence of Architecture and Urbanism. Through his design practice, he has undertaken projects and consultancies on both architectural & urban scales; and developed master plans and urban design projects. In addition, he has prepared design briefs and served as a jury member for multiple international architectural-urban design competitions.

His research interests include urban design theory and method; basic design; urban morphology; form theory and representation; design and creativity; adaptive reuse of industrial heritage; campus master planning; and film, photography & media representations of architecture and the city.