Teaching & Mentorship

I enjoy academic endeavors such as doing research, thinking about the history and the theory of design and how it can apply to the way I work as a designer. I enjoy using this approach and way of working as an integral part of my professional life as well. Through design thinking, I am able to bring the research driven and iterative process that is very much aligned to the way studio classes are conducted at school. Hence, I started my teaching journey while I was a student and continued on when I moved back to Turkey. Even though currently I am not teaching any classes, I have always been mentoring students in their school work to help them get ready for their final jury.

Pratt Institute: Teaching Assistant

During my last year of my masters, I had the chance to start my teaching experience as an assistant to two of my favorite teachers. Bruce Hannah, who has been one of the most influential teachers in my career, was teaching a first year course called ID-Tech. This was an introductory course that was very intense and filled with being exposed to new techniques and concepts every two weeks. I was his assistant for this class for one semester.

Rebecca Welz was another very influential part of my time at Pratt. She introduced me to biomimicry which became an integral part of my thesis project. She taught us methods to think outside the box and see things in a new light. During my final semester at Pratt, I was her assistant for this class.

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Find out more about Bruce Hannah

Find out more about Rebecca Welz

Bilgi University: Part-Time Instructor

I spent a semester as a part-time instructor at Bilgi University. I was teaching Technical Drawing for first year students of the Faculty of Architecture students.

We were two instructors and we had an assistant helping us. We covered different techniques each week and on top of having drawing assignments we also used the class time as working sessions.

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Kadir Has University: Part-Time Instructor

I spent a semester teaching Basic Design at Kadir Has University. During the first semester, the course we designed was a general course directed at the entire Faculty of Architecture students and the sections were also mixed. We taught them the main principles of design: hierarchy, color, 3D thinking, using all of the senses etc.

During the second semester, our sections were consistent of students in each department. I was teaching Basic Design II for Industrial Design students. We did four different projects where we used class time as working session and a time for giving critiques. In addition to designing, critical thinking and presentation skills were also part of the course requirements. We also had a trip to Milano during the Salone del Mobile where we had a chance to see some of the great designers and their work first hand.

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