2026




NEWS



Anatomy of Inspiration

I was a keynote speaker at the 18th Istanbul Biennial (2025) for the Anatomy of Inspiration talk series!

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Tactical Urbanism Now!
Our project From Soil to Soil: Stitching the Food Cycle through Landscapes and Cultures, with Fernando Sanchez for the Tactical Urbanism Now! competition by TerraViva, was selected as one of the finalists!

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ABOUT
Zeynep Igmen is an architect and researcher specializing in sustainable and socially just architectural and urban practices, based in London and Istanbul. Her work engages with cultural discourses, environmental history, territorial conflicts across land- and waterscapes, and their intersections with material and immaterial cultures. She also explores spatial tectonics and hands-on, low-tech making. In parallel, she contributes to the Latinization of Ottoman Turkish documents and literature.

The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL 2024-2025
MA Architecture and Historic Urban Environments 

          thesis titled “A Practice of Fishing along the Bosphorus: Mapping Dalyans as Sites of Collective Making and Memory”

Uskudar University 2024-2025
MA Sufi Culture and Literature

           final project titled “Tawakkul, Vigour, and Building in the Narrative of Prophet Noah”

Istanbul Bilgi University 2019-2023
BArch Architecture (High Honours)

London College of Music 2007-2022
Classical Piano, Grade 8


Curriculum Vitae
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2026


A Practice of Fishing along the Bosphorus:
Mapping Dalyans as Sites of Collective Making and Memory


Location: Bosphorus, Istanbul
Type: Academic, individual
Level: Masters Thesis, BARC0068
Date: 2025 Summer
Study: Fieldwork, archival research, participatory GIS mapping

Supervisor: Emily Mann

Institution: The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

This research investigates dalyans—site-specific fishing structures along the Bosphorus in Istanbul—as sites of collective making and memory, shaped by environmental attunement and local craft. Situated between land and water, dalyansembody knowledge rooted in seasonal rhythms and intergenerational expertise. Accordingly, this study reflects on dalyansas skill-based situated practices. Foregrounding in-situ and collaborative modes of production and inhabitation, it argues that dalyans function as infrastructures not only of food but also of local memory. Today, the sites of dalyans, constructed from wooden poles and nets and rebuilt over centuries, are increasingly being occupied by concrete infill and industrial marine traffic, while the practice itself is being abandoned due to its time- and labour-intensive nature. Through fieldwork, archival research, and participatory GIS mapping to record the historical and present appearance of dalyans and to consider what lessons they offer for the future, this study reflects on how hands-on, tacit practices can inform understandings of engagement with both the self and the environment.