2026




NEWS



Broadcast on Açık Radyo

6 July 2026
I was a guest on Açık Radyo's "Cultural Heritage and Preservation: For Whom? For What?" program. We discussed the disappearing dalyans of the Bosphorus, examining their historical, spatial, and cultural dimensions. Referring to the Beykoz Dalyan as an example, we explored the collective making practices of dalyans, their significance in terms of urban history and memory, why they are disappearing, and the possibilities of passing them on to future generations.

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BIAA Masters Dissertation Prize 2025

6 March 2026
My masters dissertation has been awarded with the 2025 Masters Dissertation Prize by the British Institute at Ankara.
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Urbanogram: Journal of the Built Environment

21 February 2026
My article about urban transformation and environmental pollution on Bağdat Street was published in Urbanogram: Journal of the Built Environment. This essay criticises top-down planning approaches that prioritise economic value over ecological and social well-being (pp. 82–89).
See the article

IPA Urban Agenda Research January report

30 January 2026

Istanbul Planning Agency’s Urban Agenda Research January report, “Blue Publicness in Istanbul: Encounters with the Sea in Everyday Life,” has now been published. This comprehensive study explores how Istanbul residents engage with the sea in their everyday lives. My contribution focuses on social life aboard ferries in the 19th and 20th centuries, examining how ferries functioned as a key stage for Istanbul’s process of modernisation (pp. 56-62).

See the report

Tactical Urbanism Now!

1 December 2025

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, won the Community’s Choice Award!

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Anatomy of Inspiration

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

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The Bartlett Autumn Show Book 2025

4 October 2025

My master’s dissertation was among the few fully featured in The Bartlett Autumn Show Book 2025 (page 18)!
See the book

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ABOUT
Zeynep Igmen is an architect and researcher. Her research investigates the environmental and anthropological dimensions of architectural histories of waterscapes and coastal geographies, with a particular interest in the relationships between ecology, labour, tacit epistemologies, and built and unbuilt environments. Drawing on her training in architecture, architectural history, and literature, she combines archival research with spatial methodologies, including mapping and documentary-making. 

ETH Zürich 2026-
Doctoral fellow at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta)

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
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2026


Location: Bloomsbury, London
Type: Exhibition, group
Role: Co-coordinator (with Luzan Munayer)
Date: 2025 Fall

Institution: The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

The Autumn Show Exhibition of MA Architecture and Historic Urban Environments (MAHUE) was on display for two weeks and did invite all into the expanded universe of architectural research and design through the global lens of its 2024-2025 cohort. The exhibition showcased key preoccupations of concepts, themes and issues dissolves the taxonomical boundaries between outputs produced across six academic modules - essays, design briefs, spatial propositions, screenplays, interviews, critical fabulations - and foregrounds the richness of experimental spatial practices that are being forged over the course of the 12-month postgraduate programme. The body of work reflected the individual subjectivities of each student, their contexts, histories and cultural milieu, and simultaneously the global backdrop of concerns in the age of climate emergency, geopolitical turmoil and the erosion of checks and balances across scales and location. I coordinated the Autumn Show, managing timelines, logistics, and installations while liaising between students, staff, and external partners to ensure a professional and collaborative exhibition. I also organised a guided tour of our programme’s Autumn Show display, where I curated the tour content and delivered information to a diverse audience, ranging from practitioners to academics.