Dr Hafsa Olcay (PhD in Architecture)
Teaching Fellow in Architectural Theory
Contact details
- Email: holcay@ed.ac.uk
- Linkedin Profile
Background
Hafsa is a Teaching Fellow in Architectural Theory at ESALA. She holds a PhD degree in Architecture from the University of Edinburgh and BFA and MA degrees in Interior Architecture and Environmental Design from Bilkent University, Turkey. Before pursuing her PhD, she worked on a range of design projects from illustration and game interface design to architectural and urban design through her roles at The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey, digital game studios, and architectural and urban design studios.
Her early research focused on design studies and theories of design process, with a particular interest in architectural pedagogy and interdisciplinary collaboration in design education. Her MA thesis examined the emergence of Interior Architecture as an academic discipline and professional practice by situating it within developments in design and the built environment in the 20th century.
Later, her work shifted toward bridging interior and urban scales and exploring social inequalities through multi-scalar conceptions of home. Her PhD research, ‘Temporary Homes’, investigated architectures of forced migration in Athens in the aftermath of the so-called refugee crisis in 2015 by employing a transdisciplinary approach.
Hafsa’s current academic work continues to engage critically with architectural tools, spatial practices, and representation across scales from interiors to the urban toward socially and environmentally just futures. She is particularly interested in non-normative spatial analysis methods and experimental representation techniques that reveal marginalised spatial realities. More recently, her research has expanded to consider environmental inequalities and non-human perspectives in spatial practices.
Since her master’s studies at Bilkent University, Hafsa has taught both studio-based and theoretical courses. Her teaching reflects her transdisciplinary engagement. At the University of Edinburgh, her teaching spanned multiple schools and programs, and she contributed to teaching in Architecture, Design, Landscape Architecture, Urban Strategies and Design, and GeoSciences.
From 2023 to 2025, Hafsa served as Course Organiser for the core 3rd year Architectural Theory course in the MA Architecture program at ESALA. She has also supervised dissertations across BA in Design, MA in Architecture, and MSc Urban Strategies and Design.
Hafsa served as an editor for the peer-reviewed academic journal Edinburgh Architecture Research (EAR) from 2021 to 2024, and was as a co-convenor of the Prokalò Seminar Series from 2017 to 2019.