Dr Hafsa Olcay (PhD in Architecture)

Teaching Fellow in Architecture

Biography

Background

Hafsa is a Teaching Fellow in Architecture at ESALA. She holds a PhD degree in Architecture from the University of Edinburgh, and BA and MFA 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 (TÜBİTAK), 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 master's thesis: 'A Story of Interior Architecture: Emergence and early educational implementations in Turkey' 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 developed towards bridging interior and urban scales and exploring social inequalities through multi-scalar conceptions of 'home'. Her PhD research, ‘Temporary Homes: Architectures of forced migration in post-2015 Athens’ 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 in the pursuit of socially and environmentally just futures. She is particularly interested in non-normative spatial analysis methods, bottom-up practices and experimental representation techniques that reveal marginalised spatial realities. More recently, her research has expanded to consider environmental and climate-related inequalities in spatial practices.

Since her master’s studies at Bilkent University, Hafsa has taught both studio-based and theoretical courses and delivered methods seminars and workshops for students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across ESALA and School of Design. Her teaching spans multiple schools and programs, and she contributed to teaching in Architecture, Interior Design, Design, Landscape Architecture, Urban Strategies and Design and GeoSciences in undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Hafsa served as an editor for the peer-reviewed Edinburgh Architecture Research Journal (EAR) from 2021 to 2024, and was as a co-convenor of the Prokalò Seminar Series from 2017 to 2019.

Undergraduate teaching

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. She played a key role in the launch and delivery of Interior Theory 4: Design Context between 2025-2026.

Previously taught on:

  • Design and Screen Cultures 4: Dissertation
  • Landscapes of Abandonment & Inhabitation
  • Architectural Design Studio: Elements
  • Social and Cultural Geography
  • Economic and Political Geography

 

Postgraduate teaching

Hafsa is currently the Course Organiser for Emergent Cities, a research-led elective postgraduate course, and contributes to a field-based course MSc in Architecture, Landscape and Environment: Exploring Situated Methods: Independent Field Lab and Urban Project Studio, MSc in Urban Strategies and Design.

Previously taught on:

  • Reading Interiors
  • Intersections Studio
  • Urban Project Studio

Delivered lectures for: MScR Research Seminar, Postgraduate Research Methods, MSc Research Methods and Architecture Dissertation. Supervised projects in: MA Architecture BA Interior Design BA Design (Product, Textiles, Graphic, Fashion, Interior) MSc Urban Strategies and Design

Areas of interest for supervision

 

 

Research summary

Hafsa is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Urban-PREDICT (WWRP), a major interdisciplinary research programme, where she focuses on integrating bottom-up and socially situated knowledge into approaches to high-resolution forecasting, risk communication and decision support in vulnerable urban contexts. She also continues collaborations from Impacts of War: Labs4TwinnedResearch where she worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher, and builds research and pedagogical outputs with collaborators from Kyiv and Amsterdam.

Affiliated research centres

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