Emre Akbil

My research interests are mainly about building concepts and tools for situating critical spatial practices and pedagogies. The tools make use of nomadic, feminist and decolonial methods and theories of subjectivity, power, and politics of space - supporting alliances around urban commons and empowering autonomous collectives.

Research on Urban Commons:

Collaborative research by the Urban Commons Research Group based at SSoA is composed of staff and PhD reserachers from the Design, Engagement and Practice (DEP) Research Group and Pedagogy Practice and Scholarship (PPS) Group as well as other researchers on urban commons from external institutions including Sheffield Hallam, London Met, NTU Athens. Since the set-up of the research team in 2018, we have organised seminars and workshops involving academics as well as urban grassroots groups in order to expand our collective understanding of urban commons and its potentials in democratizing access to and management of resources and urban infrastructures through promoting sustainability and community well-being. The rich and diverse contributions of the team members collated into a research output: the Handbook for Urban Commons due to be printed in 2022 by dpr Barcelona.

Decolonising Representation in Architectural Drawings:

I have co-initiated a pedagogical archive for decolonising representation of human figures in architectural drawings especially at diverse neighbourhoods/contexts.

Feminist Research Group at SSoA:

I have joined the Feminist Research group at SSoA in 2018. The group organised several readings and discussion sessions and contributed to the Feminist Teach-out attended by undergraduate, PGT and PGR students in February 2020. https://feministssoa.group.shef.ac.uk/?p=998

Cartographies of Minor Architectures:

Research is concerned with generating conceptual tools for capturing the heterogeneous voices of minor architectures with nomadic, decolonial, feminist trajectories. For this, a cartographic method is proposed as a relational framework for making visible the concepts and expressions of minor architectures otherwise obscured within dominant architectural narratives.

Urban Commoning for Conflict Transformation:

In 2012, as a group of architects, urbanists, and planners across the Cypriot divide, we formed an ‘informal’ collaborative practice called ‘Imaginary Famagusta’ (IF). IF contributed to forming an initial development plan for the city of Famagusta, re-imagining the city as a multi-enclaved urbanity going beyond the discourses of ethnically divided city. The research led to the project called the Hands-on Famagusta project, (www.hansonfamagusta.org) funded by USAID and UNDP, which aims at forming support structures for citizens enabling them to become active participants in urbanization processes within the conflicted territory of Famagusta. Out of the enclaved and stigmatized territory of Famagusta the project generated a new framework for spatial politics where the urban controversies are imagined beyond ethnic conflict transforming their antagonistic nature into debatable common urban imaginaries. More detail in Footprint magazine, volume 10, number 2, about the strategies and intensions of the project (http://footprint.tudelft.nl/index.php/footprint/article/view/1503) and in the book Guide to Common Imaginaries in Contested Cities, edited by Socrates Stratis, elaborating on the methodological transformation of spatial practices in contested spaces such as Famagusta (https://www.jovis.de/en/books/product/guide-to-common-urban-imaginaries-in-contested-spaces.html). Imaginary Famagusta contributed to the open archives of Contested Fronts exhibited in Cyprus Pavilion, 15th International Biennial of Architecture in Venice, 2016 (http://www.contestedfronts.org/concept). IF also facilitated a workshop and exhibition to promote building alliances for Cypriot Coastal Commons in 2017.

Other Stories of Housing Struggles:

Research targets housing as a nodal point of power and investigates housing struggles as an ecology of practices taking control of their future. We traced the alternative strategies of housing struggles informed by comparative analysis of their initiation, transformation and consolidation phases. 15 exemplar housing struggles distributed across Europe, South and North America were mapped and their spatio-political tools and methods evolving through the phases mentioned. (unpublished collaborative work carried out with Tatjana Schneider at SSoA).