Emre Abkil
MA in Urban Design co-leader
Year 2 Studio Tutor
e.akbil@sheffield.ac.uk
I am an architect and urbanist working on building speculative relations with social, political, and ecological thresholds of architecture and urbanism to enact minoritarian and commons-based political creations. In my teaching at Sheffield School of Architecture I explore decolonial, feminist and ecological tactics in critical spatial pedagogies. I am currently the co-leader of the MA in Urban Design programme and postgraduate module leader at MA in Architectural Design and studio tutor in the second-year Architecture undergraduate programme.
After training as an architect at Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus in 2000 (BA) and 2002 (MArch) and as an urbanist at Bauhaus-Dessau Kolleg, Germany, in 2007 I co-founded Etika Studio - an architectural practice awarded in several architectural and urban design competitions and including the Europa Nostra Award in 2016 as one of the partners of Home for Cooperation project. Together with a group of architects and planners, I have initiated ‘Imaginary Famagusta,’ (IF) an urban practice that navigates the ethnocratic urbanism of Cyprus and produces spatial imaginaries for reconciliation through urban commoning. Our collaborative work formed the Cyprus Pavilion at Venice Biannial of Architecture in 2016.
I had taken an active role in UCTEA Chamber of Architects as an executive board member from 2012-2016. As part of this role, I edited several copies of the architecture journal MIMARCA and co-organised a conference on architectural education.
I continue to engage with practices on the ground that span across geographies co-producing outcomes that support their particular contexts as well as my thinking and teaching in architecture and urbanism. My experience in profession allows me to support students of architecture on professional aspects of the practice in line with the current ecological emergencies surrounding the profession.
Castlegate Common Manifesto - November, 2021
The award of Levelling Up funding required meaningful community engagement to inform directly the project design. 13 co-produced recommendations from the workshops were presented in the 'Castlegate Common Manifesto' and these recommendations informed directly the planning application that was submitted by Sheffield City Council in February 2023. Beyond the stakeholder workshops, Live Works ran the 'Castlegate Futures Urban Room' in November 2022 that gathered public feedback on the Manifesto recommendations, further informing the Council's plans.
EDI, Participation, Placemaking, Carolyn Butterworth and Emre Akbil
Image Equality Project and Associated Field Journal Article - 2020-ongoing
Journal Article, EDI, History and Representation, Pedagogy, Emre Akbil and Leo Care