Merve Gül Özokcu (Herkes İçin Mimarlık Derneği & Arazi Assembly) – Foodscapes as Research: Participatory Methods in Architecture

PUBLIK TALK: Merve Gül Özokcu (Herkes İçin Mimarlık Derneği & Arazi Assembly) – Foodscapes as Research: Participatory Methods in Architecture
The talk explores food-making as a spatial approach and a critical methodological tool in architectural research. Shared acts of cooking become participatory processes that generate situated knowledge, build collective agency, and blur the boundaries between research, design, and everyday practice.
Drawing on the research project Women’s Narrative Spaces and the on-site pedagogies of Herkes İçin Mimarlık (Architecture for All) and Arazi Assembly, the presentation reflects on ways of knowing that emerge through care, collaboration, and storytelling, which remain overlooked within architectural discourse. Grounded in fieldwork across informal women’s gatherings, spanning ecological resistance, post-disaster recovery, and diaspora networks, the talk traces shared design processes and the lived geographies of making and learning.
Merve Gül Özokcu is an architect, researcher, and activist based in Istanbul. She is working at the intersection of the commons, eco-feminist narratives, and resistance. Through Herkes İçin Mimarlık Derneği (Architecture for All Association), she has co-led participatory, long-term, and proactive on-site interventions that address political and ecological urgencies through collective action across Türkiye. Merve is part of Arazi Assembly, a research collective based in Southeast Anatolia that focuses on decolonial, care-driven knowledge practices. Her projects, including Occupy Gezi Architecture, Women Narrative Spaces, and The Revitalisation of Abandoned Rural Schools, have been presented i.a. at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Venice Architecture Biennial, Istanbul Biennial, V&A Museum, MAXXI, and ngbk Berlin. 
https://herkesicinmimarlik.org https://araziassembly.org
Public Lecture in the framework of DIVERSITY&DESIGN: Critical Design Studies, VU Diversity Aspects, Marlene Wagner
In cooperation of Building Sciences & Environment and Claiming*Spaces, TU Wien Contact: 
marlene.wagner@tuwien.ac.at