Olgu Caliskan
Having earned his doctoral degree in urbanism at TU Delft, the Netherlands, in 2013, he has lectured and instructed at METU Faculty of Architecture, Department of City and Regional Planning, as a professor of urban design and morphology. His publications include the guest editorial for the journal of Built Environment (2011, 2022) and several articles, including those in the Journal of Urban Design (2010, 2022), Journal of Architectural and Planning Research (2011), Urban Design International (2012, 2020), Urban Morphology (2017), Habitat International (2023) and Cities (2024). His primary research interests encompass physical planning and design, urban morphology, urban design theory and methodology, parametric urban design, and industrial urbanism. As the coordinator of the Master of Urban Design, he instructs the MUD studio at METU. He also teaches courses, including ‘Creative Thinking for Planners,’ ‘Parametric Urban Design,’ and ‘Collective Housing Planning and Design’. In the body of TEPAV (The Economic Research Foundation of Turkey), he consulted for the strategic vision project for the Gaza urban strip, which was proposed to both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities in January 2016. Within the team of Policy Analytics Lab (PAL), he authored the Urban Design Master Plan of ‘Ankara Technology Base’ for Ankara Chamber of Industry in 2024. In the spring of 2025, he served as a visiting professor at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning in the USA. Since his return to Turkey in 2014, he has been a jury member in a series of national and international design competitions. Within various design teams, he has led award-winning projects in recent national and international competitions, including Konyaaltı Waterfront, Antalya (2015) and Taksim Square, İstanbul (2020).
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Baykan Günay (METU), Prof.dr.ir. Taeke de Jong (TU DELFT), Prof. Dr. Stephen Marshall (UCL), and Prof. Dr. David Grahame Shane (COLUMBIA UNV.)
Address: ODTU Mimarlik Fakultesi, Sehir ve Bolge Planlama Bolumu (06800)
Cankaya, Ankara, TURKEY
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Baykan Günay (METU), Prof.dr.ir. Taeke de Jong (TU DELFT), Prof. Dr. Stephen Marshall (UCL), and Prof. Dr. David Grahame Shane (COLUMBIA UNV.)
Address: ODTU Mimarlik Fakultesi, Sehir ve Bolge Planlama Bolumu (06800)
Cankaya, Ankara, TURKEY
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Papers by Olgu Caliskan
Highlighting the limitations of previous urban paradigms in addressing the complexity and diversity of contemporary society, one could also address the concept of heterotopia and its potential to offer new lenses on the pluralist urban condition through which urban designers have to operate. Drawing upon Foucault's framework and insights from contemporary urban theorists, the paper explores how heterotopian principles can inform the design process by encouraging pluralism, diversity while ensuring a certain level of integrity and coherence.
To that aim, the paper presents some tactical solutions and strategies that would make heterotopology urbanistically operational by design. Exemplifying the previous attempts made by the author and his colleagues in different domains, the paper aims to illustrate how heterotopian thinking can foster inclusive, integrative, and adaptable urban environments that would generate the ideal ground for ‘living together differently but respectfully’ within the world of contingencies.