Seda Öznal is an architect who produces research and design projects that open traditional space narratives to discussion through social and political relations. Öznal's projects aim to create polemics by bringing the issues rendered invisible in traditional architectural practice to fictional spaces.

 

She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Istanbul Bilgi University, which she studied with an academic achievement scholarship and ranked first in her class. Right after graduation, together with Future Anecdotes Istanbul design studio, she took part in the design project of Van Abbemuseum's collection exhibition. She graduated with an MS. in Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia University, GSAPP with Honor Award for Excellence in Design. She then continued her architectural practice at Solomonoff Architecture Studio for three years, working on residential and institutional projects.

 

Öznal's current research practice between New York and Istanbul reflects on politics/poetics of space and gender/sexuality in architecture. Her upcoming book analyses historic representations of odalisque through the male gaze and its subsequent erotic, exotic and domestic relations. 

​

Currently, she's a studio instructor at Istanbul Bilgi University as she continues exploring her passion to find a spatial equivalent of criticism, theory, research, and discussion in both her academic and professional practice.