I’m Melis Ugurlu (b.1993, Istanbul), an editor, writer, and designer of architecture based in London. Over the past decade, I’ve worked independently and collaboratively with writers, researchers, architects, organizations, and institutions to develop ideas and scholarship into forms of publication—from essays and dissertations to journals, websites, and book projects. I’ve helped with both individual research and writing projects and editorial frameworks within cultural, curatorial, and academic contexts.

Alongside my freelance practice, I’m a contributing editor at the Avery Review and have held editorial and curatorial roles across journals and curatorial projects. For the Pavilion of Turkey at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale, I wrote, edited, conceptualized, and commissioned contributions for the exhibition’s accompanying online publication. I was also an editor at the Brooklyn-based publication CLOG and editor-in-chief of Rice University’s PLAT. Past clients and collaborators include DAC Swiss, Espen Vatn, LCLA office (Luis Callejas), Maximilian Schob, Territorial Agency, and Seda Öznal. 

My own research explores hydropower infrastructures, material ethics, and fluvial feminisms through dynamic and relational modes of writing architecture histories. I have written for the Avery Review, TBA21 Ocean Archive, New York Review of Architecture, and XXI Architecture and Design Magazine. I have lectured on editorial practice and publishing in architecture, developed seminars on feminist modes of critique and writing as a practice of architecture, and have presented my research on the infrastructural and political violences of hydropower. 

I hold an MA in History and Critical Thinking from the Architectural Association, and Bachelor of Architecture (2017) and Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (2015) degrees from Rice University.