16 Mar Dilara Özlü
Dilara Özlü
Dilara Özlü is a MAA Architect graduated from MA in Computation in Architecture, Royal Danish Academy. She has an enthusiasm towards sustainability in architecture. Her recent works are research based and focus on circular design with the use of computational design tools.
While she was a member of Maker Space, she was working on her thesis project. The project explores mycelium as a new building material and it is investigating how fibrous woven scaffolds can be used to grow large scale mycelium structures. Briefly, here, she was focusing on development of the structure to weave the scaffolds.
“As mentioned above, I am a sustainability enthusiast. After starting my master’s degree in Computational Design, my focus shifted a little more to sustainability in architecture through material experimentations.
Imagining a better future with healthier materials is motivating my work a lot. Taking courses and reading about state of art, I became more aware of how today’s materials are toxic both to humans and also nature. It is horrible to know how all these toxic materials have negative health effects in the long run.”
“Also, I believe nature is the answer to many of our questions. There is a lot to be inspired from both in nature and biology. Learning something new every day is expanding my imagination and thoughts, and this encourages me to understand the potentials that can rise when designing with nature and biology.”
“In Maker and Viadukten there are a variety of tools to use – even a wet room to grow bio-materials, mushrooms.
This space became a place where I can work independently on my project and discover my interests.”
“Being part of the Maker Space community is a very special experience. It was my first time working independently on a project out of a studio environment (university).
To be honest, I was also struggling a little being all by myself and trying to develop my project. But, when I started working at Maker Space, people around me were asking questions I never thought of, which I think broadened the way I looked at my project.”
“Also, this might be a personal thought, but I think a person can develop a project up to a certain point herself all alone – with no interaction with others. I believe, talking to others about the project will bring richness. For instance, in one of the exhibitions at Maker Space, I had the opportunity to engage with society and see their reaction to mushrooms as building materials.”
“I think my research focuses more on sustainable material design with computational design tools. Besides my personal work, as Softspace.digital, myself and Tessira Crawford, we are working on a project to develop a ML tool for speculating new materials. We are at the very beginning of this journey. We are developing our materials base recipe and a library and we are using computational design tools for exploring the potentials of making new materials from wastes.”
