Esra Sert is a PhD candidate at Middle East Technical University, Department of Architecture, in Ankara, Turkey. She took her BA degree at YTU Department of Architecture, in İstanbul in 2008. Then she shifted her studies into landscape studies, urban ecology, urban theory and history. She completed her MA thesis entitled as “Rain Water in the Energy Efficient Urban Landscape Design” at ITU at the Department of Landscape Architecture. Since 2014, she has been a PhD candidate at METU. Her dissertation titled "Urban Metabolism of Istanbul: Transformation of Waterfronts Between 1839 and 2019" is being supervised by Prof. Dr. Güven Arif Sargın. She has been a guest researcher at Istanbul Studies Center (Istanbul Studies Center) affiliated with Kadir Has University since September 2019 with her doctoral thesis. She worked in various scientific projects and offices, participated in competition projects, received various and small awards. She grew pink tomatoes for a while, became a volunteer of pink tomato network. She grounds her interest in earth and ecology to her profession and her socially-oriented practice. She continues to produce and investigate with curiosity.
The modern city is in some way a component of layered, complex traces of an “excavate and infill” story which is embedded in time and space...
COVID-19 pandemic reminds us the need for a permanent urban planning approach for public health with a multi-disciplinary approach.