Founder, Play The City
Play The City
Ekim Tan founded the Amsterdam and Istanbul based city design and research network ‘Play the City’.
The network focuses on strategic urban development in emerging countries, therefore consists of young and ambitious professionals from Cairo to Istanbul to Amsterdam. She is an experienced researcher and designer in international urban design projects. Her hybrid worldview has been shaped by diverse cultural conditions of the east and west, islam and christianity, poverty and prosperity.
Currently, besides running or her practice, she is writing a PhD thesis on ‘design and complexity’ at the Delft University of Technology and the International New Towns Institute. In 2012 she will teach a design studio entitled ‘We, the People’ under the Design as Politics Chair at the Technical University of Delft.
In the past, Ekim Tan has worked with Rotterdam-based offices Urban Affairs and De Urbanisten, as well as with Dutch municipalities and urban design offices on projects such as creating city vision 2035 for Rotterdam. She has been regularly teaching and lecturing worldwide; amongst which for the Technical University of Delft, Aleppo University for Arts and Sciences, Rotterdam Architecture Academy, Amsterdam Architecture Academy, Copenhagen Business School, and Middle East Technical University. Born in Istanbul, Ekim Tan graduated as an architect from the Middle East Technical University with the Archiprix Award in 1999, and received her second degree in urbanism of the Technical University Delft with distinction in 2005.
