Sila Karatas
EPFL ENAC IA LAB-U
BP 4136 (Bâtiment BP)
Station 16
CH-1015 Lausanne
Web site: Web site: https://lab-u.epfl.ch/
Biography
Sıla Karataş (Ankara, 1987) studied architecture and was awarded Master’s degree with the thesis “Building Marshall Plan in Turkey: The Formation of Workers’ Housing Question, 1946-1962” at the Middle East Technical University. In this thesis, she analyzed the postwar workers’ housing discourse on cooperatives as part of the ideological, institutional, social and spatial programming of the Marshall Plan and Americanization in Turkey. This research received Honourable Mention in 'Young Social Scientists Awards' of the Turkish Social Sciences Association.She worked as assistant and lecturer in Turkey between 2012-2019; took part in architectural and urban design studios as tutor and reviewer, prepared and gave Case Studies in Social Housing and Community Planning among other courses in undergraduate level.
Her main research interest is history and theory of housing and settlement. More specifically, she investigates forms of transnational activity and agencies of policymaker, planner, architect and labour community in postwar housing production from policy and program to design, construction and inhabiting.
Her PhD research at EPFL concerns Marshall Plan's workers’ housing program against communist tendencies in the participating countries, and comparatively analyzes local cooperative models by labour unions in the Mediterranean countries (France, Italy, Greece, Turkey) in relation to the transnational activity by the United States and US-led international organizations on postwar development, labour affairs and housing. This research is awarded the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship for PhD and supported by the Swiss Confederation Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Scholars and Artists (FCS).
Awards
PhD Scholarship
Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship (Bourse d'excellence de la Confédération Suisse), EPFL (CH)
2019
Visiting PhD Researcher Grant
EPFL Doc.Mobility, swissuniversities, University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), USA
2023
Short-Term Scientific Mission Grant
COST Action 18137 «European Middle-Class Mass Housing», National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece
2022
Summer School Organization Grant
EPFL-ETHZ Summer School, ETH-Domain, «Tentacular Writing», Tschlin, Grisons (CH), 11-16 September 2022 (in collaboration with Metaxia Markaki & Johanna Just)
2022
Master's Thesis Award
Young Social Scientists Awards, Honourable Mention, Turkish Social Sciences Association (TSBD), Turkey
2017