To tell you a bit more about myself, I studied my bachelor’s degree in Istanbul Technical University, hometo Turkey’s most competitive architecture department. Experiencing a wide range of different areas anddisciplines I realized early on that working with public areas, kids and learning spaces was my true callingas an architect. I spent the 3 months as an intern at Carve in Amsterdam gaining knowledge and experience in public space and playground design. I discovered there that I sincerely enjoy working on projects centered around children and play. In my professional experience since then, I have worked onkindergartens, public parks, landscape projects, and schools - including a large-scale innovativelydesigned K12 school in Saudi Arabia with Şanalarc. There I was mainly focused on the interior designaspect of the social, play, and learning spaces.Parallel to my full-time job as an architect I decided to pursue a master’s degree that would allow me tospecialize in designing spaces for children by exposing me to relevant topics like child psychology, childdevelopment, learning spaces, and urban design for children. I completed the M.Des. City and Children Studies program at Kadir Has University with the full scholarship of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. was focused specifically on the importance of play in child development, play spaces in urban areas, street design for children, and the potential for repurposing school grounds as playgrounds in cities withlimited space. For my capstone project, I worked with Istanbul’s Maltepe Municipality on an initiativethat would open the outdoor facilities of public kindergartens after school hours for children in localneighborhoods to access as playgrounds. This experience working with public administration greatlyenhanced my knowledge, skills, and network in this area.To further illustrate my passion for this subject area, a friend and I decided to launch my companyhere in Istanbul focused on playground design in 2020 – Ludo Design Studio (ludodesignstudio.com). Wemanaged to win an honorable mention at Green Istanbul’s 2020 “City Furniture and Play RecreationProduct Design Contest'' for our modular playground design concept. Most recently we have designed aplayground project in the USA which will soon enter the construction phase. For the last two years, Ihave also been also working remotely as a contractor with a landscape firm called Skab on large landscape and urban projects.