Recently, the Italian fashion and design school Istituto Marangoni and the Italian Embassy in Turkey partnered with Bilkent University to hold a design competition for students and young professionals from the Department of Architecture and the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design in Bilkent’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA). In conjunction with the award ceremony for the competition, the Italian architect Giulio Cappellini gave a master class for FADA students.
Competitors were asked to come up with a creative design for comfortable seating. A jury preselected a group of designs from among the 33 entries in the competition; Mr. Cappellini, an architect of international repute who is also the art director at the Istituto Marangoni School of Design, selected the winner and a short list of five additional entries from that group.
Cemre Akkoca, a 2016 Architecture graduate, won the grand prize: a full scholarship to attend a three-week course at the Istituto Marangoni School of Design in Milan in 2017. The five shortlisted competitors were Burak Çelik (ARCH), Damla Tarman (ARCH), Ege Büyüksemerci (IAED), Rabia Gürkan (ARCH) and Sena Çelebi (IAED).
The award ceremony, which included an inspiring talk on Italian design by Mr. Cappellini, was moderated by Vis. Asst. Prof. Giorgio Gasco of the Department of Architecture. The talk attracted great interest, and many students attended the event. Others in attendance included Italian Ambassador Luigi Mattiolo, Provost Adnan Akay, FADA Dean Ayhan Altıntaş, ARCH and IAED department heads Meltem Gürel and Nilgün Olguntürk, and other faculty members.