Alexis Şanal, AIA
Born Los Angeles, 1974
MIT, Master in City Design and Development 2002
SCI-ARC, Bachelor of Architecture 1995
Alexis Şanal grew-up in Los Angeles, has a Barch’95 from SCI-Arc, and an MCP’02 from MIT. She is a co-founder of SANALarc’s knowledge-centric studio focused on civil and civic architecture, research and city-design based in Istanbul. Her passion is exploring living culture and built environments that blend contemporary urban realm with timeless physical and natural contexts to create imaginative and meaningful experiences. Her recent efforts in this sense include creating HEY! Imaginable Guidelines Istanbul, “Pazar- Making”, revealing ‘pazars’ as a man-made generative approach to tactical urbanism and re-thinking public libraries as enablers of localized knowledge communities. She is recipient of a 2014 Graham Foundation research grant, exhibited works at the MAXXI Rome, Istanbul Modern and Garanti Galeri, and ŞANALarc has recieved various international and national design awards.