Ece Duran is an architect, academic, and artist based in Istanbul. Her practice focuses on exploring the poetic depth of drawing’s autonomous space, which cannot be measured or calculated, challenging the utilitarian necessities of reality. Within this framework, she is interested in incorporating intuition and prophetic skills unique to dreams into the design process, considering the possibility of presenting not only material but also virtual multiplicities. Her work aims to liberate space-making from rational thinking that attempts to confine it to practical needs, function, usage, boundaries, and definitions, opening it to the unique creative potentials of dreams. Dreams, with their multiple and fragmented structures and their ability to reveal unconscious processes, function as a compass—a method of production that refuses linear settlement. This compass guides the exploration of creative spatial possibilities through personal tactics grounded in intuition, chance, serendipity, error, and bodily instincts, resisting normative structures and generalized rational approaches.

Ece completed her undergraduate studies in Architecture at Izmir University of Economics in 2018, receiving the Best Project Award. During this period, she attended various courses at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Architecture. She earned her master’s degree in 2022 from Istanbul Technical University with the thesis “And Then Architecture Dreamed: A Theoretical and Experimental Perspective on the Architectural Design Process.” The work she produced through the personal design methodology developed during her thesis has been recognized for exhibition on national and international platforms. She has received awards in various competitions and open calls, including Monoco.io, New Horizon, and the Ytong Architectural Idea Competition. Her research has been published in national and international conferences and journals such as Icns Lisbon Night Studies, PLAT Journal, and the Mimar Sinan Spatial Studies Symposium.

Since 2022, Ece has been a visiting academic at Istanbul Bilgi University and Istanbul Kent University, teaching a variety of courses. She continues her personal practice, focusing on the mysterious existence of immeasurable spaces rooted in imagination.