Onur Tümtürk

Assistant Professor

Onur Tümtürk received his Bachelor's degree in City and Regional Planning (2015) and Master's in Urban Design (2018) from Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey. He earned his PhD from the University of Melbourne (2024), focusing on urban form evolution and spatial dynamics through data-driven approaches and urban morphometrics. His doctoral research was recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Melbourne Centre for Data Science Doctoral Academy Fellowship (2022), the Bharat Dave Prize for Novel Approaches in Design Research (2023), and the Dean's Prize for Research Excellence (2023). During his time at Melbourne School of Design (2020–2024), he taught extensively at both undergraduate and graduate levels, coordinating Master of Urban Design Studios and Master of Architectural Design Studios, and teaching specialized courses in Urban Morphological Mapping and Urban Design for People and Places.

He has published extensively in leading journals including Cities, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, and Urban Design International. His research interests encompass urban design and morphology, urban morphometrics and spatial analytics, social ecological resilience, adaptive capacity and resilience transition in cities and urban grids. Currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Morphology at Bilkent University, his work combines advanced empirical methods and data-driven investigations with urban design theories to develop evidence-based insights into how urban form conditions shape various processes in cities.

In the 2025–2026 academic year, he will join MIT Senseable City Lab as a visiting researcher with a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship to conduct morphometric and data-centric research on urban open and green space accessibility in Ankara.

Highlights

Dr. Onur Tümtürk will lead this two-year postdoctoral research project at Bilkent University's Department of Urban Design & Landscape Architecture, funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF-2024) under EU Horizon Europe (€149,365). The project runs from July 2026 to June 2028.

MorphoPOS investigates how urban form conditions shape access to public open spaces in rapidly developing cities. Using Ankara as its primary case, the research combines morphometric analysis with perception studies to reveal the gap between objectively measured accessibility and how residents actually experience it — with the aim of producing evidence-based guidance for more equitable urban design.

Horizon Europe Fact Sheet via CORDIS

Dr. Onur Tümtürk will join MIT Senseable City Lab as a visiting researcher in the 2025–2026 academic year, supported by a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship. The research focuses on morphometric and data-centric approaches to understanding urban open and green space accessibility in Ankara, bridging the Lab's computational urban science methods with questions of spatial equity and landscape urbanism.