Dr. Ercument Gorgul is a multiple award-winning professor, designer, and technologist.
Known for his multidisciplinary training in architecture, interior architecture, neurosciences, interaction design, and art history, Dr. Gorgul has extensive experience in teaching creativity and design thinking using innovative design methods and multidisciplinary collaboration. He has expertise in coaching, teaching, mentoring, and curriculum planning & writing. He has successfully led over 30 courses, studios, and workshops in leading academic institutions across three continents, focusing on design-based thinking, human-environment interaction design, and experience-based sustainable futures.
As the first full-time, non-Chinese foreign faculty member appointed at Tongji University’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Dr. Gorgul was instrumental in significantly improving diversity and inclusion by enabling the school to accept more foreign students and faculty. He also elevated the education quality, teaching innovation, and international graduate school acceptance rates.
During his studies at Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) and as a cross-registered student at MIT (course 4 & MAS), Dr. Gorgul served as a research associate and teaching assistant at the former Harvard Center for Design Informatics. He was part of the team that received the Provost Grant for Innovation in Learning and Instructional Technology with the pioneering metaverse project, “Virtual Gund Hall.”
Dr. Gorgul directed the 2009 experimental summer program in architecture at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the 2013 and 2016 summer advanced workshop programs at Shih Chien University in Taipei, and served as regional coordinator for the Shanghai Global Summer School for the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IaaC) from 2014 to 2024. He has also held teaching appointments at Tsinghua University in Beijing, HKU’s Shanghai Centre, the Architectural Association’s (AA) Global Schools in China, and the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart (HFT). His work has been exhibited extensively, including at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Bi-city Biennial, Shanghai Biennial, and the Venice Biennial.
As an invited guest critic, Dr. Gorgul has participated at Harvard University, Catholic University, the University of Southern California in the US, and Fudan and Shanghai Universities in China. He instructs courses, studios, and workshops focused on Scenario Planning, Digital Storytelling, Design Fiction, Convergent/Hybrid Spaces, AI-generated content in design, Foresight/Futures Thinking, Architectural Integration, Qualitative and Quantitative Research, Experiment Design, Data Analysis, UX Design, Interaction Design, and Human-Building Interaction. Dr. Gorgul is specifically interested in experimental teaching pedagogies, design fundamentals, generative design methodology, alternative means of representation, the conceptualization and experience of multi-scalar spaces, teaching creativity, and cultivating cross-disciplinary talent through design thinking.
Dr. Gorgul is the owner of EGG, a niche consulting firm delivering research, technology, and experience-based solutions. The firm operates at the intersection of knowledge, history, space, materiality, engineering, and time, providing services in strategy and coaching, interiors and FF&E, architecture, experience design, and interactive solutions.
Dr. Gorgul holds a High Honors Bachelor’s degree from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, two Master’s degrees from Istanbul Technical University, and a Master’s from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His PhD explored the assessment of human response to built environments using neuroscientific methods. Dr. Gorgul is an Associate AIA and LEED AP in the US. Since 2021, he has been actively assisting and leading various research and pedagogy-based initiatives and platforms for the San Diego-based Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) as part of his notable international pro-bono work.
