“Behind the Screens” is a series developed by AIA Chicago’s Editorial Advisory Committee to highlight the members of the chapter. Throughout the year, the series will showcase Fellows, Architects, Associates, and Affiliate members.
Name: Neşe Altıntaş
Affiliations/Credentials: Assoc. AIA, NOMA, CWA
Degree: The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Bachelor of Architecture, Minor in Psychology
AIA Chicago involvement: AIA Chicago Young Architects Forum; AIA Chicago Delegate; AIA Illinois Early Professionals (EP) Network
What advice would you give to a younger version of yourself?
Here is what I would tell myself: Your resistance to people and systems that try to hold you back from pursuing all your callings is one of your greatest assets. Protecting your curiosity will always allow you to flourish.
I know people are telling you that you can’t be involved in 13 different things at the same time. That it’s not sustainable. That you should commit to one or two things you’re good at and focus on making the best out of them. And despite all that, I know you’re living through your values. I respect that.
Keep wondering, learning, and experimenting. Keep saving your ideas and thoughts. Just keep doing all the “a little too much” things you’re doing.
You won’t be disappointed.
How has your Turkish background influenced your approach to architecture, particularly in terms of community, public space, and design?
High-context cultures such as Türkiye are complex and implicit. Communication carries layered meanings, nonverbal cues, and expectations derived from shared knowledge and values. The mind becomes attentive to subtleties, gestures, and shifts in energy by/through others; which tangles individual experiences together and shapes a collective memory.
Low-context cultures such as the United States are direct and explicit. Communication is task oriented, stripped of emotional cues, focused on clarity and efficiency. The individualistic mindset prioritizes self-defined values over collective customs and ancestral expectations. It celebrates setting boundaries for personal space -both in abstract (mind) and physical (built environment) forms- often separating individual experience from the collective.
The ethos of these two constructs set the framework of our perception: concepts, definitions, and terminology development.
Even though there are universal design objectives; sensation, perception and memory encoding (visual, acoustic, semantic, elaborative) controls how subjects comprehend space and operate through it. Perception is reality.
Having my primary perception framework formed in a high-context culture, then growing into my architect mind within the ethos of a low-context culture, has expanded my meaning-making trajectory.
Holding both frameworks and constantly attempting to weave them together in academia, research, and practice has led me to define architecture as a transformative act, operating with and through the concepts of public, community, space, place and design.
To perform this transformative act right, my architect mind has to first study the users’ perception framework. How do they define comfort, safety, belonging, wellness, aesthetics and functionality? Which senses are more dominant in the way they experience, interact with and encode space? What are their needs and wants in tangible & intangible forms?
Trust me, most of the time even the users don’t have the answers. Self-awareness is a rare virtue after all. That’s why my architect mind has learned and keeps learning how to ask very intentional questions.
How has your experience studying and living in both Turkey and Chicago shaped your understanding of different built environments and how people interact with them?
We are meaning-making creatures, and we move through those meanings. Our brain’s default mode is all about constructing narratives, conscious and unconsciously. Although cultural context and built environment heavily influence the script of these narratives, the meaning-making part happens through subjective experiences. Where I’m arriving with this is that many of my epiphany moments related to my life in Turkiye happened when I was in Chicago. So even though I had narrated a certain construct and formed some level of reasoning of past experiences back in the time and space of living them, extracting the meaning out of that experience occurred at a different time and space. You never know (at least right away) which external forces of the built environment and social landscape stimulate your brain and unlock a mind-knot. Once this mental weaving between environments across space & time catches a rhythm, your definition of home(s) changes. Once your definitions start changing, your perception framework shifts. So I visualize the subject (people) x space (environment) interaction in a cycles model.
What has been the most valuable resource to you in your career?
My student mentality – no doubt.
What has been a large challenge or obstacle as an architectural professional and how are you working to/how have you overcome it?
Maintaining The Contras: Artist Brain vs. Architect Mind
One of my biggest challenges has been producing through my artist brain and architect mind at the same time.
My artistic process has developed very organically as it became my brain’s way of reflecting, learning, unlearning, grounding, and reclaiming my story. Empowering, healing, and restorative. I use the word “brain” intentionally, because it wasn’t a mindfully curated process to follow.
In contrast, my architect mind grew through a teaching framework created and facilitated by others under the umbrella of an institutional education.
It is shaped by boundaries and clear objectives, where a successful project requires commitment to execute and share a coherent vision. That level of planning and clarity is necessary in architecture, and that’s why it’s a “mind” extension for me – curated and refined.
At times, these two ways of thinking and producing truly exhaust me. It feels like pressing the gas pedal while in park. My artist brain stimulates untamed production of ideas and limitless variations, while my architect mind insists on strategic planning and order.
The question is whether my artist brain and architect mind can coexist in a ratio that feels right and healthy – my very personal chaos and order theory.
You were recently awarded the 2025 AIA Future Forward Grant. How did the idea for the “Beyond the Classroom” initiative first emerge, and what led you to focus on K-12 educational architecture?
Transitioning from academia to practice wasn’t easy. What had been feeding my creative cravings in school (and what I found missing in practice) was the act of expanding on the bigger picture in architectural storytelling. Cultivating design thinking through intellectually stimulating questions and an interdisciplinary approach has been my fuel.
I’m an avid learner and teacher, and I truly believe the best kind of learning happens through teaching. The best teaching happens through embracing the student mentality. Living by these values and gaining significant experience in STEAM Mentorship throughout my architectural education has created a steady foundation to think scholarly. Working on K-12 education projects right as I entered the profession built directly on that and made me question so many systems and processes in place. So, a year into practice, I started this “Braindump” document -a running list of all the questions I had about the overlap of psychology, neuro-science and architecture, especially in the context of learning (built-in) environments. It became a personal synthesis of what I was observing in projects at work and in industry organizations. As Braindump kept evolving into Beyond the Classroom, I came across the AIA Future Forward Grant on YAF’s social media. That was one of those moments when I said, “This is meant for me.” It felt like an invitation to bring Beyond the Classroom to life.
Looking ahead, what is the ultimate goal for the “Beyond the Classroom” initiative? How do you see this work evolving after the grant period concludes?
I want to take Beyond the Classroom beyond the research.
I acknowledge that, given the disconnect between research and practice, unless policy requires it, the budget-driven culture of the AEC industry and the capitalism ethos will not accept incorporating these interdisciplinary procedures into current business and project management models.
That’s why I continue to learn more about Trauma-Informed (and Responsive) Design, Neuro-Architecture, and the science of learning; I’ve been reverse-engineering how to obtain the most applicable, impactful, and adaptable toolkit framework. Something that will carry into the future, such as a systems-creating framework methodology.
What is the most effective step you’ve taken in your work toward a more equitable built environment?
This is a product vs project mindset issue. The built environment is the product and the rising generation of AEC leaders are the project.
Here, I’ve chosen to invest in the project mindset, by becoming the best mentor version of myself and nurturing the rising generation. Thanks to the I-NOMA Project Pipeline Summer Camp & Teen Design Build Program, ACE Mentor Program, LBBA Labs and many other STEAM Education Initiatives led by industry organizations, I have discovered something I truly love and am good at -that’s a blessing. Building trusting relationships, offering purposeful guidance, significant opportunities, and meaningful connections to those high-fliers is the most fulfilling part of my work. I am committed to making young people feel seen, heard, valued and respected, so that they understand the vitality of empathy through lived experience. And, regardless of the circumstances, I am determined to remind them of the limitless possibilities and power of perseverance, so that once they’re in positions of authority, they lead by an empowering moral compass for all.
What is one actionable way that young designers can positively impact climate change in their firms?
I love the “actionable way” nuance there! It helps acknowledge that many early career professionals – especially in architecture – don’t have the negotiating power in making design decisions. So defining the scope of “actionable” and shifting our energy towards things we can control instead of the ones we can’t (just yet) is the power move.
Speaking of power – if your firm is still leaving all the office lights on at night, that’s probably a good place to start.
What is your favorite quote about architecture?
“The street is a room by agreement.” Louis Kahn
