Selcuk Avci was born in 1961 and is an Architect and Senior Director / founder of AVCIARCHITECTS and co founder of URBANISTA INTERNATIONAL, a development company based in London and Istanbul. He founded his first private practice AVCI JURCA ARCHITECTS in 1989 and has grown it to a multidisciplinary design lead studio, based in London’s Hoxton and now in Istanbul, Budapest, and Belgrade. He has a wide range of personal experience in the design and management of a great variety of programmes in the residential, and commercial sector, offices, retail, the arts, sports and leisure, airport design, healthcare, and higher education.
As development consultant he has been actively involved in the envisioning development and construction of numerous projects, including Nirala in London, Dorottya Palace in Budapest and more recently a boutique hotel development in the heart of Istanbul
Recent and notable clients that he has worked with have included BT Telereal, BT Property, London Docklands Development Corporation, Stanhope plc, Stockley Park plc, British Waterways, Cherwell District Council, Contemporary Leisure plc, and Royal Holloway University London, Turkish Contractor’s Association, Yuksel Construction and Development, Turkey, and RDM Gruppo Fingen of Italy.
He has a keen interest in ecological design and energy efficient architecture and has developed pioneering work in this field. He has taught architecture at many universities and institutions including the Architectural Association in London, Bath University, the Technical University in Delft, the Bartlett in London and has acted as a Visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of Ljubljana running a seminars on “eco-sensitive” design. Currently he holds the post of Studio Master at Bilgi University School of Architecture in Istanbul and teaches a studio on Eco Design.
The practices he has lead have won numerous awards, and prizes both international and national and published works in numerous journals. Most notable was the inclusion of his practice AVCI (JURCA) ARCHITECTS in the book “A Guide to 50 Best Young Practices of the UK”. As design director of AVCI he won first prize in the European Union Competition on Energy Efficient Architecture in 1989 and as design director of ECD Architects his projects were awarded an RIBA Regional Award, in 1998 and a Civic Trust Award in 1999 which established him as an expert in the design of eco sensitive buildings, both in the UK and abroad.
He is particularly involved in the concept and scheme design stages of projects. He has a strong knowledge of construction methodologies and particularly construction management of projects with a controlled budget. His skills are in strategic thinking and direction, presentation, communication and project direction.