Burak Pak
Architectural education through live questions, collective inquiry and work with communities.
Programme leadership · Deakin University
I directed Deakin University’s Design for Circular Cities master’s programme and postgraduate course suite. As chair of Interactions and Enablers of Circular Cities, I worked with Beau Beza and Ilana Russell to connect circular design teaching with local questions in Geelong.
Students, city officers and community partners used the Doughnut Economics Action Lab’s four-lens City Portrait to examine social needs and ecological impacts. Through design sprints and a city walk, they explored vacant spaces, adaptive reuse and neighbourhood systems.
Images and project account: Burak Pak on DEAL, 2025 · CC BY-SA 4.0.
Studios & collective inquiry
At KU Leuven, I initiated the Faculty of Architecture’s first community-engaged service-learning track. Students worked with residents and local organisations through design studios, electives and Master’s dissertations.
The selected studios below were developed with colleagues in the Alt_Shift network. Both editions of the Commons studio are archived here, with the studio briefs, 11 student projects and their drawings. Student authors and collaborators are credited throughout.
Explore the Commons studio archive →
The community-engaged learning work received a UNISERVITATE special mention in 2022 ↗︎, shared with Aurélie De Smet.
Drawing: Vilius Balčiūnas · Rethinking North Quarter as a Socio-Spatial Experiment on Transitioning Towards Postcapital Future
Students explored how architectural design could support shared ownership, solidarity and collective forms of living. Their dissertations examined urban commons through critical spatial practice and alternatives to conventional property relations.
Tutors: Hülya Ertaş & Burak Pak
KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture
Drawing: Moujan Mahdian · Sonic Collective Memory
Students explored sound and vibration as aspects of urban design along Brussels’ L28 railway corridor. Their proposals explored how listening, spatial interventions and relationships between human and non-human activity could inform the transformation of railway land.
Tutors: Caroline Claus & Burak Pak
KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture
Drawing: Julie Charlot · School Camp-us: Rethinking the Architectural School as a Commons through Participatory Design
Students used design to explore collective ownership, self-organisation and shared urban resources. Proposals included an architectural school as a commons, participatory construction and ways to activate underused public spaces.
Tutors: Hülya Ertaş & Burak Pak
KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture
Drawing: Sarah Thorisaen · Alive: Sonic Identities
Students explored the sound and vibration of Brussels’ western railway edge through critical listening and design. They developed proposals for public spaces that engaged with the existing sonic qualities and changing uses of former industrial railway land.
Tutors: Caroline Claus & Burak Pak
KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture
In the 2020–2021 Master’s dissertation studio, Aurélie De Smet and I worked with ten students and Solidary Mobile Housing and WoonBox partners. Students explored how temporary housing could be developed alongside inclusive collective spaces in Brussels.
Read the studio accountA proposal for co-design platforms and mobile factories through which residents could participate in designing and assembling housing.
Studio coordinators: Burak Pak & Aurélie De Smet
Drawing © Mahdi Ghotbi
A study of temporary use, affordable mobile housing and collective governance, developed for the Circularium site in Brussels.
Studio coordinators: Burak Pak & Aurélie De Smet
Drawing © Vitor Silveira Breder Rocha