MEET THE SPEAKER\\ Umut İyigün, Architect and Founder MUUM, Turkey

Umut İyigün, Architect and Founder of MUUM, is one of the speakers at SHARE Interiors Bucharest 2024, presenting the approach of the office dealing with architecture and interior design

Umut İyigün is architect and founder of MUUM, a practice he established along with Murat Aksu in Istanbul in 1998, after successfully collaborating for a few years in architectural competitions. Besides his position at MUUM, he is guest lecturer at Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, leading a design studio and working on agile scrum framework. Umut İyigün is also one of founders the Agile Construction Turkey, a non-profit organisation which aims at extending agile framework in construction industry. For his practice, he deals both with architecture and interior design, which implies attention to detail but also a well-developed ample vision of the overall process of conceiving a building. Among his recent projects, there are “Kordon ISTANBUL”, “TEPE Kadıköy” for architecture and “Marmara Park Food Court Renovation”, “CER Istanbul”, “TOGG Innovation Center” for interior design. 

 

 

As an experienced international practice, MUUM pleads for an architecture that is able to be not only functional and aesthetically pleasing, but also socially responsible and human-centred. They are preoccupied with modelling environments which are attentive and responsive to the art, cultural, history and diverse lifestyles of certain places and communities. MUUM’s approach is developed on three main levels: exploration and a fun beginning, detailed research and analysis, as well as professional responsibility. Getting involved in the deep examination of the context they operate in allows them to identify and develop project potentials within the framework of their own architectural approach, employers and other project participants. Collaboration is extremely important for them, especially since they are an office which deals with architectural, interior and urban design, but also offering Workplace Consultancy, BIM Consultancy and Sustainability Consultancy. The collective, shared process of conceiving projects also encourages multidisciplinary professional teams to research alternatives, share knowledge and imagine new ways to respond to the challenges of the built environment. MUUM works with a network of international and national clients for whom they aim at delivering exceptional design ideas and solutions, rooted in their requests and the needs of the context. Their creative and investigative framework is based upon social, cultural, environmental values combined with arts, technology and economy.