Ipek Akpınar is a professor, and conducting architectural and urban design studios, lecturing master and PhD courses on the relations of architecture with the urban, political and cultural context as well as social actors.

Following her bachelor (1990) and Master of Science (1993) studies at Istanbul Technical University – Department of Architecture, she has received her doctoral degree from University of London, University College, Bartlett School of Graduate Studies (2003) with her thesis entitled “The Rebuilding of Istanbul after the Plan of Henri Prost: from secularisation to Turkish Modernization”. Her collaborated international research project based on the personal archives of Henri Prost at Paris was exhibited and published (2010).

She is the author of Moonlight Monastery (2012) and 10th Year of the Sabancı Museum (2013). She is on the editorial board of The Journal of Architecture (Taylor Francis / Routledge) and JURD, and a member on the advisory board of A/Z ITU Journal of Faculty of Architecture and The UCL Urban Laboratory (2005) as well as Ocean Research Association.