Alper Derinboğaz at BIG SEE Festival 2026

Salon founder Alper Derinboğaz took part in BIG SEE Festival 2026 on May 22 in Portorož with two presentations. He first presented Quartz Plaza on the Architecture & Product Design stage, followed by his talk “What must we teach today to matter in 20 years?” on the Perspectives stage, reflecting on the future of architectural education and the critical modes of thinking needed for the decades ahead.

On the Architecture & Product Design stage, Alper Derinboğaz introduced Quartz Plaza, Salon’s hybrid office and industrial building in Istanbul, discussing the project’s material logic and its response to the city’s shifting industrial edges. His second talk turned to architectural pedagogy, arguing that design education must move beyond technical proficiency toward cultivating critical, adaptive thinking, the kind of judgment that will remain relevant as tools, materials, and professional practice continue to change.

BIG SEE Festival is one of Southeast Europe’s largest platforms for architecture, design, and innovation, bringing together practitioners from across the region each year in Portorož, Slovenia.