Join Change by Design Samandağ 2026!

Exploring Living Heritage in Post-Disaster Recovery

Applications are now open for our upcoming Change by Design workshop in Samandağ, in the province of Hatay, Türkiye.

This edition of ASF-UK’s flagship Change by Design series will focus on collectively exploring strategies and tools for reimagining and repairing the living heritage of Samandağ—a town deeply affected by the 2023 earthquakes and now facing the combined challenges of mass displacement, top-down reconstruction, and ecological crisis.

The workshop forms Stage B of the independent learning course Challenging Practice: Essentials for the Social Production of Habitat by ASF-International.

About the Workshop

Organised by ASF-UK in partnership with Samandağ Municipality and Hatay Earthquake Solidarity (Samandağ Branch), and supported by KalAntakya, Istanbul Policy Center, the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) of Oxford Brookes University, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) of University College London, and the School of Architecture and Landscape of University of Sheffield, this initiative continues ASF-UK’s long-term engagement in community-led post-disaster recovery in Antakya and across the wider Hatay province.

Samandağ, a coastal town near the Syrian border with around 120,000 residents, is historically marginalised and politically complex, yet home to rich environmental, cultural, and religious diversity.

Following the February 2023 earthquakes, state-led large-scale land expropriations and reconstruction processes have threatened the town’s cultural, religious, and environmental spaces, with many local actors describing these ongoing changes as ecological and cultural erasure.

The workshop will engage with these dynamics, supporting the municipality and local partners to co-imagine alternative pathways and develop advocacy tools for a fairer and more resilient future.

Through a living heritage lens, participants will document and visualise the ongoing socio-spatial transformations, exploring what is at stake in the reconstruction process and identifying collective actions toward a socially and ecologically just recovery.

Call for Participants

We invite architects, planners, designers, social scientists, activists, and artists to join a multidisciplinary action-research team exploring how post-disaster recovery can become a pathway to spatial and social justice.

Participants will engage in a collaborative, action-learning process, building on two years of ASF-UK’s research and partnerships in Antakya. 

The programme begins with a one-day online symposium in March 2026, followed by a week-long residential workshop in Samandağ in April 2026. Together with local actors, participants will adapt ASF-UK’s Change by Design methodology to develop actionable strategies for repairing and sustaining Samandağ’s living heritage. 

Benefits of Participation 

• Gain hands-on experience in community-led recovery and spatial research. 
• Collaborate with grassroots groups, local authorities, and international networks.
• Develop skills in action research, social design, and living heritage documentation.
• Contribute to the repair and resilience of Samandağ’s cultural and ecological heritage.
• Join a diverse international network committed to spatial justice and inclusive urbanism.
• Earn professional development through ASF-International’s Challenging Practice course.

APPLY NOW