About

Founded in Istanbul in 2006 by Selva Gürdoğan and Gregers Tang Thomsen, Superpool opened a Copenhagen office in 2017. Working between two very different cities keeps the practice honest: what counts as a good street in Nordhavn is not what counts as a good street in Beyoğlu, and the discipline of moving between them is where most of our thinking comes from.

We start with research. Every project begins by looking at how a place is actually used rather than how it was drawn. That has meant mapping Istanbul's minibus network, measuring a neighbourhood from 95 centimetres off the ground, and sitting in a square long enough to see who avoids it. The findings shape the design; often they change the brief.

We build what we propose. The practice moves from research to drawings to construction, and stays involved through delivery. Over the past decade that has meant reclaiming more than thirty streets and squares across twenty-five districts, working with forty-three municipalities — schools, playgrounds, offices, exhibitions, and a good deal of asphalt turned back into public space.

We design for the youngest users first. A city that works for a three-year-old works for almost everyone. Children, and the people who accompany them, are the constituency most often designed around and least often designed for; putting them at the centre produces better streets for pedestrians, older people and anyone not in a car.

We work with cities, not around them. Most of our clients are municipalities, foundations and cultural institutions. Public projects are slow and constrained, and those constraints are the interesting part — a design that cannot be maintained, funded or defended politically is not finished.