Açalya Allmer has a professional degree in architecture from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey (B.Arch, 1997). She received a M.Sc. degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (2003) followed by a Ph.D. degree in architecture from the same university (2005). The title of her dissertation was “Towards a Draped Architecture: An Examination of Theatricality, Virtuosity, and Ambiguity in the Recent Works of Frank O. Gehry, and Others.” She has taught history-theory courses and graduate seminars at the University of Pennsylvania (2000-2005). Allmer is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Dokuz Eylül University in İzmir, Turkey. Her research focuses on textiles in architecture, metaphors and meanings of cloth in architectural design and autonomy of surface in contemporary architecture. She has published numerous articles on these topics, and has attended many conferences in US, Germany and UK