Researchers and Students
Ersia Stylianou, Research Associate
Ersia Stylianou is an architect-engineer, PhD Candidate at the Department of Architecture UCY (University of Cyprus) and a researcher working at the intersection of architecture, urban and territorial design, mapping and socio-ecological studies, with a particular focus on multispecies relations and territorial transformation. Her doctoral research investigates the Chrysochou watershed in north-western Cyprus as a transforming bioregion, exploring how human–nonhuman synergies within the carob ecosystem can inform new territorial and ecological imaginaries.
She currently holds the position of Research Associate for MODUS (Modelling for sustainable Development in Urban Spaces) at the Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics at the Cyprus University of Technology. She works as a researcher at the University of Cyprus’s Laboratory of Urbanism (LUCY) since 2021. Ersia worked as a Special Scientist, teaching the second-year Studio, as a tutor for the fourth-year Studio and as a teaching assistant/tutor for the Landscape Architecture at UCY.
Ersia holds an Integrated Master’s Degree and a Bachelor’s in Architecture and Engineering from NTUA (National Technical University of Athens), and a certificate in Urban Ecology Design Course, DelftX. Between 2023 and 2024, she coordinated the SUCY lecture series and was a contributor/coordinator for JUCY 11. In 2022, she attended TU Graz, Austria, as an Erasmus+ placement as a participant and contributor in the International Symposium Territorial Turn! Towards a just, ecological and collaborative urbanism.
Her work has been presented in international conferences and symposiums, and she has participated in workshops and exhibitions. Recent presentations include the 2024 ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, with the article, Cyprus historic cooperative movements; a solution mechanism for land ownership conflicts in Paphos today; and the 2025 Urbanism meets Agroecology: Operational practices, research and educational approaches in Europe. International Study Day of Paris-Est School of City & Territorial Architecture, where she presented the paper, Resisting Territorial Control: Commoning Practices and Land Access in Cyprus.
Valeria A. Savinykh, PhD Candidate
I am an architect, urban strategist and a PhD candidate working at the intersection of sustainable urban planning, development logic and spatial decision-making. My research focuses on how GIS, spatial modelling and AI-supported approaches can move beyond analysis alone and become more transparent, practice-oriented environments for higher-quality territorial development. I am particularly interested in methods that help connect spatial intelligence with the long-term economic, social and experiential value of urban environments.
My academic background combines architecture, planning and strategy. I hold a degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from Moscow Architectural Institute (State Academy) Russia, as well as an MSc in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, alongside MBA in strategic management, MIRBIS, Moscow, Russia. This interdisciplinary foundation allows me to approach the city simultaneously as a spatial, social, economic and managerial system.
For more than 20 years, I have worked on residential complexes, urban territories, parks, and public spaces from 350sq m to 2 000ha, experiencing the city from multiple positions: architect, consultant, curator, developer-side expert and design leader. This multi-scalar and cross-sector perspective has led me to see the city not only as a system of quantitative indicators, but as a living framework of everyday life, where the quality of space must be evaluated through both performance and human experience.
I am currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Schematic Spaces, an international practice operating at the intersection of analytics, urban and landscape design, through healing landscape principles as a response to the challenges of total digitalization and the growing decline in mental health. Across my professional work, I consistently seek to develop environments of human scale that are convenient to use, strategically grounded, and capable of aligning user scenarios, transport logic, commercial objectives and long-term spatial value.
Through my PhD, my aim is to develop scientifically grounded and practically applicable methods that support planners, developers, municipalities and other stakeholders in making more balanced spatial decisions. I am especially interested in participatory and co-design frameworks that make ecological, social and economic effects more visible, measurable, and actionable. For me, doctoral research is not a departure from practice into theory, but an opportunity to strengthen the methodological bridge between analytical intelligence, human-centered urban development and real implementation.