Ayşe Birsel
Ayse Birsel (born 1964) is a Turkish industrial designer and author. She is best known for her design work with Herman Miller.
Ayşe Birsel
- Name
- Ayse Birsel
- Born
- 1964
- Birthplace
- İzmir, Turkey
- Education
- Middle East Technical University Pratt Institute
- Known for
- * Designer
- Nationality
- Turkey
- Occupation
- designer
- Languages
- Turkish · English
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Ayse Birsel (born 1964) is a Turkish industrial designer and author. She is best known for her design work with Herman Miller.
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Ayşe Birsel (born 1964) is a designer, of Turkish nationality. The designer was born in İzmir.
Languages used include English and Turkish. Works are held at Brooklyn Museum and Museum of Modern Art.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Ayse Birsel • Born — 1964 • Birthplace — İzmir, Turkey • Education — Middle East Technical University Pratt Institute • Known for — * Designer • author • Website — aysebirsel.com/
Biography
Biography
Ayse Birsel was born in İzmir, Turkey. Birsel received her undergraduate degree in Industrial Design at Middle East Technical University (METU). Birsel came to New York City in 1986 to attend Pratt Institute on a Fulbright Scholarship and graduated in 1989 with a master's degree in Design. Birsel married Bibi Seck in 2004. They have two daughters, one son, and live in New York.
Career
Career
Birsel started her career by collaborating with Bruce Hannah and American contract furnishing company Knoll to design the Orchestra desk accessories collection. Birsel then worked with the Japanese sanitaryware company TOTO in Tokyo designing the first American introduced washlet (a combination toilet seat and bidet). The Zoë Washlet won numerous design awards including ID Magazines Gold Award in 1996. Upon her return to New York in 1993, Birsel began her own product design studio, Olive 1:1. The studio evolved into a design and innovation studio called Birsel+Seck that she currently runs with partner, Bibi Seck. In 2015 Birsel authored a book titled Design the Life You Love, with Penguin Random House. The book shares Birsel's design process to help people design their life and work respectively. Birsel is also a frequent speaker on human-centered design, giving talks at TEDx in Cannes and Design Indaba in Cape Town.
Works
Works
• Zoë Washlet (TOTO, 1993) • Resolve System (Herman Miller, 2009)
Publications
* * * *
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Ayse Birsel. hermanmiller.com.
- 2.Ayse Birsel, IDSA. Industrial Designers Society of America - IDSA. 2017-04-05.
- 3.Orchestra. knoll.com.
- 4.Pratt Institute. pratt.edu.
- 5.Byars, Mel. The Design Encyclopedia. L. King Pub. 2004-01-01. 9780870700125.
- 6.Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck. hermanmiller.com.
- 7.About Us - Birsel + Seck. birselplusseck.com.
- 8.Birsel, Ayse. How to Sketch a Life Plan. Time Magazine. 2015-10-28.
- 9.Design the Life You Love by Ayse PenguinRandomHouse.com.
- 10.If your life is your biggest project, why not design it? Ayse Birsel TEDxCannes. 2017-09-21.
- 11.Ayse Birsel on designing a meaningful future for yourself Design Indaba.
- 12.Pratt Institute. pratt.edu.
- 13.Resolve - Office Furniture System - Herman Miller. hermanmiller.com.
- 14.Walker, Karen. Innovator Ayse Birsel: Design The Long Life You Love. Forbes.
- 15.Report: "Co-Designing with Older People," Revealing Incredibly Bright Silver Lining of Aging and Market Opportunities for Better Design. prnewswire.com.
References
Citations
References
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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