Program Educational Objectives

METU URBAN DESIGN Master’s Program targets the following educational objectives:

• The provision of theoretical and practical background and aptitude as regards the identification, design and implementation of urban components and urban space with an emphasis on the relationship between and private realms and urban morphology,
• To identify the framework of the disciplines of various actors who have a say in the processes of city building, to equip the students with the skills to develop methods to achieve a “common language” to ease communication while working with the actors of different disciplines, towards preset, common objectives, through an understanding of one another’s fields of interest,
• To inculcate the sensibility in the understanding of the “whole and parts” relationship as to the identification of urban components and their totality, thereby urging the related actors of different fields such as city planners, architects and landscape architects etc., who partake in their design and implementation, to work harmoniously under common objectives,
• To orient the students to have an understanding of the theoretical concerns, the history and the models of planning, architecture, landscape design and engineering within the limits of urban design,
• To identify the concept of public interest and develop its sensibility among the students along with a sense of social responsibility within the framework of interventions in urban space,
• To enhance the understanding of the relationship between the fields of urban planning and urban design,
•  To encourage the students to follow publications with different languages, particularly those written in English and Turkish, in order to enable them to improve their know-how; and by this way to form a knowledge basis to help them write their master’s theses and add to this basis after graduation,
• To encourage the students to get familiar with the ever developing computer technologies and to use them as design interfaces,
• To develop students’ graphical design skills,
• To let the students understand that the formulation of any given problem includes the possible solutions to that problem and thus, develop their skills in identifying urban problems.