The major goal of undergraduate and postgraduate level studies is to educate city planners and qualified people, who are sensitive to mankind, nature and cultural processes, attain professional knowledge and skills and are professionally ethical.

The educational targets of the Department are to educate city planners, who:

• are skilled to ask questions and do researching,
• know how to think and can re-produce knowledge via experience,
• are capable of technology in reaching and re-producing knowledge,
• can build up dialogue with other disciplines related,
• can adequately recognize the social, economical, political and cultural aspects constituting the structural dynamics of the society in order to interpret their reflections upon physical space,
• take responsibility over the existing urban problems of the country and propose for alternative solutions,
• are qualified in terms of drawing as well as oral and written expression techniques of planning, and
• are acquainted with the existing tools and language of planning, but whenever needed, who can define new targets and search for new tools to adopt.

In our Department, education is offered in both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The undergraduate level studies are being held under City Planning Science Branch. In project studios that have been taking place in a total of six semesters, the adopted understanding initially involves the comprehension of spatial relations of a small settlement to then be reflected on designs that start from small scale cases to gradually upper scale planning activities where regional scale relations are in question. The planning frameworks that refer to the comprehension of existing settlement practices and different alternatives are carried out in different project studios as follows:

2^nd Year Project Studios 

PLN. 2201

Small scale settlement and/or mass housing project

Scale: 1 / 500 site plan + 1 / 200 details

PLN 2202

Small scale settlement and/or mass housing project (sloped land)

Scale: 1 / 500 site plan + 1 / 200 details + sections

3^rd Year Project Studios
 

PLN 3301

Medium scale settlement

Economical – Social and Spatial Analysis

Scale: 1 / 10000 and/or 1/5000 Master Plan

PLN 3302

Medium scale settlement

Economical – Social and Spatial Analysis

Scale: 1 / 1000 Implementation Plan

4^th Year Project Studios

PLN 4401

Large scale / metropolitan city

Economical – Social and Spatial Analysis

Scale: 1 / 100000 Structure Plan and/or 1 / 25000 Master Plan

PLN 4402

Individual diploma work aiming at developing experience in definition and solution of urban problems

These studio activities focusing on a direct analysis and planning of the existing structure of the city provide for considerable amounts of data be collected in our Department. On the other hand, in some analytical courses, such exercises take place as to aid in comprehension of the economical, social and spatial relations of the city and term papers are handed out to support the related content and scope of the course.

In graduate level, there exist two programs offered as City Planning and urban Design, both under the Science Branch of City and Regional Planning.

There are two basic goals in graduate level studies:

1. The first goal is to have increased number of professionals affiliated with academic life.
2. The other goal is to develop the intellectual level and skills of those professionals who are to be employed in formal institutions or private offices functioning in fields of city planning and urban design.

In graduate and post-graduate level studies, the courses and their contents reflect the basic intentions of and careful considerations taking place in preparation of the curriculum. While the Masters programme in city planning theoretically scrutinizes the discipline of city planning in a comprehensive manner, it, at the same time, aims at reinforcing and further developing the knowledge and skills obtained in undergraduate level. Supported by plenty of elective courses, the target is to have a curriculum that is flexible and alterable in terms of specialization. As for the urban design programme, it has been established as a programme where graduates of both city planning and architecture come together.

The characteristic of urban design where architecture and city planning occasionally get intertwined with each other, but where urban design is not fully covered with either of the disciplines, in other words, its characteristic to be both the “design of city” and “design of urban spaces” constitutes the process and content of design. This characteristic points out to a design understanding where spatial sensitivity is set forth as based, in terms of content, on locality, originality, flexibility and justice in encountering the needs of all social groups, and in terms of the adopted process, on participation range and team work discipline. Promoting this understanding and enabling to get skilled with regard to the process of design is adopted as the basic goal of graduate and post-graduate level studies in urban design.