Teaching Architectural Design Studio Remotely: The Introduction to Architectural Design Course at METU

This paper aims to briefly assess the potentials and limits of online learning environment for studio education by focusing on the case of 2019-20 spring semester studio of Introduction to Architectural Design course at Middle East Technical University’s Department of Architecture. As a transitory course between basic design principles and architectural design, Introduction to Architectural Design addresses the issues of site, program, structure, form, and material in reference to small scale architectural interventions. Reviewing the usual course of the semester until the COVID-19 outbreak as well as the effects of the unexpected switch to the emergency distance teaching, the paper highlights both the creative advantages and material shortcomings of the course’s adaptation process into the online studio format

Architectural contextualism and emerging hybrid morphologies: the case of Olympic Sculpture Park for the Seattle Art Museum

Infrastructure networks have always been the primary feature of urbanism. As with any aspects of urban environments, the understanding of infrastructure networks and their practices have witnessed changes due to the shifts first to the modernist ideal and then to the globalised world view. In opposition to the former fragmented nature of infrastructure networks, modern urbanism proposed centralised, standardised and ordered planning of infrastructures. However, this coherent understanding is abandoned as globalisation and its economic organisation trigger liberalisation and privatisation of infrastructure, which leads to 'splintering urbanism', a term coined by Graham and Marvin (2001). In addition to these developments, the process of deindustrialisation converted the industrial sites of modern planning into problematic urban areas. Industries were moved away and networks that once served to integrate these areas were decayed, became obsolete and started to split urban areas. These changing urban conditions demand new spatial configurations. Olympic Sculpture Park for the Seattle Art Museum is a good example for discussing the changing urban conditions and the emerging new practices of architecture.The project was designed by the architectural firm Weiss/Manfredi. It was completed in 2007 and won the Veronica Rudge Green Prize the same year. Located on a former industrial site in Seattle, an emblematic condition of above-mentioned urban problems, the project generates a new spatial configuration based on contextual design strategies. The context debate is not new in the field of architecture and in order to comprehensively understand the emerging new practices, post-war context debate, which was characterised by the works of Team X, Ernesto Rogers, Aldo Rossi, Colin Rowe and Robert Venturi, has to be revisited. Thus, the aim of the essay is to examine the contextual design strategies of the Olympic Sculpture Park Project in relation to the post-war architectural context debate. Finally, it is asserted that new spatial configurations of architecture are characterised by the use of contextual strategies that lead to the hybridisation of morpholog

The Context Debate: An Archaeology

Context is a crucial concept in architecture in spite of the frequent ambiguity around its use. Although the consideration of context is intrinsic to the process of architectural design, in contemporary theory, little attention is paid to it. By way of contrast, in the 1950s, various architects, theorists, and teachers cultivated several perspectives on context as a way of addressing some of the ill effects of modern architectural orthodoxy. Although a topic of layered and productive debate in the post-war years, context fell into disrepute in the critical architectural discourse of the 1980s. This paper provides an archaeology of the context debate in the hope that it may be possible to reveal its forgotten dimensions and flexibility

Reinterpreting the Contemporary Architectural Practice in Turkey in the light of Context Debate

Architectural production has always been influenced by the economic developments of an era and the national and international political dynamics. In this regard, today, globalization and the current state of capitalism characterize the various aspects of contemporary architectural practice such as commoditization of architectural objects, urban environments and experiences and strong expression of nationalist identities in the buildings. In the scope of this essay, several projects from Turkey and as well as from international scene are going to be discussed in reference to the broader framework of globalization. These projects are selected as the exemplary cases of ‘homogeneity’, ‘iconism’, ‘theming’, ‘revivalism’, ‘typification’, and ‘urban regeneration’ that have emerged as the major approaches in contemporary architectural and urban design. However, there is a lack of reference to the tools and means of the field of architecture in discussing the problems of these projects in the contemporary debate. In that respect, one of the major problems of these projects is defined as the lack of critical approach to the physical, social, historical aspects of the urban context and specificity in place and time. Thus, this essay aims to frame a new fertile ground for a productive debate on the problems of these projects by bringing the context discussion in architecture to the center. On the other hand, the context debate in contemporary architectural theory is also abandoned due to the limited and simplistic understanding of the notion of context today. For this reason, a mapping of architectural contextualism in the post-war architectural theory and practice will be provided to uncover the evolution of context debate in architecture. Finally, it is asserted that the contemporary architectural and urban problems proliferated by 126 the economical and political impacts of globalization calls for a more critical conceptualization of architectural contextualism. In addition to that, developing a renewed understanding of contextualism has the potential to activate a generative debate on the problems of new urban environments