Journal Article

Urban design pedagogies: An international perspective

Çalışkan, Olgu, Yavuz Özgür, Irmak

2025

Overview

While the relationship between urban design, architecture, and planning has been discussed through various positionings and models, urban design education continued its institutionalization within different graduate schools. The process has ended up with diverse programs through various curricula and studio works. In this context, such accumulated diversity indicates the necessity to identify the original divergences and commonalities of the programs in the international context for proper and timely identification of the so-called ‘urban design pedagogy’ if it would be claimed so. To that aim, the paper examines the current institutional profiles, program descriptions, and curricula of 70 urban design master’s programs and comparatively scrutinizes them with data visualization techniques. Moreover, various modalities in the organization of studio education have been explored through available course descriptions and students’ works. In this framework, the subtle discrepancies and commonalities are delineated under the four titles: institutional identity (academic organization), thematic focuses, curricular content, and studio education. As a result, the concept of ‘pedagogies’ in urban design is argued in the current state-of-the-art within the field.