Processing Urban Design Competitions

Urban design competitions are how a lot of real public space actually gets shaped, and this elective unpacks them as a discipline of their own — the briefs, the juries, the politics of who sets the terms, and the strategies competitors use to win. You'll spend most of the semester reading specifications and award-winning entries from Turkish and international competitions, then writing and presenting a term paper that dissects a chosen case, with guest sessions from designers walking through their own submissions. It's a useful complement to studio work if you're heading toward practice in urban design, landscape, or architecture, since competitions are often the entry point to serious commissions.