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.