Last week, METU Department of Architecture completed its Fall 2016 Final Reviews for undergraduate programs. After several dynamic months and triggering studio reviews, METU Architecture were guided by Dean of the Faculty of Architecture Güven Arif Sargın, Undergraduate Program Instructors İnci Basa, Marco Bruno, a unique roster of Program Assistants and a series of guest instructors.

Architecture juries and studio critics are not simple traditional ephemera or a divine stage for students or spectators -the jury critics are a particular formation interrogating and affecting the students' architectural vocabulary, aesthetic values, skills and working methodology with a concrete framework. 

All jury members, spectators or other special experts witness and still discuss how an emergent architect(s) can control and develop their crafts in an ingenious, self-reliance and problem-solving way. Even if it is still discussed as a traditional model, the architecture juries are acridly needed and very significant part of an education. The architecture juries are an ongoing design medium that helps students and architects to draw and produce space. 

Fourth-year studio view with diverse jury members

Fourth-year studio view with diverse jury members

Second-year studio task themed as Metamorphosis-Urban Cocoon 

Second-year studio task themed as Metamorphosis-Urban Cocoon 

Second-year studio, coordinated by Güven Arif Sargın and İnci Basa, reimagined The Turkish Chamber of Architects, founded in 1954 in Ankara, to develop new tectonics and spatial potentials over the existing structure. 

Named as Urban Cocoon, the studio asked students to enhance the intellectual function of the chamber by providing spaces for temporary accommodation (live) and collective production (work). The project was conceived at the top level of the current building of the chamber as an architectural entity which forms a symbiotic relationship with the existing structure. Over 60 students of the course visited the building at the beginning of the term and examined the historical building and its environment. 

Second-year studio task themed as Metamorphosis-Urban Cocoon 

For final juries, themed as Metamorphosis, the Urban Cocoon was composed of temporary living spaces and event space that propose capacity to accommodate various events. The project was also intended to change its relationship with the sky and overall form by considering the potential to further accommodate a variety of events in the most vibrant streets of the city of Ankara. 

The student projects resulted in various architectural typologies exploring different structural hierarchies with refined expressions, multiple forms and new entities. You can reach METU Architecture second-year studio works and process through the studio blog. 

Second-year studio task themed as Metamorphosis-Urban Cocoon 

METU Arch 201, second-year studio 'Metamorphosis' exhibition 

Fourth-year studio worked Ankara Citadel Walls themed as 'Mural Terrain'

The fourth-year studio featuring four different design groups in the studio explored different sites in Ankara with different assigned themes. One of the groups, led by Ayşen Savaş, Funda Baş Bütüner, Onat Oktem, Pınar Yazdıç and in cooperation with Arzu Gönenç Sorguç, worked the historic Ankara Citadel and proposed new urbanities for Ankara Citadel Walls. 

The studio in their research tackled citadel walls as new urban zones or potential upgrading environment rather than being a border, boundary, limit or a series of constraints. In the projects, Ankara City walls were aimed to create possible interactions between the city and its existing infrastructure.  

Fourth-year studio, Ankara Citadel Walls themed as 'Mural Terrain' -Final Reviews for Fall 2016

The studio task titled 'Mural Terrain: Ankara Citadel Walls: A Proposal for New Urbanities', focuses on ''mural zone covering two contrasting landscapes between the historic town and the still developing city: a green zone, where the wall exists as a continuous, linear architectural object and a brown, rocky landscape, where the wall is dissolved into a three dimensional terrain,'' stated in the assignment. 

Fourth-year studio, Ankara Citadel Walls themed as 'Mural Terrain' -Final Reviews for Fall 2016

Fourth-year studio, Ankara Citadel Walls themed as 'Mural Terrain' -Final Reviews for Fall 2016

The studio asked students to write an architectural program that can help the projection of this unusual landscape. Students' proposals should have been related to the transformation and/or projection of the existing landscape; and its architecture would be limited to a defined number of functions helping the maintenance of the projected landscape. 

Hence, the studio researched and discussed 'Wall Architecture' in order to reach at the end, not a mere architectural product but also its spatiality. All the students attended special lecture series and a workshop in cooperation with the Computational Design Studio, coordinated by Arzu Gönenç Sorguç, to develop methods for the analysis and understanding of the site.

Fourth-year studio, Ankara Citadel Walls themed as 'Mural Terrain' -Final Reviews for Fall 2016

Fourth-year studio, Ankara Citadel Walls themed as 'Mural Terrain' -Final Reviews for Fall 2016

Fourth-year studio, other group worked the theme titled 'Continuity and Contradiction/Between Urbanization and Preservation/Planning and Architectural Design in a District Context: Gölbaşı'

Fourth-year studio, other group worked the theme titled 'Continuity and Contradiction/Between Urbanization and Preservation/Planning and Architectural Design in a District Context: Gölbaşı'-Final Reviews for Fall 2016

Third-group worked the theme titled 'Harvesting the City: Urban Substraction'- Final Reviews for Fall 2016

Fourth-group worked the theme titled as 'Reclaiming an Urban Void in the Center of Ankara: AKM Area #4 and Old Gas Factory Site'- Final Reviews for Fall 2016

The other groups' themes included Reclaiming an Urban Void in the Center of Ankara: AKM Area #4 and Old Gas Factory Site led by Cana Bilsel Ali Sinan and Neris Parlak, Continuity and Contradiction/Between Urbanization and Preservation/Planning and Architectural Design in a District Context: Gölbaşı coordinated by Celal Abdi Güzer, Lale Özgenel, Yeşim Hatırlı, Nihan Büşra Aydın, and Harvesting the City: Urban Substraction led by Zeynep Mennan, Rüya İpek Balaban, Egemen Berker Kızılcan.

All images © WAC

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