Benefiting from the adventureous nature of 'design thinking' in urban design education an urban design studio as a case study: "on trail of taksim square"

Abstract

Discovering and interpreting life; namely observing the space constituting actions and physical properties with sensitivity, is the very process of design thinking in architecture. The ability to interpret is a learnable and teachable human sensitivity developed by being interested in acquiring knowledge about the social, political, psychological and natural dimensions of life's makeup. Therefore within the context of creating a deep interest for life in students of architecture, especially the analyses of existent public spaces provide appropriate settings. The creative analyses, which are organically woven into the wholeness of design thinking process, allow touching the deeper dimensions of physical environments which usually stay hidden at the beginning. Informing about the reality and encouraging its various interpretations, creative analyses give impulses to the designer for building and re-building her/his design thinking route. Through an experimental urban design studio as a case study, where throughout the design process the first set borders of the design area and the issues of discussion changed unexpectedly; the author attends to point out the informative and adventurous character of architectural design thinking and propose the actualization of some learning principles for the education.