GRADUATE COURSES IN ARCHITECTURE
Design Studio I-II
Graduate design studios are interactive and interdisciplinary environments where students are
offered the opportunity to pursue their chosen area of specialization by means of extensive research
and design. They are encouraged to form international academic links and produce research-based,
exploratory and innovative work.
Architectural Research Methods
The aim of this course is to prepare the students to do research in the field of architecture. Course
contents include the scope of architectural research, standards of research quality, and research
strategies. Students are familiarized with such notions as qualitative, quantitative, correlational and
experimental research. They are familiarized with academic writing standards and ethical aspects of
academic research.
Seminar
The seminar course focuses on research methods in architecture. Students are exposed to principles
of academic research in scientific disciplines including concepts like qualitative and quantitative
research, problem definition, testing, documentation and methods of data collection. They will also
be introduced to diverse theoretical approaches to research.
Thesis
The masters thesis marks the culmination of graduate studies where students engage in extensive
research on a topic of their choice, which addresses a specific question that contributes to current
architectural discourse and/or practice. Guided by a supervisor, they are expected to engage in
independent and rigorous work towards their chosen area of expertise. The end product can be a
written thesis or a design project accompanied by an extensive report.
GRADUATE ELECTIVES IN ARCHITECTURE
Contemporary Theories in Architecture
This course focuses on the current state of the architectural discipline from contemporary theoretical
perspectives. The aim is to develop students’ interpretive skills in architecture in order to enable
fresh approaches to design. While the first part of the course is devoted to architectural theories of
the modernist heritage, the second part engages with contemporary approaches to architectural
discourse that claim a break from the modernist tradition.
Technology and Architecture
This course addresses the influence of scientific and technological developments in urban planning
and architecture from the historical point of view. It poses such questions as: What are the
relationship of industrialization and the recent scientific and technological developments and their
impact on cities, buildings and society? How do these developments affect the behavior of human
beings and how can they influence the quality of living? What is the relationship between
architecture, building technology and engineering?
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Architecture and Modernity
This course provides an understanding of the relationship between architecture and cultural
modernity. Explicating the premises of the Enlightenment and its rationalist basis, lectures and
discussions focus on the continuation of the Enlightenment heritage as well as oppositional positions
beginning with Romanticism and unfolding through various avant-garde movements of the 20th
century. The aim is to provide an understanding of the heterogenous character of modernity both in
architecture and in the larger field of cultural production.
Contemporary Urban Cultures
After a preview of modernist urbanism and development of modern urban cultures, this course
focuses on how traditional notions of the city, community and public realm are challenged in the age
of globalism and the birth of global cities. By means of case studies, selected critical readings,
seminar discussions and student presentations, such issues as urban effects of the global flow of
capital, large scale migration and the status of public spaces are examined. Students are familiarized
with the concerns of everyday urbanism, new urbanism and post-urbanism in terms of the
relationship between urban culture and planning.
Spatial Practices
The aim of this couse is to introduce the range of theoretical frameworks to understand and
interpret spatial practices in relation to the materiality of space. The couse covers readings and
discussions on critical spatial theories and the interpretation of particular urban and architectural
spaces from an interdisciplinary perspective. Discussions focus on the relationship between
everyday spatial practices and design disciplines through the understanding of social and cultural
factors.
Floating Settlements
The creation of alternative living environments is a current issue due to increase in natural disasters,
rise in sea levels and mass migrations to cities all over the world. These include the development of
concepts and technologies for eco-friendly floating cities inspired by sustainable offshore
settlements. This course tackles these complex issues and aims at investigating innovative
concepts and technologies.
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Architectural Discourse
The aim of this course is to develop students’ critical interpretive skills in architecture by introducing
them to architectural and historical texts and their interpretations by leading contemporary theorists
including philosophers and cultural theorists as well as architects and architectural historians. The
course focuses on architectural discourses and practices in relation to such contemporary theoretical
frameworks as structuralism, post-structuralism, post-colonial, feminist and psychoanalytical
theories.
Performance Based Design
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This course focuses on the way by which different disciplines can be integrated towards innovative
design concepts which deal with soft and hard aspects in building design. Emphais is placed on
interdisciplinary collaboration towards concept innovation. During the conceptual phase of the
design, important decisions are made especially on the technical and engineering performances in
relation to the form of a building. These performances can be used by the architect as a source for
inspiration to design innovative concepts and products.
Advanced Computational Design
Advanced computational design is an emerging approach that uses the power of the computer to aid
the design process and which involves different approaches to design. This course provides design
and programming knowledge which enables writing parametric and associative programmes to allow
experimentation with visual programming environments. It provides a framework where various
design ideas can be quickly generated and evaluated. The use and evaluation of complex geometric
models will help students to understand programming concepts and in turn, learn more about new
approaches to the design process.
Sustainable Façades
This course emphasizes the importance of building façades as media between outdoor and indoor
environments. Similar to a living form the façade is considered as a selective skin for water, solar
light, and contaminants in the surrounding air. Hence the sustainable façade becomes a control
mechanism contributing the optimization of energy in buildings. Students will learn passive and
active strategies for such control focusing on themes like material properties, the significance of
openings, solar collectors and photovoltaic technologies.
Building Rating Systems
Many decisions concerning the building process and design choices are not the outcome of a rational
assessment of alternatives, but have grown to be standardized at regional levels. Planning, designing
and building involve different professions and the problems and the gathering of information depend
on the people involved in the construction process. A community of different professionals need
guidance via rating models to achieve objective evaluations. This course introduces rating models
and software systems currently in use, and provides an overview of the theoretical background of
their development.
Building and Energy
The main concern of this course is thedesign of energy efficient and sustainable buildings by using
both traditional and modern techniques and methods. It addresses issues of energy efficiency in
buildings and how to apply innovative technologies to plus energy buildings. Students will be
familiarized with such devices as photovoltaic cells, solar panels, chimneys, passive solar strategies,
the solar house concept, floating structures and simple heat transfer calculations. The course also
addresses the green building concept and performance criteria developed by such organizations as
LEEDS and BREAM.
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