Abstract:

Architectural design courses are in the center of architectural education covering almost a quarter of the total education. History of architectural education records various methods of design training. It consists of theoretical and practical courses aiming at contribution to the development of the society in social, cultural and economic levels. With the advent of globalization, another aim should be contribution to the society at an international level besides challenging issues like, the climatic changes, the growing urbanization, the financial crisis, the impact of design by computer. In this context, besides formal architectural design education, informal design studies such as seminars, conferences, exhibitions, workshops etc. have a growing importance. As for the informal design studies, workshops are frequently put into action resulting in outstanding success. They help the student develop new design skills, learning by doing skills, creating motivation for creativity and most important of all self confidence not only in local environments but in international ones.

This paper is about an international winter workshop held in Istanbul in January 2014 between ETSAB and BAU Faculty of Architecture and Design. Issues like student's personal, collective, local and global learning practices are evaluated through some general objectives such as: promoting group work within diverse student groups, solving a design problem in a short time and experiencing the possibilities and limitations of different approaches to design. Furthermore, contemporary architectural education with all its theoretical and practical innovations are discussed along with the developments in the world.

Keywords:

Architectural design studies, cross cultural, workshops, learning, local and global.