Evaluation of Building Materials Course in Architectural Education

In architecture, many fundamental topics—such as construction, comfort, health, safety, durability, lifecycle, environment, climate change, cost, reuse, and recycling—are rooted in "building materials." Despite this, it can be observed that the current architectural field lacks sufficient competence in building materials, both in education and professional practice. In architectural education, where the goal is to develop abstract and concrete thinking skills, the course that lays the foundation for abstract thinking is "basic design," while the course that explores the possibilities of translating abstract ideas into concrete forms is "building materials." Although these courses are complementary, their teaching methods and outcomes differ. This study aims to identify the quality of building materials courses, defining existing issues of building materials courses in contemporary architectural education and propose solutions. The scope of the research includes the curricula of "Building Materials" and "Basic Design" courses in the architecture departments of 33 state universities in Turkey, selected based on various criteria. The research design combines quantitative and qualitative analysis methods.In the quantitative analysis, factors such as the mandatory status of courses, their inclusion of practical components, class hours, and the adequacy of practical training hours were evaluated. The qualitative analysis involved interviews with instructors of building materials courses, which are delivered as a combination of theory and practice, to gain insights into the content and methods of practical training. The findings highlight a major issue: building materials courses lack a contemporary learning approach and method, instead relying on a traditional model where the instructor is active and the student remains passive.