bs.lab | Building Simulation Laboratory

The Building Simulations Lab was established in December 2009 by Building Science Graduate Program, through funding provided by the Faculty of Architecture. The lab became fully operative in March 2010 with the installation of licensed building simulation software on ten state-of-the-art computers; thus, making it possible for the first time, to offer a course on building performance simulations. Since then BPS courses have focused on different software each term, such as Ecotect, EnergyPlus or Design Builder; in conjunction with Climate Consultant. During these courses graduate students learn to simulate buildings for their thermal performance; natural and artificial lighting design, natural and mixed mode ventilation; mechanical heating and cooling loads; as well as energy consumption and carbon emissions.

bm.lib | Building Materials Library 

The Building Materials Library was established in 2011 as an archive where catalogues and samples of building material and components are stored and displayed; and where system-detail models prepared by architecture students are also exhibited. The library provides an on-line access to browse electronic catalogues and CDs related to various building products. The Library has located in Architecture Annex.

Computer Lab 

Established in 1980 and being upgraded since then on a regular basis in order to comply with the needs and the expectations of the members of the faculty, students and the academic staff respectively, The Computer Lab aims at providing a cutting-edge environment for education and research. Today equipped with advanced tools of digital technology and now being under a comprehensive upgrading once again the Lab has long been regarded as an info-locus for METU students throughout courses, workshops, seminars and even in personal and/or group studies as it is centrally located within the main building and thus open to public use accessible to all.    

DDS | Digital Design Lab

Digital Design Studio (DDS) was initially established as a part of a Scientific Research Project (BAP) in 2003 (by Arzu Gönenç Sorguç and Şebnem Yalınay) aiming to provide necessary hardware and software to explore state of art computational design and fabrication technologies. Following the very first years of the establishment, DDS has become the foundation of computational design education at METU Department of Architecture.  With the continuous support of the Faculty of Architecture and administrative and academic contributions of Canan Özgen, Haluk Pamir, Can Baykan, Ayşen Savaş, Zeynep Mennan, Güven Arif Sargın, Arzu Gönenç Sorguç  and Mine Özkar, DDS became the incubation center of further academic projects such as the very first dual diploma international joint master of science program with TU-Delft on the computational design and fabrication technologies(CompArch) in 2008. Today DDS is still the core of computational design education and not only the number of courses, staff and the students using DDS is increasing but also the number of workshops, seminars open to public is becoming an international venue in increasing paste. 
For DDS website click here.

Model Making Workshops

Fully supporting architectural/planning/design education and research, the Faculty of Architecture provides the students and the academic staff with a Model Making Workshop accessible to all since its establishment in 1956. Model making facility with its experienced and specialized staff has long been an active milieu of hands-on production as well as computer-based fabrication as it offers an extensive space in Annex where students and staff could carry out their physical model making and prototypes as part of their research and education programs. In addition to tools and equipments for hands-on production techniques, such as woodwork, metalwork and ceramics, high-tech CAM systems, such as 3d printers, laser cutters and3d router (milling machine) are also available under the supervision of faculty technician and specialists. The Model Making Facility, which has been regularly updated, is now under a comprehensive remodeling/refurbishing and thus upgrading in hardware to be able to offer a well-established, cutting-edge environment for undergraduate education that includes the Faculty's half-a-century-long tradition of extensive summer practices.

For more information on Modelling Facilities click here. 

MCL | Materials Conservation Laboratory

The Materials Conservation Laboratory (MCL), which is an academic extension of the Conservation of the Cultural Heritage Graduate Program, Department of Architecture, Middle East Technical University, was established in the early 1960s, as an educational and research laboratory for the said program. Once an independent academic unit, “Department of Restoration” is now a a center for excellence in research and education for the preservation of the built environment as MCL has become an internationally acclaimed research center in time for the development of scientific conservation studies and the improvement of conservation practices. MCL aims at diagnostic analyses of historic structures and materials for the active decay factors and sources, development of conservation treatments, selection and preparation of compatible repair materials, and the establishment of maintenance and monitoring programs for historic structures. MCL has more than thirty years of experience on site and laboratory investigations of historic structures in Turkey. It has been the task of the laboratory to study technological properties of historical building materials and their problems for the purpose of their conservation. In 2003, the Graduate Program restructured itself in complying with the contemporary paradigms of higher education and the cutting-edge research as it begun to recruit non-architect graduates from different disciplines and fields; starting from 2007-2008 Fall Semester, the graduates of four-year-degree programs are also eligible.

For MCL website click here.

Photogrammetry Laboratory

The Photogrammetry Laboratory (PL) of METU Department of Architecture was established in 1967. Being a pioneer in the field of architectural photogrammetry in Turkey, PL is one of the few educational and research centers developed by Restoration and Preservation Program of METU Department of Architecture.

The main purposes of PL are providing training for undergraduate and postgraduate students in architectural documentation and photogrammetry; providing theoretical, practical, and technical support to all researchers of METU in documentation of the physical environment, especially the historic environment; following the developments, and conducting researches on new ways of documenting and analyzing architectural heritage in different scales.

Photograph Laboratory

As an active part of DOME [Faculty Archive | Documentation Center] the Lab has a two-fold purpose that of documentation of faculty works and of service space for courses in photography and digital media. The Lab has a primary function that is to document and then archive educational materials; the archival material is extremely original in nature, having a historical value for METU, Faculty of Architecture. Along with those of listed qualities, the Lab also offers an educational infrastructure for courses by which analog/digital photography is being thought/trained for the students.

BILTIR-UTEST Product Usability Unit

METU/BILTIR Product Usability Unit is a not-for-profit research unit which carries out user-centered design research studies. UTEST merges an academic infrastructure with design practice, to serve for two purposes: Developing academic know-how and giving design and research consultancy to product developers. For UTEST website click here.