Our department, which started its activities in 1995 with graduate education under the roof of Gebze Institute of Technology Faculty of Architecture, carried out research and graduate studies until it became a Technical University in 2014. In 2017, the undergraduate program was opened with 60 students. We have given our 4th graduates in 2024.

In our departmental studies, where we aim to provide creative and innovative planning solutions in a research-oriented, interdisciplinary perspective to spatial planning education, research and practices on an international and national scale, we focus on spatial planning issues on a global scale and the current problems of our country's cities.

In order to strengthen our mission as a research university, we aim to carry out a research-oriented education and training program with our students in our undergraduate and graduate programs. Our basic approach is to preserve traditional planning principles and integrate them with new planning approaches on a global scale, and to search for creative and innovative planning solutions that increase social, economic and spatial resilience in the design of sustainable and livable cities. In our theoretical and practical courses, we discuss innovative planning solutions with our students and try to evaluate them with a critical approach. In our project courses, which aim to transfer theoretical knowledge to practice, our students carry out spatial planning studies at different scales that deal with the spatial, social, environmental and economic dimensions of urban design and urban planning in different fields of study. Especially in our senior undergraduate program projects, we focus on current global issues/problems such as climate change, urban resilience, protection of historical and cultural heritage, and disaster resilience. Our students research these issues with different dimensions on a global, national, regional and local scale, and produce spatial planning strategies, action programs and innovative idea projects for our country's cities. Our graduation project students received very valuable awards in the competition organized by the Chamber of Urban Planners and the Association of Planning Schools of Turkey among all planning school students for the last two years. Together with the students of well-established planning schools such as METU, ITU, and Izmir Institute of Technology, they were deemed worthy of second place equivalent awards and honorable mentions side by side. In addition, our 3rd and 4th grade students received many awards in the urban design project competitions they participated in on a national scale. I would like to congratulate our award-winning students.

Together with our department academicians, we strive to bring our students into our profession as effective planners who protect the ethical values of planning, protect the society and public interest, cover different segments of the society, and take responsibilities in active and participatory planning processes based on cooperation and interaction. We try to give them a perspective that aims to develop solutions to the challenges of policy and planning in areas where public policy and urban planning studies intersect. By using new technologies and methods, we encourage them to produce solutions to urban and rural problems with an interdisciplinary approach. We support them in creating sustainable, fair and livable cities that are resilient to climate change, pandemic, disaster risks, spatial, social and economic problems.

Our university ranks first among the universities whose graduates find a job in the shortest time. This is a great and important achievement for our university. As a department, we receive very good feedback from the institutions where our students do their internships and the institutions where our graduates work.

After graduation, we have graduates working in the Provincial Directorates of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Metropolitan and District Municipalities, private planning and real estate offices. We have graduates who continue their graduate studies at our university and different universities and take part in Tübitak Projects as scholarship researchers. We are proud of our students and alumni.

We invite student candidates who want to produce creative and innovative solutions to the current problems of cities and to design fair, durable and livable cities of the future to the planning profession.

I would like to welcome our student candidates who will choose our department.

Head of Department

Assoc. Prof. Dr. REYHAN YILDIZ