Evaluation of the final product by analytical hierarchy process (AHP) in the architectural design studio

In the architectural design studios, which form the backbone of architectural education, the design process of a building that gets more and more complex in each academic term is applied to the students. The student tries to solve a new design problem each time and develops his own design language and presents the final product to the jury. The student's design is intuitively scored by the jury, usually based on percentile criteria. Objections to grading are possible, as this assessment determines whether the student has progressed to the next semester. In this thesis, it is hypothesized that it is possible to apply the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHS), which is a decision-making method, for the evaluation of the final product in architectural design courses. The aim of the research is to provide an analytical solution to grade/evaluate architectural design products with AHS. With this approach, the intuitive and qualitative evaluations of the jury will be quantitatively measured with a joint decision. Thus, it will form a reference for objective evaluation. In the research, the products designed by 2 students randomly selected in the 4th Grade 2nd Term Architectural Design Studio (course) were evaluated by applying the AHP approach with the participation of 3 jury members (teachers). Jurors were first asked to intuitively grade the designs in their traditional form. Afterwards, together with the members of the jury; According to the determined evaluation criteria, the designs were evaluated with the AHP method. In the process of determining the evaluation criteria, the history of architectural education and current architectural evaluation criteria were examined. In the first part of the research; Architectural education, which started from the historical process and evolved to today's design studios, was examined. The teaching and evaluation methods of design studio courses and the Bologna process in education are discussed. In the second part; The history, principles and application method of the AHP approach, which is an evaluation and decision-making method, are examined. In the third part; An analytical model was created on the evaluation of architectural design, which is the result product in design studios. The classical heuristic evaluation method and AHP were applied simultaneously, and both methods were compared with each other. As a result of the research, it was seen that the scoring made by the jury in intuitive ways and the scoring made by the application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process were very close. This showed that the AHP approach could be valid in the evaluation of architectural designs.