This article aims to propose an urban narrative model in architectural design studios, contributing to identifying problems related to cities through experiencing, understanding, and interpreting space systematically, while positioning mapping as a narrative practice to foster holistic thinking and representation at the urban scale. The methodology of this study is structured in two steps: Identification (ID) and Process & Analysis & Findings (PAF). In the ID step, the organizational chart and sub-stages of the architectural design studio are presented in two phases: literature (narrative and mapping research) and field-experience (observation–experience–production), while the PAF step is organized under four sub-headings—“Pre-Design Preparation: Poster and Map Collages,” “Experience-Based Text-Written Maps,” “Finding an Analytical Approach,” and “Summarizing the Urban Problems”—and includes the student works carried out in line with the process, together with their analysis and findings. The findings of this article show that, through the proposed urban narrative model, students were able to approach the city as an experiential, interpretive and representational whole beyond its functional and formal boundaries, and using mapping as a narrative practice enabled them to realize their connections with the city they had previously lived in through experience and to better identify its problems, leading to the conclusion that students could recognize their ties to the city they inhabit through experience and articulate its problems more clearly. The originality of this article lies in proposing and implementing an urban narrative model designed to render urban problems visible within architectural studios through the triad of experience–narrative–mapping, and by reconceptualizing mapping beyond a representational tool and positioning it as a pedagogical method of narrative production, it contributes a novel perspective to experiential and phenomenological approaches in architectural education.
Demirkaya et al. (Fri,) studied this question.