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This study originates from a second year architectural design studio experience which was conducted at İstanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture in 2012 and it discusses a paradigm shift in architectural design education in the context of studio culture. The main motivation distinguishing the studio was to start an open studio culture in a cultivation atmosphere, and elaborate architectural design education in a multifaceted manner while questioning the teaching-learning duality. 'Parallax-Room 3407' inherited its name from the book 'Parallax' by Holl, which triggered the conceptual discussions it is founded on, and the studio 3407 of Taşkışla. The studio during the period of fall semester, followed different synchronous trajectories which are covered in the following subtopics in this paper: Bodily Experience, Critical Thinking, Learning By Doing, Narratives On Urban Context, Parallax: Thinking With Concepts, and Thinking By Representing. This learning environment referred to a constructivist educational approach, and was founded on the acknowledgement that design knowledge can only be achieved through discovery, not by a passive transmission from the teacher to the student. The contextual character of architectural design knowledge necessitates a paradigm shift; the activation of an open studio culture and burgeoning approaches of learning to learn, learning by discovering/ experiencing/ doing instead of pursuing conventional practices.

Paradigm shifts in the field of design follow the post-positivist approaches of philosophy of science that emerged in the 1960's. In the present study, first of all, the (logical) positivist understanding of science that concieves science as a rational way of knowing will be associated with the functionalist understanding of design. Thereafter, the relation between the human-centered design approach that designates the new foundation of design as 'meaning' and the post-positivist approaches of philosophy of science will be covered. Paradigm shifts in the field of design are generally considered within a context in covers barely function-oriented or meaning-oriented approaches. Nevertheless, this study aims to indicate that the attempt of constructing design on the foundation of either 'function' or 'meaning' is indeed based on the same epistemological assumption. The attempt of overcoming what is called 'function/meaning dichotomy' will be set forth via the Actor-Network Theory, abbreviated as ANT.

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