As we recognized early on that if we want to foster meaningful cultural heritage awareness, we must begin by transforming educational practices. Starting from the higher education since most of the project team is from academia, we firstly wanted to overcome the inefficiency of architectural history and cultural heritage courses. However, we simultaneously wanted to amplify the project’s reach through public workshops, guided tours, seminars, and a mobile guide designed to make architectural heritage accessible to a broad and inclusive audience. The Palimpsest Cities project aimed to enhance the academic and pedagogical competences of the project team through an interdisciplinary, innovative architectural history and cultural heritage course; foster greater awareness of urban history and architectural heritage among architecture students at partner (and other) universities; extend this impact to the wider public —particularly children, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and low-income groups— through free field trips and workshops; develop a modular course adaptable to other multi-layered cities worldwide; and integrate innovative digital and creative educational approaches to replace conventional instruction methods.
The Palimpsest Cities project was launched to address the widespread disconnection between urban residents and the historical, multilayered environments they inhabit. Many people, including architecture students, overlook the rich architectural heritage around them, perceiving the current built environment as static and ahistorical. This lack of awareness contributes to the neglect and even destruction of shared European and global heritage, exacerbated by factors such as conflict and climate change. As the project's creator, I was particularly motivated by the realization that many architecture students at Alanya University had never engaged with the city’s historic sites, despite their academic focus and long-term residence. Recognizing this gap, the project developed and implemented innovative educational strategies aimed at fostering cultural heritage awareness among students and the broader public, including underrepresented groups. Another necessity that was identified was the urgent need to upgrade the architectural history and cultural heritage courses. In their current form, they were even alienating students from those fields, with their traditional, teacher-centered, memorization-based and often ineffective methods.