Architectural design course is a basic content of the teaching of urban and rural planning specialty and a connecting link of urban and rural planning learning. After urban and rural planning has become a national first-class discipline, how to improve the teaching content and methods to meet the needs of talent training of urban and rural planning specialty is the focus of teaching reform. Taking the second-year design course of urban and rural planning of Northern University of technology as an example, through many years of practical experience, this paper concludes the problems in the students" design process, such as insufficient environmental analysis, lack of overall design concept and insufficient training of logical analysis ability, and puts forward the reform direction of strengthening process teaching focusing on the cultivation of holistic thinking. The course establishes the holistic design concept with the spatial form design as the core and the analysis of natural environment and humanistic environment as the starting point. On this basis, the course refines the teaching theme, improves the topic setting, and carries out teaching around the core elements such as environment, behavior, function and spatial design. At the same time, in order to cultivate students" logical thinking ability and scientific analysis ability, the course adjusts the teaching process and organization methods, clarifies the teaching main line, strengthens the phased and hierarchical teaching organization form through a variety of interactive communication modes.