Open House International

Salama, Ashraf

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0001

The process of educating future architects and designers around the world varies dramatically. However, there is one striking similarity - the dominance of the design studio as the main forum for knowledge acquisition and assimilation, and for creative exploration and interaction. Such a setting encompasses intensive cognitive and physical activities, which ultimately result in conceptualizing meaningful environments proposed to accommodate related human activities. The design studio is the primary space where students explore their creative skills that are so prized by the profession; it is the kiln where future architects are molded. It has occupied a central position since architectural education was formalized two centuries ago in France and later in Germany, the rest of Europe, North America, and the rest of the world.

Fernando, Nisha A.

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0002

This paper presents an example of a pedagogical model based on combining knowledge and creativity and how the model was applied to teach an upper-level undergraduate studio in an interior architecture program. The model is established on the conceptual paradigm that the design process is more crucial than the final design products in a studio learning experience. Diverting from the normative approaches and instilled by environment-behavior research, the studio projects are based on both a knowledge/thought-building process and a design/idea-building process. Students involve in a research project to collect information on the user preferences and then translate the information into design concepts on which they build the final design. The systematic phases of the design process expose students to recognize that design decisions are not made randomly or as expressions of self, but rather as carefully thought out responses to socio-cultural needs of people. The model enables students to generate socially and culturally sensitive design ideas and to think outside of the ‘architecture-as-art’ box.

Mitchell, Kevin

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0003

The second-year studio presented here investigates the potential of reducing the gaps between the academy and professional practice by using the results of practice as a teaching tool. Part of a two-semester sequence intended to introduce students to the fundamentals of architectural form and space, the design studio emphasizes discipline-specific notions of inquiry, exploration and process. The range of fundamental concerns is addressed through in-depth analyses of exemplary buildings in order to discover how practicing architects have incorporated basic design principles into overall design strategies. The “design in the style of” methods that characterized architectural education at the École des Beaux Arts and the pattern books which served as sources for 19th and early 20th century practice in North America provided definitive models that were subject to limited interpretation. In contrast, the analyses projects described here do not provide “answers” to questions regarding style, but rather focus questions on a range of concerns which are fundamental to architectural practice. Employing exemplary projects in beginning-level studios assists in demonstrating that highly regarded practitioners aspire to a synthesis of program/use requirements, conceptual ideas, structural solutions and constructional systems. The fact that the students were able to make concrete connections between their activities and the profession resulted in an intensity and sense of purpose that is evident in both the process and products of the studio.

Austerlitz, Noam; Sachs, Avigail

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0004

Based on the authors teaching experience, this essay presents an example of how the traditional design studio might be modified so as to foster democratic participation and egalitarian communication between the participating students and instructors. Open communication in the studio is seen as the key to incorporating important values such as collaboration, community and respect for the every day environment into the studio's hidden curriculum. The essay begins by discussing the potentials for and obstacles to meaningful communication in the studio. This discussion is followed by a description of a modified studio project that included continuous role-playing on the part of the students. The final discussion outlines and evaluates how these modifications enabled students to use previous knowledge and everyday language and permitted the discussion of topics not usually debated in the studio. The students, in their assumed roles, became critics, clients and members of a team of designers. Hence these changes influenced the distribution of power in the studio and the students gained more control over their learning experience.

Bose, Mallika; Pennypacker, Eliza; Yahner, Thomas

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0005

A group of faculty at Penn State's Department of Landscape Architecture observed that the traditional master/apprentice model of studio instruction fosters greater student dependence on faculty for decision-making guidance than the faculty considers desirable. They contend that this traditional model promotes a studio dynamic that encourages students to look to the professor for design ideas and wait for faculty approval before making design decisions. The faculty considered this decision-making dependency to be in conflict with the need for students to develop the critical-thinking skills required to address the complex and ill-structured problems that are common in architecture and landscape architecture. In response to their concern this faculty team developed a studio teaching method they termed “independent design decision-making.” They speculated that by transferring the responsibility for design decisions from professor to the student, students could improve their critical thinking and gain confidence in design decision-making. The faculty conceived a set of strategies to implement in a 3rd year team-taught site planning and design studio that presents a range of complex design issues and scales. In collaboration with Penn State's Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, the faculty researchers developed a 2-year comparative study to test this new teaching method in the same design studio with two consecutive student groups-evaluating the strategies implemented in the first year, refining methods, then applying and re-evaluating the results in the next year's class. These new strategies included ways students receive information to inspire their designs (“input strategies”) and ways to receive critique on their design ideas (“feedback strategies”). Two evaluation instruments were chosen to assess this method of studio teaching: 1) the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), and 2) Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG). This paper presents this teaching/learning method and reports on the results of the comparative study.

Farivarsadri, Guita; Alsaç, Üstün

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0006

Teaching design through learning by doing is still the dominant form of architectural education as it is believed that the skills, the language and the approach to problems of design can be learned more effectively through direct experience rather than through other means. That is why architecture students have to repeat design studio courses until they reach a certain level of experience.Design, especially the work done in design studios, has many similarities with play. Generally the subjects are imaginary. The designs are presented using models trying to simulate real-life situations. And it has some fixed rules. Actually there is very little difference between a girl playing with a doll, a boy with toy trucks and an architecture student working on a design project. All of them deal with simulations, role-playing, preparing themselves for real-life situations. We have observed that students learn more about design when they approach it in a playful manner. When they do this they also enjoy what they do. But this kind of education needs planning and preparation if it is going to yield good results. This article attempts to discuss about the benefits of planning a design studio as a kind of play activity by giving some examples from our experiments and observations we have been conducting at our university.

Kim, Joongsub

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0007

The orthodox approach in contemporary architectural pedagogy, grounded in a narrowly conceived rationality, lacks diversity in terms of both the population it serves and the methods it follows in the studio. This paper advances a social construction model with distinct advantages over the rational model. Based on multidisciplinary research, the model presented here is experimental, promoting innovation and allowing the unpredictable to emerge. It encourages students and studio clients to create their own collaborative reality. The paper recommends four socially constructive techniques for architecture/community design in neighborhood revitalization. Inversion begins with the client's vision. As students and residents work together to form their own image of the ideal community, the resulting vision informs subsequent data collection and analysis. Simulation allows students and other participants to undertake small-scale experiments, drawing immediate lessons that enhance the final implementation process. Reciprocity involves role-switching between expert partners and non-expert participants to counter biases while building mutual understanding. Finally, with Research in Action, hypothesis testing and design occur simultaneously. With these social construction approaches, predetermined steps in the rational model are reversed, merged, or even omitted. Faculty and expert partners behave more like facilitators than directors, coordinating activities and processes, reinforcing initiatives, and resolving conflicts-as clients make key design decisions. By assigning some major responsibilities to students and residents, social construction creates a sense of ownership among stakeholders. The paper compares the rational and social construction approaches, discussing implications and suggesting areas of further study.

Hadjiyanni, Tasoulla

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0008

Armed with an understanding of cultural differences in housing needs, designers can develop residential prototypes that accommodate diverse values and ways of living. Culturally sensitive designs ease the adjustment process of new immigrant groups and contribute to the well-being of communities and the country as a whole. Responding to multiculturalism, design education must prepare graduates for cross-cultural practice by engaging them in the consideration of cultural differences. The paper presents the example of two upper level undergraduate studios, taught in Spring 2002 and Fall 2003 in the Department of Architecture at the University of Minnesota, that exposed students to the design process through the exploration of cultural differences in housing design. Undertaken by an instructor trained in both architecture and social science, these studios integrated social science research into the teaching of design. The projects explored culturally sensitive housing for Hmong and Somali refugees, two of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area's largest new immigrant groups. Students used verbal narratives collected through focused interviews with members of the Hmong and Somali communities living in the Twin Cities metropolitan area to define both the programmatic and conceptual stages of their designs. The paper elaborates on the theoretical framework that guided students' inquiries; states the methodology and process used to accomplish the research within the constraints of a semester; and outlines the challenges and opportunities afforded through this teaching technique. By focusing on the research phase of these studios, the paper hopes to inspire further development of pedagogies that cater to the changing demographics and respond to cultural differences.

Balsas, Carlos

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0009

The Capitol Mall is a very complex urban area adjacent to downtown Phoenix, where Governmental buildings exist side by side with a historic residential neighborhood, warehouse buildings, an under-construction human services campus, vacant lots, and many homeless people on the streets. This area has been 'forgotten' in recent efforts to revitalize downtown Phoenix. The Capitol Mall project involved two studios - Architecture and Planning - conducted simultaneously during spring 2005. The planning studio was intended to develop a revitalization plan and the architecture studio was charged with developing specific programs and projects of urban design and architecture.The purpose of this paper is threefold: 1) to introduce our studios as examples of community embeddedness, 2) to discuss our pedagogical approaches and the project's outcomes, and 3) to present a set of lessons learned that can be valuable to others teaching similar joint studio arrangements. In brief the five lessons are: a) joint studios can have different approaches to reality, b) interdisciplinary studios can benefit from different methodologies and outcomes, c) planning and architecture studios use classroom resources differently, d) joint studios display creativity in different ways, 5) interdisciplinary studios can lead to joint discovery and re-enforcement of learning experiences.

Reffat, Rabee M.

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0010

This paper introduces an alternative teaching model in a virtual architectural design studio, its application, impacts and constraints. This model aims for achieving collaborative learning through facilitating students to Inhabit, Design, Construct and Evaluate (IDCE) their designs collaboratively in a multi-user real-time 3D virtual environment platform (Activeworlds). The application of this model in virtual design studio (VDS) teaching has favorably impacted students' motivation for active, creative and explorative learning, social dynamics between studio participants. It also fostered learning electronic communication, collaboration techniques and etiquette in addition to design technology. The model assisted in developing collaborative experience and shared responsibility. However, there are some drawbacks of the virtual environment platform that hindered having a responsive design environment to users' needs with especially in modeling and rate of viewing. The advantages and constraints of applying the IDCE teaching model in a multi-user real-time 3D virtual environment for first year students at the University of Sydney are addressed in this paper.

Hou, Jeffrey; Kang, Min-Jay

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0011

With the ability of linking distant partners and diverse bodies of students and faculty, virtual design studios provide unique opportunities for examining cultural, contextual, and methodological differences in design and design collaboration. However, most evaluations of virtual design studio in the recent literature have focused primarily on technical and operational issues. In contrast, the social and cultural dimensions of virtual design studio and their pedagogical implications have not been adequately examined. To address this gap, this article examines the experience and outcomes of a recent virtual design studio involving international collaboration between faculty and student partners. Specifically, it looks at how presence of differences and process of dialogic learning create pedagogical opportunities in a collaborative 'virtual' environment. Based on the case study, this article argues that through dialogues, collaboration, and negotiation of cultural, contextual and methodological differences, collaborative virtual design studio offers an alternative to traditional design studio based on the primacy of individual practice and the master-apprentice model of learning. By creatively utilizing the collaborative environment involving diverse partners, virtual design studio can foster a critical understanding of cross-cultural design process and the significance of dialogues and negotiation in design.

Al-Qawasmi, Jamal

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0012

Traditional architectural curricula have been based on the design studio model, which emphasizes learning by doing. Under this model, a typical architectural curriculum offers a sequence of design studios in which students learn to design by actually engaging in designing. Until very recently the design studio culture remained largely unchanged. The introduction of the virtual design studio and the paperless studio in early 1990s has resulted in fundamental changes in design studio pedagogy. The paper examines the impact of computers and information technology, as applied in the paperless studio and the virtual design studio, on design studio education. Based on literature reviews on paperless studio and virtual design studio and examination of architectural studio instruction, including several experiences in conducting paperless studios, the author considers the pedagogical shift occurring in design studio instruction as a result of integrating digital media in the design studio. The paper considers two types of transformations in studio instruction: pedagogical transformations related to using digital media as a design tool and pedagogical transformations related to distributing the design studio with some or all participants in remote locations.

Haase, Jeffrey

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0013

This paper describes a studio model that attempts to bridge the gap between conventional design studio settings and professional practice, by adopting design-build principles that incorporate experiential learning theory, derived from the early research of Dewey, Lewin, and Piaget. Part of the dichotomy of the profession is the dynamic difference in the established representational tools of the trade and the result of the built environment. This disconnect exists because the tools of the trade utilize two dimensional explanations about a three dimensional place, typically comprised of drawings in the form of plans, elevations, and perspectives. Additionally, there is a dynamic difference in scale that exists between these tools and the environments they represent. Thus, design educators tend to teach representational techniques without teaching a clear understanding of what they represent. This gap in education creates a gap in the profession. The described case studies outline an alternative studio model that is intended to introduce some of the “realities” often missing in a conventional studio approach. Each of the case studies involved second year Interior Design students, who were given the parameters of an existing space with specific user needs. The students had to design and then physically construct that interior environment all within a ten week time period (one academic quarter). By creating a more “hands-on” learning environment, it is the hope that students retain that knowledge in a more meaningful and lasting way, with the ability to transfer that experience over to similar situations in other studio settings and within the professional practice.

Datta, Ayona; Conteh, Fodei M.

2006 Open House International

doi: 10.1108/OHI-03-2006-B0014

THE CODE OF THE CITY: STANDARDS AND THE HIDDEN LANGUAGE OF PLACE MAKINGCULTURE, ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN