A comparative analysis of methods for triggering “creative thinking” in design studios

Abstract

“Design Studio” is acknowledged as the core course for “spatial design” in both architecture and interior architecture education. The main idea of the design studio is based on uniting all the gathered information from other classes in a context of an architectural project. The key expectation from the studio is to teach ‘how to think creatively’. This paper, particularly concentrates on interior architecture education. Design studios in Turkey, mostly use what is referred as the “contextual model” which starts with a given problem/ situation and proceeds from that given context. During the process of this approach, the instructor guides the student, discusses space generation and corrects technical mistakes. Taking “creative thinking” into consideration, it is important to constitute another model, which is referred as the “conceptual model”. This process starts with student’s thoughts triggered by chosen materials, and the instructor communicates through abstract and intellectual thinking, discusses idea generation and, corrects technical mistakes. In this paper, the method of comparative analysis is used to examine the advantages and disadvantages of each above mentioned design studio model. The comparison of models is done by criteria derived from Salama’s (1995) survey about the current situation in design studios. As a result of the study it is observed that, both models have some advantages and disadvantages regarding seven excogitated design studio criteria. Keywords: design education, design studio, creative thinking, interior architecture.