Architectural Prototyping in Architectural Education: How design knowledge is constructed within physical-digital hybrid environments

Abstract

Overview In the last three decades Architectural Prototyping (AP) has been reinstated as a useful teaching tool by a growing number of architecture higher education institutions. These institutions are using AP within two main frameworks: designbuild courses and Digital Fabrication Laboratories (DFL). These frameworks are characterized by intensive technological and hybrid digital-physical environments, and they promote an alternative teaching and learning approach to mainstream architectural education. However, the ways in which learning is constructed within these frameworks is yet to be fully understood. Therefore, this research aims to explore how AP affects the ways in which architectural knowledge is being constructed in contemporary architectural educational settings. Our multidisciplinary research is positioned at the intersection of three research areas: architectural education, craft practice, and Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). It adopts the ‘enactivism’ epistemology and investigates the cognitive processes behind the craft of architectural prototyping within the context of entangled social-material and digital learning environments.