+ or –. A Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) in Design Education Using Semiotics as a Tool

Abstract

This article takes its name from a semester 6 architectural design studio developed using semiotics as an approach to develop a design methodology / design thinking process. This involves exploring different interpretations of the symbols + and −, and their various applications to the field of architecture and design. We try to analyse, trace the course of problems/issues, and interpret ideas of subtractive processes (inf luenced by economic, cultural, and technological changes) involved in extracting resources from mother earth; and thereafter, the impacts of additive processes in the act of building and constructing. With the design project situated in the rich timber industrial heritage of the North Malabar region of Calicut, Kerala (India), this material is a crucial element associated with memories. The absorption of the relational aspects of timber in this region’s cultural semiotics has led to interesting shifting in the built and unbuilt environments over the years. This has become the core inquiry of students’ engagement in decoding signs and symbols through the mediums of photography, diagramming, and hybrid representation. These in turn inform them how to intervene using design and create an architectural project based on these findings.