Transition from Physical Design Studio to Emergency Virtual Design Studio. Available Teaching and Learning Methods and Tools—A Case Study

Elżbieta Komarzyńska-Świeściak,Laura Thomas,Britt Adams

doi:10.3390/buildings11070312

Elżbieta Komarzyńska-Świeściak, Laura Thomas + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11070312

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Abstract

At the core of architecture education are the design studio classes, where students test ideas, build physical models, and propose design projects in a shared creative environment. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 created a large disruption of this status quo and required a major shift in the whole experience of teaching and learning at design studios. Using a case study approach, the present paper describes the systematic process of translating Physical Design Studio into emergency Virtual Design Studio and how it has been perceived by students enrolled in the investigated courses. The focus was primarily on those tools and methods that were intended to compensate for traditional workshop methods (for example the tactile exercise of physical model making and pin-up board presentations). To meet this objective, available tools for performing Virtual Design Studio were assessed using experiences of Design Studio instructors on the one hand and students’ surveys on the other hand. The study’s results can be used as recommendations on how to optimally implement a transition from a Physical Design Studio environment to teaching a digital remote design studio. Furthermore, the results also add to creating design guidelines for setting up blended architecture education post-COVID-19.

Highlights

Tokman and Yamacli emphasize that the architectural design studio is an important learning process, “which aims to shape the architectural sensitivities of students and to develop their communicative abilities as well as their problem-solving skills” [2] (p. 245)
By translating this constructivist idea into architectural education, the learning process usually takes place in a flexible physical space that enables various activities such as collaborative or personal work, group discussions, seminars, the tactile exercise of physical model making based on design problems in the real world, student-tutor interactions, pin-up board presentations, and ‘desk crits as well as juries’ [3,5,6,10]
It is expected by Teacher Design Team (TDT) that some of the proposed Virtual Design Studios (VDS)

Summary

Introduction

In line with the (socio-)constructivist learning theory, architectural students are supposed to actively (co-)construct or make their own knowledge rather than passively accept information presented by the teacher—e.g., [6,8,9] By translating this constructivist idea into architectural education, the learning process usually takes place in a flexible physical space that enables various activities such as collaborative or personal work, group discussions, seminars, the tactile exercise of physical model making based on design problems in the real world, student-tutor interactions, pin-up board presentations, and ‘desk crits as well as juries’ [3,5,6,10]. For the case in which a physical place is offered to the students to create a project throughout face-to-face interactions, the term Physical Design Studio (PDS) is used

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