Architectural Studio Research Articles

Analysis of historical cartography and data presentation for an educational purpose: The case of the historical centre of Vimercate

Abstract. Founded by Romans, Vimercate had an important geographical position in Lombardy. Layers of history are visible throughout the town, yet there is the inconsistency of historical data and neglect of the historical centre in the past decades. Only recently researchers and professors from Politecnico di Milano pointed out the importance of studying layers of history in the built environment. In the past years, Vimercate was used as an example for students from masters and bachelor courses in preservation studios. This is where the idea for the master’s thesis was developed which focuses on the collection, digitalisation and investigation of primary historical cartography and then other historical documents. Historical cartography can offer extensive knowledge about the past of this town and it is one of the main sources of information. For the creation of the project was selected free and open-source software QGIS where the selected historical maps were vectorised, compared and investigated. A new understanding of the development of the city was studied and some discoveries appeared. Effective application of the thesis project started in the courses of Architectural preservation studio at Politecnico di Milano. This was followed by the interest of citizens in the project who were actively participated in the creation of the same. Other stakeholders showed interest in involving in future developments. The thesis found its application in didactic activities of students and pupils.

The virtual design studio and the key integrals

PurposeThe unparalleled crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic has displaced the existing normal in every field of higher education. Especially architecture education with high dependence on institutional studio based pedagogical participation has been affected. Consequently, there is a critical necessity to reinvigorate pedagogical approaches in order to ensure continuity of pedagogical pursuits.Design/methodology/approachA systematic approach is used to conduct an interdisciplinary study. The research mainly attempts to externalize the basics of virtual design studio composition. In concurrence role of instructional design in providing an underlying framework for enabling virtual discourse is also explored. Primarily, the process commenced by identifying objectives and queries which needed to be addressed. In order to deal with the concerns rationally, the research used exploratory approach. The primary data were based on focus group interactions. The secondary data were based on relevant subject-oriented literature reviews; explicit information based. Explanatory mode of analysis is used to interpret the outcome.FindingsA pedagogical design; an instructional design process model for effectively structuring the virtual design studio has evolved as part of the research. In addition detailed insights have been derived about the key integrals that make up the constituent phases of the virtual design studio.Research limitations/implicationsThe research provides insights into the methodological structure of virtual design studio. The inferences would provide the pedagogues a comprehensive and rational overview to envision and conduct architecture studio discourse virtually.Originality/valueThe study presents a unique contribution to the limited literature available on virtual design studio pedagogy and instructional design in virtual mode.

Evaluation of natural lighting in Architectural Studios. (Dept. A)

Evaluation of natural lighting in Architectural Studios. (Dept. A)

Pavilions in Architecture Studio—Assessment of Design-Build Approach in Architecture Education

Pavilion construction projects are an emergent paradigm in architecture education. Nevertheless, their efficiency has not yet been assessed in terms of their added contribution to learning experience and pedagogical outcomes. This paper reviews the development, challenges and learning outcomes of the ‘Element Pavilion’ projects for Year One undergraduate architecture students and offers a quantitative and qualitative assessment over their impact on learning. A systematic analysis on students’ perceived learning outcomes using psychometric evaluation is presented here for the first time. The paper introduces a hypothetical pavilion project pedagogy model (HPPP model) which can be used and developed further by architects and educators. Analysis results and the model identify four aspects that students perceive as critical factors in pavilion design-build learning experience: construction, design process, engagement and participation, and teamwork.

EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF A VIRTUAL DESIGN STUDIO ON ZERO-ENERGY BUILDING DESIGNS: THE CASE OF THE U.S. SOLAR DECATHLON DESIGN CHALLENGE

ABSTRACT Ongoing global architectural agendas span climate change, energy, a carbon-neutral society, human comfort, COVID-19, social justice, and sustainability. An architecture studio allows architecture students to learn how to solve complicated environmental issues through integrated thinking and a design process. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon Design Challenge enables them to broaden their analytic perspectives on numerous subjects and strengthen their integrated thinking of environmental impacts, resilience, sustainability, and well-being. However, the unprecedented impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic transformed the physical studio-based design education system into an online-based learning environment. Mandatory social distancing by the global COVID-19 pandemic restricted interactive discussions and face-to-face collaborations for the integrated zero-energy building design process, which requires features of architecture, engineering, market analysis, durability and resilience, embodied environmental quality, integrated performance, occupant experience, comfort and environmental quality, energy performance, and presentation. This study emphasizes the educational effectiveness of virtual design studios as a part of the discourse on architectural pedagogy of zero-energy building (ZEB) design through integrated designs, technological theories, and analytic skills. The survey results of ten contests show educational achievement with over 90% of the highest positive tendency in the categories of embodied environmental quality and comfort and environmental quality, whereas the positive tendency of educational achievement in the categories of integrated performance, energy performance, and presentation were lower than 70%. The reason for the low percentage of simulation utilization and integrated performance was the lack of a proper understanding of and experience with ZEB simulations and evaluations for undergraduate students. Although VDS is not an ideal pedagogical system for the iterative design critique process, it can support the learning of the value of architectural education, including integrative design thinking, problem-solving skills, numerical simulation techniques, and communicable identities through online discussions and feedback during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biomimetic Metamaterial Design Simulation and Evaluation for Building Acoustics by Impedance Measurements

Abstract This study investigates the potentials of acoustic metamaterial (AMM) applications in room and building acoustics by means of impedance tube experiments. With their extreme properties in either sound absorption or transmission loss, AMMs can perform better than traditional acoustic materials in buildings. Importantly, they are also more sustainable and hygienic than fibrous and porous materials. Depending on the matrix material used, AMMs can vary in transparency and color. Considering both their acoustic and aesthetic values, this study develops different types of metamaterial for possible uses as a partition wall, a surface layer, or a design element. The proposed metamaterials are primarily based on the exploration of ratios and forms from nature—the golden ratio, web-labyrinthine structures, genetic and neural systems such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules, and the synapse structures in the brain—reproduced on a subwavelength scale. These abstractions are then combined with the 3-D space coiling and 3-D labyrinth approaches of AMM design. Modules of the proposed AMMs are manufactured in a 3-D printer and tested in an impedance tube to estimate their normal incidence sound absorption coefficients and transmission loss characteristics. Based on the results obtained, the modules with the higher performances are used in the design of partition walls of varying heights. Two real-case architecture studios are simulated with and without the proposed AMM interventions over field test–tuned acoustical models of the studios to assess the effectiveness of such an approach in a possible acoustical design problem.

How does teaching architectural history meld into design education? A quick studio

This study aims to reveal a design case in architectural education so that the gap between theory and practice can be reduced. For this purpose, an architectural history course and working in an architectural studio were chosen as the fundamental courses which constitute experimental area of the study. The inquiry orientation of this experimental practice is the discussion of the contributions and consequences of different perceptual methods to the teaching/learning level, as well as the provision of a variety of practices for direct learning. The method chosen was to adapt the architectural history course, which is generally based on theoretical narrative and supported by visual stimuli, for use in the architectural studio. For this purpose, the concept of style, borrowed from the architectural history course, has been turned into a useful design resource. Styles are described with the use of keywords in terms of their formal, structural, and conceptual features, and these features have been used as a design resource in the design of a new facade. Depending on the cognitive activity of each student, the study and interpretation of style have changed, which has led to differentiation in terms of design behaviors. Although such a study can impose some restrictions in terms of creative behaviors and morphological approaches, they can be eliminated by the exercise of the designer’s cognitive ability. In addition, such a method has created a new experimental field involving the integration of theory and practice in architectural education by melding an architectural history course into architectural studio activities.

Village institutes as a design approach

At a glance, architectural space or architectural product is the name given to the artificial shell of actions arising from human needs. These needs range from basic expectations, such as protection, shelter, and production which are necessary for human life, to expectations which require more complex intellectual infrastructure such as culture, belief, and lifestyle. In this study, possible intellectual, architectural approach and design method preferences in Village Institute buildings as architectural products are examined and their contributions to architectural project education are discussed through project work examples. Within the scope of the study, the understanding of education and architecture of the village institutes were examined and possible inferences and concepts which would form the basis of the design were tried to be determined with the help of publications in the literature focused on these subjects. Further, it is aimed to question the relationship of these concepts with those produced in the architectural project studio. The design study subject of the article was carried out in the 2018-2019 Fall Semester at the Department of Architecture at KTU. The first step in the process is turning the inferences and concepts obtained by the executives into a set of information which shall be, eventually, compared with the student project work. This set is retained by the executives for discussion in the article. The second step is the literature research of the students about the project topic and location. Each student reached some concepts from the field and Village Institutes where Trabzon/Beşikdüzü Village Institute was located in the past and advanced his/her design studies through these concepts. Within the scope of this article, the concept sets obtained by the executives and students were compared and discussions were made on overlaps and divergences by associating the aforementioned two steps, and a theoretical framework was formed which was graphically formed.

Design

Design

Reframing Architecture through Design

Reframing Architecture through Design

Reuse of coffee waste and paper cups for acoustical panel applications in architectural studios

This study has been initiated with an aim of enhancing the acoustical comfort levels in the architectural studios of Bilkent University in Ankara. Initial assessment of the studios by field tests indicated very long reverberation times, supporting the complaints by the students and instructors. In order to be applied in studio environment, acoustical panels are developed out of recycled materials. The increasing coffee demand and consumption of our era have motivated the reuse of both paper cups and coffee waste. The end-product is composed of two layers. The outer layer is out of recycled coffee cups, placed in different arrangements in terms of orientation, size, and spacing. The backing layer is a panel of compressed and kiln-dried coffee grains and tea leaves. The coffee/tea residues are adhered together by using natural binders. In order to determine the best possible alternative of the waste materials with the highest sound absorption performance, different density variations have been explored. Both impedance tube tests and acoustical field measurements are utilized during the process of research and development. Considering the increasing demand for green technology, the layered panel system is proposing cost minimized, environmentally friendly, and biodegradable solutions with improved acoustical and aesthetical values.

Negative Ties at Work: How Brokering Negative Ties Affects Individuals’ Innovative Behavior

Social structure is critical in organizational life. While abundant scholarly work has emphasized the benefits and opportunities that follow from positive interpersonal relationships in the context of social networks in work organizations, it has largely overlooked the role of negative relationships. The aim of this paper is to shed more light on this issue. Using a mixed methods approach, we examine the role of direct and indirect negative relationships on individuals’ innovative behavior. In a study of a high-end Italian architectural studio, we demonstrate that both direct and indirect negative relationships lead to poorer innovative performance, as evaluated by the focal individual’s supervisor. The results provide important insights into the social processes and relational dynamics that explain the relationship between negative ties and individuals’ innovative behavior, offering noteworthy implications for theory, research, and practice on negative ties and innovative behavior.

Las Higueras: An Overture to the Alternation of Customizing Incremental Houses

Incremental housing, supported by governmental funding, denotes a solution for low-income households where dwellings can gradually be customized by users. This article examines the process of incremental construction and proposes an alternation of two phases: the basic house design and its customization. When designing houses, government officials and architects should follow three sub-phases: developing the design of the house with households, presenting the final design to households, and supporting families’ habitation of the basic house. For the customization process, the professionals should pursue the three sub-phases guideline: inform households about building skills required for customization, discuss the different possibilities for completing the houses, and connect all this with households’ financial resources. The outcome is a template for self-building that synthesizes collecting data about the issues during customization for future incremental housing projects. This article is based on fieldwork analyzing “Las Higueras” (2006) incremental housing project in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, assessing the families’ capabilities to subsequently customize their houses, and using qualitative research methods in collaboration with Las Higueras, the Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urban Design, and Gubbins architecture studio.

Grafting Interiority: Generative Methodologies Between the Natural and the Synthetic

Design is approaching a crucial period where the exchange between interior and exterior systems needs to be rethought and addressed from the standpoint of resilience and innovative environmental responses. The era of the detached interior bubble that is climate controlled and therein severed from natural systems is no longer justified or feasible. Interior spaces must respond to environmental conditions and proactively engage natural systems. The paper examines grafting methodology as an interior spatial formula that aims to generate complex sectional strategies for new programmatic typologies. It showcases work from a third-year interior architecture studio where students utilised natural landscapes as the premise to develop generative computational models that informed their design interventions.While placing interior interventions between natural and synthetic processes, interior grafts outline a design tactic that challenges the disjunction between internal settings and external parameters. The potential to draw relevance from external parameters and integrate the derivative systems into the interior volume carries many implications for interior architecture and urban dynamics. This approach demarks a radical repositioning of the interior volume as a continuation of the exterior scape, proliferating a fluid and active interiority.

Situated Learning in Online Architectural Studio Education

The pandemic causes acceleration in the development of online education. Relatedly, instructors have started to transform already applied methods in studio education and have produced new teaching methodologies in remote education. Since the communication channel in the new system is exposed to a change that creates that open an area for the search of situated learning in terms of interaction among students and between students and instructors that is strongly associated with Vygotsky’s theory of the zone of proximal development in which social interactions is emphasized in learning. In this paper, the components of situated learning will be reading through an online design studio in architectural education. The changing concept of studio culture will be inquired from the issues of the learning environment and situations executed after the shift from physical to digital encountering. Moving of design studio into the online environment brings particular changes to the two aspects of the studio culture, which are studio as a method and studio as an environment. In this respect, an online design studio will be examined as a contextual framework with the theory of situated learning.

Design Evaluation in Architecture Education with an Affordance-Based Approach Utilizing Non-Virtual Reality and Virtual Reality Media

Virtual reality (VR) technology can help students conduct a design evaluation process on their architecture studio course submission. This study explores an architectural design evaluation method that uses an affordance-based design approach with two phases: “Non-VR (NVR) prior to VR” and “NVR followed by VR.” A game-engine-based VR system was developed for this research. The simulated VR system used information from building information modeling (BIM) models to provide information about the evaluated architectural design. Participants evaluated submissions by recognizing the affordances and then mapping them using an affordance structure matrix. All data were evaluated to compare the evaluation results between the two phases. Generally, the evaluation process helps identify perceived affordances in design submissions. The different media provide additional feedback for students.

Improving the Architecture Design Studio Internal Environment at NUB

Architectural education revolves around a fundamental axis, which is the architecture design studio. The learning environment in general affects student’s creativity. Few studies dealt with the most crucial space in architecture design course, which is the architecture design studio classroom. The application of this research is to determine the student’s satisfaction degree about the architecture studio design in the department of architecture in NUB and the main variables affect the quality of the internal environment of design. The researchers used the descriptive and analytical approach in research implementation. Research results are associated with the Architectural Design Studio only. The research community consisted of )42( students who study the Architectural Design course in Nahda University. The analysis result showed the effect of the design studio's design on the students' psyche and their level of performance. Through the study the necessity of focusing on the distribution of internal furniture in the design studio and taking into account technological developments in the work by not relying only on drawing tables, but taking into account the provision of a special zone for using the computer as it became a basic tool in the architectural design process.

A Study of Concept Design Massing Generator for Urban Houses in Jakarta

This paper presents the study of application massing configuration in typical urban houses in Jakarta. The study is aimed to present architectural project examples by architectural firm Studio Arsitektropis based on operative and conditional design strategies. The results showed that the operative and conditional design strategies could facilitate and become a quick design tools to produce the massing design concept, which emphasizes the sustainable aspect of natural lighting and air circulation; stack effect ventilation. The steps of study are as follows: (1) to study spatial verbs of massing design concept, (2) to study conditional design of architectural elements, and (3) to apply these studies into the conceptual design process within the practice of Studio Arsitektropis housing works in Jakarta.

The confluence approach – a theoretical proposition for effective structuring of architecture studio pedagogy in e-learning mode

PurposeThe Covid-19 crisis has inflicted a disruptive impact on the conventional institutional format of architecture studio pedagogy. As a result, there is a critical suddenness for an alternative approach to ensure continuity. The research pursues is to pursue a multidisciplinary study with a focus on the following domains: architecture, the science of learning and e-learning architecture. Inference from the study would become the basis for a theoretical proposition for improvement of the existing pedagogical framework. Moreover, the literature would add valuable insights to the knowledge base.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory research approach is used for this study. The inquiry-based approach enlightens on the role of the architect in society. Also, the nature of architectural design education that existed prior to the Covid-19 outbreak is examined. Further, the paper explores the impact of the paradigm shift from institutional mode to e-learning mode overnight. Purposefully multi-disciplinary studies are pursued to develop a broad understanding of the associated domains. This could effectively contribute to developing an effective pedagogical framework. This would facilitate the conduct of architecture studio discourse in a structured manner during the current scenario.FindingsThe confluence approach – a theoretical proposition for effective structuring of architecture studio pedagogy has evolved as part of the research. Further, the proposed virtual learning pyramid enlightens on the drive to continue on with augmentation of students existing creative acumen. Which is one of the universally sought-after goals of studio pedagogy even during times of uncertainties.Research limitations/implicationsPedagogues would find the study very meaningful for the conduct of architecture design studio in e-learning mode. They would also acquire a broad understanding of factors to be considered. The research would pave way for future studies in this area from a multi-disciplinary perspective.Social implicationsThe current Covid-19 crisis deters architecture studio discourse from being conducted in an accustomed institutional format. Therefore, it becomes important for institutions to ensure continuity of architectural education with the help of new measures. In concurrence, the research envisions an alternative approach: virtual design studio using e-learning mode. This would ensure continuity of architectural education even when the instructor and students are separated in either time or place.Originality/valueThe study presents a unique contribution to the limited literature available on architecture studio pedagogy during the e-learning scenario.

Integrating simulation into design: an experiment in pedagogical environments

With the growing complexity of design technology and the emergence of intelligent design assistance, architectural studio classes are facing a new pedagogical paradigm. The digital literacy of younger generations and availability of scientific simulation have the potential to transform the traditional master–apprentice model. In our experiment, we had students perform a museum layout task and observed their behaviors from three perspectives: (1) how students utilize an assistance tool and whether we can group their behavior, (2) how the new simulation-aided design process is different from a traditional one, particularly in terms of the evolution of solution over iteration, and (3) whether students' behavior is affected by the type of design problem given. Protocol analysis on design processes and interviews revealed that individual’s characteristic design processes in terms of iteration ranged from distinct iterations guided by simulation to monotonous progress with little simulation. When comparing between an instructor and software, it was not the given environment but the designer’s subjectivity that determined their attitudes toward either type of feedback. Lastly, the challenge of integrating design concepts with performance requirements stemmed from a misalignment between their true evaluative measures. We propose that a versatile design platform implement real-time, non-intrusive mechanisms for performance reporting and solution branching, and include social and psychological measures as well as physical ones in order to expand designers’ concept choices.