Design Studio Education Research Articles

Climate in the Interior Design Studio: Implications for Design Education

Researchers in the social sciences and in education have established that the classroom climate has a significant effect on a variety of student performance variables. The primary purpose of this study was to analyze empirically the interior design studio climate to better understand the dynamics of this educational environment. The College Classroom Environment Scales (CCES) instrument, which includes six subscales related to student perceptions of the classroom climate, was administered to 41 interior design students in three studios at a large public research university. The results were compared to a theoretical model representing conventional classroom climates to determine if and how the interior design studio classroom climate varied. Additionally, this study measured the degree of variance in interior design student perceptions of the studio classroom climate relative to the student's level in the interior design program (junior, senior, fifth–year senior). Finally, this study considered the relationship between student perceptions of the studio classroom climate and their individual academic performance as reported by the instructors. The results of this study support some previous research conclusions concerning the nature of design studio education, while challenging others. The findings clearly suggest that understanding the studio classroom climate can be an effective tool for design educators as they seek to respond to changing student populations and to create educational settings that maximize student achievement.

Transformations in Design Education: The Paperless Studio and the Virtual Design Studio

Traditional architectural curricula have been based on the design studio model, which emphasizes learning by doing. Under this model, a typical architectural curriculum offers a sequence of design studios in which students learn to design by actually engaging in designing. Until very recently the design studio culture remained largely unchanged. The introduction of the virtual design studio and the paperless studio in early 1990s has resulted in fundamental changes in design studio pedagogy. The paper examines the impact of computers and information technology, as applied in the paperless studio and the virtual design studio, on design studio education. Based on literature reviews on paperless studio and virtual design studio and examination of architectural studio instruction, including several experiences in conducting paperless studios, the author considers the pedagogical shift occurring in design studio instruction as a result of integrating digital media in the design studio. The paper considers two types of transformations in studio instruction: pedagogical transformations related to using digital media as a design tool and pedagogical transformations related to distributing the design studio with some or all participants in remote locations.

Application of an Alternative Teaching Model in a Virtual Architectural Design Studio: Impacts and Constraints

This paper introduces an alternative teaching model in a virtual architectural design studio, its application, impacts and constraints. This model aims for achieving collaborative learning through facilitating students to Inhabit, Design, Construct and Evaluate (IDCE) their designs collaboratively in a multi-user real-time 3D virtual environment platform (Activeworlds). The application of this model in virtual design studio (VDS) teaching has favorably impacted students' motivation for active, creative and explorative learning, social dynamics between studio participants. It also fostered learning electronic communication, collaboration techniques and etiquette in addition to design technology. The model assisted in developing collaborative experience and shared responsibility. However, there are some drawbacks of the virtual environment platform that hindered having a responsive design environment to users' needs with especially in modeling and rate of viewing. The advantages and constraints of applying the IDCE teaching model in a multi-user real-time 3D virtual environment for first year students at the University of Sydney are addressed in this paper.

The Design Studio as Teaching/Learning Medium — A Process‐Based Approach

AbstractThis article discusses a design studio teaching experience exploring the design process itself as a methodological tool. We consider the structure of important phases of the process that contain different levels of design thinking: conception, function and practical knowledge as well as the transitions from inception to construction. We show how this approach to the design process allows the possibility of addressing elusive issues that underlie the practice of design.

A Process Oriented Design Pedagogy: KFUPM Sophomore Studio

The design studio is the heart of architectural education where most schools of architecture devote 30% to 50% of their curriculum to design training and teaching. The design studio is the kiln where future architects are moulded and the main forum for creative exploration; interaction; and assimilation. However; theorists; academics; and researchers voiced the opinion that most design studio teaching continues to provide students with little understanding of the value of design as a technique; a process; or a set of purposive procedures. This paper argues for a process oriented design pedagogy by outlining an assessment of traditional teaching practices and by introducing a model that advocates the view that the process and the product are equally valuable components of studio teaching. Constituted in two major categories of process and teaching style; the model addresses students’ individual differences. The implementation of the model at KFUPM sophomore studio is reported together with examples of outcomes of students’ work.

Foundations for Design Education: Continuing the Bauhaus Vorkurs Vision

The Bauhaus Vorkurs (Foundation Course) is discussed as a versatile, enduring prototype for combining art, design, and architectural studio education in the American K-12 curriculum. The history of the Vorkurs is reviewed, from its pedagogical roots in Froebelian ideas, to its esrablishment and modifications between 1919 and 1933, to the continuing visions of present-day theorists. When Gropius and Moholy-Nagy came to America, they introduced their ideas about Vorkurs-style education and spatial studies for American K-12 education in two little known articles, both published in 1937. This article argues that a re-examination of Vorkurs art and design education theory for K-12 students in the context of subsequent theory, can bring to light a wealth of information about the teaching of creative space and form mastery.

Selling Your Design: Oral Communication Pedagogy in Design Education

Good design skills are the main focus of assessment practices in design education and are evaluated primarily by drawings and models. In some settings, design studio pedagogy tends to reflect only these content-oriented assessment priorities, with minimal attention paid to the development of oral communication skills. Yet, in many professional contexts, architects need both sets of skills: design competence and the ability to articulate designs for an audience. This paper explores two approaches to oral communication pedagogy in design education—a public speaking approach and a genre-based linguistic approach—and then applies one particular linguistic approach to novice design studio presentations. Based on the findings of this study, we argue that the linguistic, genre-based approach can best offer language-based, discipline-specific description of performance strategies, rhetorical structures, and the linguistic realizations of such structures. Such information can contribute to improved pedagogical practice in the design studio.

Formation of filter dust during CA membrane preparation

Two concepts – genre and discourse community – have been at the core of discussions about language and learning within the disciplines since John Swales integrated the two into ESP pedagogy. While in his earlier work, Swales (1990) proposed a relationship of genres ‘belonging’ to discourse communities, he later (e.g. 1998) understood discourse communities as sometimes cohering around genres, suggesting a more open-ended relationship between the concepts. This paper takes up the issue of this relationship, and reports on a recurrent event in architecture education. The data is drawn from a project on postgraduate design studio pedagogy at a major Australian university. The focus was the weekly activities in a studio taught by a senior academic. Working primarily within a rhetorical genre framework, this paper explores the desk-crit genre from two angles – its evolution over time and its performance in a contemporary studio session. The paper shows how a 'situated genre analysis' contributes to an understanding of the interconnections, tensions, different discourses of the academic and professional architecture communities, characterized in this paper as 'adjacent worlds'. The paper concludes that this type of analysis helps us understand genre as a space in which multiple discourse communities interact.

Reflective practice in the design studio and teacher education

In Schon's account, the distinguishing feature of professional work is its 'designlike' character. For Schon, professional training (including teacher preparation) involves engagement in design experiments in virtual worlds he calls 'reflective practica'. Some teacher educators have developed models of teacher preparation following Schon's guidelines. Others have expressed reservations about his framework. But there has not yet been adequate critical assessment of the conceptual fit between Schon's framework and teacher preparation. This study contributes such an assessment. After providing a map through Schon's system of ideas I proffer two conclusions. First, conventional school teaching is not 'designlike' in Schon's sense. Second, teacher training cannot adequately be conducted 'off-line' in the virtual spaces Schon calls 'reflective practica'.