First-year Architecture Students Research Articles

Domestic Prototypes Co-Designed Through Experimental 1 m3 Topological Cubes

This paper shows a prototyping project carried out with first-year architecture students at the University of Alcala. The project starts with the development of a 1 m3 prototype associated to a micro-domestic space for each student, generating forty-five microarchitectures. The main objective for all students is domesticity. Students interpret their domestic intimate space developed in a 1 m3 cube. The aim of this paper is to test the learning process on domestic layout through a prototyping approach. The approach is based on twenty-five previously selected architectural references, and proceeds through a process of co-design learning and design thinking to the translation and experimental approach of ten prototypes constructed at a scale of 1:1. This paper focuses on the learning process carried out with the DPM (diagram, plan, model) methodology and patterns generated by the students’ architectural projects through the development of prototypes.

Working with mass and light: A challenge for architecture students

The distinctiveness of architecture education raises understanding issues and adaptation difficulties of first-year architecture students because of the abstract visual language they must become familiar with. Thus, a special attention should be given to the way in which the basics of architectural language are taught and implemented in particular design projects. The aim of this research is to test the efficiency of an intuitive-based didactical method through a specific design exercise. Therefore, in order to facilitate the shift from concrete elements to abstract ones we propose an exercise which will enable architecture students to design high-quality interior spaces. Starting from a personal space, each student will develop his/hers environment according to natural light needs, functional necessities and spatial relations between three main interior places, while working with an imaginary stone mass on which only subtractive operations are allowed. The illustrative part of the paper contains some of the students’ work that we consider to be successful responses to the proposed exercise. This type of teaching method can trigger students’ creativity by using only means which the students are already accustomed with: looking, searching and analyzing.

Learning from Nature: Biomimetic Design in Architectural Education

Abstract Biomimicry is the study of nature to emulate or be inspired by its designs or principles to solve human problems. A noteworthy example includes Velcro derived from bur hooks. This paper describes a Basic Design Studio assignment that is informed by arthropods, a rich source of inspiration. First-year architecture students were expected to offer a solution to a common human problem through the observation of the forms and behavior of arthropods. The final work required the inclusion of a mobile structure in the design. Educational benefits include the introduction of students to alternative design methods and multidimensional thinking.

The Parrot Brief: A drawing guide for first-year architecture students

The Parrot Brief is an audio drawing guide for first-year architecture students, devised in MP3 format, which received university learning and teaching innovation funding. It is downloadable from the School of Architecture’s digital studio, and also available for loan in the Avery Hill library. The guide can be played over and over again, repeating the same text as many times as the user requests, hence the name the Parrot Brief.

An instrument for measuring spatial creativity in adults: the "Common Elements" Test.

Since architects have not only to be creative on verbal tasks but even more so on spatial tasks, the Common Elements test was developed to objectively measure spatial creativity (visualization) in first-year srudents of architecture (Schmidt, 1973). The purpose of this study was to extend the usefulness of the new test. The new test is related to Shapiro's (1968) Common Properties, where two nouns are given to a subject and he has to find qualities which belong to both named objects, e.g., nail and song, and to the Goaschaldt figures (Gomchaldt, 1929). Common Elements has nine simple figures, called elements, marked A to I printed at the top of each page. Twenty-two pairs of more complex figures appear below them. Each pair of the abstract-complex geometrical figures conmins at least one of the simple elements. The embedded elements are geometrically similar to items at the top of each page. In other words, elements are of the same shape but not necessarily of the same size and their orientation may be different from those at the top of the page. The subject has to establish which of the simple elements are common to both of the complex figures and mark an answer on a separate answer sheet. Schmidt (1972) reduced the list of correct answers from 47 to 44; reliability estimated as internal consistency is .81. Two large groups were tested: 205 first-year architecture students and 183 first-year education students. The results are shown in the table. There was a significant difference between the two means (t = 8.59, fi <

Personality correlates of the creative architecture student.

~ A battery of 14 measures was applied to 105 first-year architecture students. Relationships were hypothesized with respect to field-dependence, motivation, anxiety, visualization, hostility, dogmatism, and academic success. Six tests and seven criterion measures of creativity were applied. The results suggest that there is a relationship between creativity and personality factors and that distinctive personality features associated with high creacivity are identifiable. A multiple regression analysis (Schmidt, 1971) suggests that the creative architecture student has a low score on Social Acquiescence; high scores on Gottschaldt Figures, Work Attitude, Pattern Relations, and Hostility; and a low score on Conventional Mores. The results are significant at the 5% level at least, in the order mentioned.