Studio Teaching Research Articles

The Multidimensional Exploration Methodology for Architectural Design Studio Education: An Innovative Teaching Methodology Proposal

In this paper, we discuss the next phase of architectural design, and concerning the requirements of this point of view, we propose a new learning approach that includes digital-design thinking (by the approach) and design-driven innovation (as outcomes). The paper aims to reflect an architectural understanding shaped by current global facts and developing technologies. Moreover, we discuss this understanding from the academic perspective, which is compatible with the globally evolving socio-cultural, environmental, and economic norms. Therefore, under the title, The Multidimensional Exploration Methodology, we present a new education scheme and a learning methodology that transfers this aligned view to the architectural design studio education model and trains new designers accordingly. The learning method is developed by taking references from existing methods and blending them into each other in a way compatible with architectural design. While addressing the student as a professional, this method challenges them via real problems through challenge-based learning and adopts the new architectural understanding through the cognitive learning method. Furthermore, it aims to develop designers’ perceptions and approaches that align with the digital world through design-science research methodology within the framework of a new understanding. Consequently, it develops practical skills with the learning-by-doing model. This new architectural concept has emerged, backed up by the power of data and shaped by users’ roles and responsibilities in the digital age. This understanding, which is not only limited to Form and Function but also consists of ‘Form + Function + Interaction’, should be covered by design schools as a progression for the human-centred design approach.

Explaining kindergarten teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding early visual arts education: a perspective from the theory of planned behavior (Creencias y prácticas docentes en materia de educación plástica y visual temprana: una perspectiva basada en la teoría del comportamiento planificado)

ABSTRACT Adopting the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this sequential mixed-methods research investigates Hong Kong kindergarten teachers’ reported beliefs and practices regarding early visual arts education (EVAE). The qualitative part (Phase 1) is an interview study of 19 kindergarten teachers in two focus groups, aiming to develop a conceptual structure of teachers’ behavioural, normative and control beliefs. The quantitative part (Phase 2) is a survey study of 243 teachers from the randomly sampled 21 kindergartens regarding their EVAE beliefs and practices. Most teachers believe in child-centred teaching while practising teacher-directed instruction and support creativity while delivering closed-ended instruction. Four influential factors are identified to account for this gap: (1) practising child-centred pedagogies as a result of behavioural beliefs; (2) undervaluing visual arts as a result of normative beliefs; (3) instructing children directly as a result of normative beliefs; and (4) delivering subject knowledge in studio teaching as a result of control beliefs. These findings imply that Hong Kong kindergarten teachers struggle between two approaches and suffer from a lack of support from educational authorities and society. There is an urgent need to develop appropriate practices for visual arts education in Hong Kong kindergartens.

The effect of online teaching on basic design studio in the time of COVID-19: an application of the technology acceptance model

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to reduce its spread, education in Jordan was urgently forced in March 2020 to switch from physical education to distance one. Architecture, accordingly, transitioned suddenly from face-to-face to remote design studio education. Recently, many questions have been raised about the competency of teaching architecture remotely due to its practical nature. This study aimed at investigating the effect of applying a distance studio teaching approach in the first year of architectural education on students' skill acquisition, performance, and achievement. The study used a mixed-method approach to assess students' ‘perceived usefulness’ and ‘perceived ease of use’ of online teaching of the Basic Design course in addition to its effect on the perceivers themselves by applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The findings indicate that it can be beneficial in terms of enhancing students' performance, motivation, and interaction and enriching course goals, content, and teaching process.

A paradigm shift in studio pedagogy during pandemic times: An international perspective on challenges and opportunities teaching design online

This study advances the debate over the role of technology-enhanced teaching in the practice-based design studio. Framed by the exigencies of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a detailed survey and follow-up interviews illuminate the transformative experiences among 90 experienced design educators from seven countries. At the heart of this study is the question: where did design educators succeed in trying to approximate a physical studio using online technologies and where did technology-enhanced teaching fall short? Content analysis of qualitative data and reflective remarks provide a window into what educators see as the concrete pedagogical challenges and opportunities they have encountered. Their responses are analysed using the four major characteristics of the practice-based design studio: dialogical learning, the critique, studio culture and studio class size. The results clearly demonstrate that the social aspects of the physical studio with its informal learning opportunities are difficult to replicate online and dialogical learning could not be effectively established online unless classes were smaller. There were also positive responses, particularly using online collaboration platforms for online critiques. Design educators can now prototype a new studio pedagogy that incorporates online elements that potentially enhance the learning and teaching experience in the physical design studio, while rejecting those that do not work for their domain.

Exploring the impact of self-regulated learning intervention on students' strategy use and performance in a design studio course.

A growing number of studies indicate that self-regulated learning plays a significant role in students' academic achievement. However, research studies on design studio education in self-regulated learning are under-researched globally, including in Turkey. In this study, I developed a self-regulated learning intervention for industrial design studio education and examined its impact on students' self-regulated learning strategies and design performance. Twenty six third-year industrial design students were tracked in a mixed-method research study conducted during a design studio course. Following the study, quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the students using self-report questionnaires and interviews. The jury grades of the students in the experimental group were compared with the grades of the students in the control group. Integrated data analysis indicated that activities for promoting self-regulated learning strategies such as goal-setting, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-efficacy, and seeking help and information in design studios can assist design students to improve their strategy use and design performance.

Feedback in the instrumental music lesson: A qualitative study

This study focuses on the role of feedback in teaching with particular emphasis on its effect on learner performance, motivation, and self-regulation. A critical account of feedback and applicable models highlight conceptual guidelines of how individual, relational, and environmental factors can impact on the utility of feedback as a performance changing device, and reasons for theory–practice disjunction. A qualitative methodology investigated 25 instrumental music teachers in Victoria, Australia, realizing the effect of studio teaching feedback on students from teachers’ perspectives and recollections of their studio teaching practice. Knowledge and skills, positive attribution, and music and relational qualities are reported through these reflections of feedback, feed-up, and feed-forward approaches to student engagement. The study highlights positive feedback encounters are typified by learner engagement and teacher–student relationality, contesting the traditional, behaviorist “feedback ritual” and teacher-centered approaches in the music lesson. The study offers implications for purposeful and structured learning opportunities, and cyclical engagement that builds impactful feedback episodes and feedback design that factors in the influence of context, culture, and differentiated relationships in learning. The study encourages educators to consider balance of “drill and thrill,” where feedback is embedded as an influential pedagogical/relational device, rather than discreet episodes of educators “telling” learners about their performance.

Education as Acceptance: Including Differences in Studio Pedagogy to Achieve Spatial Justice

Education as Acceptance: Including Differences in Studio Pedagogy to Achieve Spatial Justice

Implementasi Computational Thinking Unplugged dalam Pembelajaran Seni Tari di Sekolah Indonesia Luar Negeri Davao, Filipina

This service is based on an analysis of situations and problems, that until now dance learning at SILN Davao, Philippines is still using the dance studio education pattern. The orientation is that students memorize certain dance movements with imitates the teacher, without being given space to creatively. This has an impact on the closure of various intelligences possessed by students. SILN Davao, also often appears at state events to present the face of Indonesia to the public, but this is hampered by the lack of variety in dance learning in schools, which makes Indonesia seem to have minimal traditional arts. To hack this, this community service seeks to implement the concept of dance learning by applying unplugged computational thinking. The goal is that dance learning is not just a matter of memorizing motion, but students can creative ideas in the form of dance according to their level of development. To achieve this, methods used are community situation analysis, problem identification, setting goals, problem solving plans, social approaches, implementing activities, and evaluating. The results of this implementation show that the concept of dance learning at SILN Davao, Philippines that applies computational thinking unplugged can be applied to other SILNs.

Pentimento and Palimpsest: Blurring Rituals in the Studio

While the benefits of curated environments and provocations in emergent curriculum for young learners have been documented, less is known about the effects of emergent curriculum for adult learners and instructors in a studio art context. This work investigates what happens when art education foregrounds and follows students’ interests and questions, using arts-based tools, processes, and approaches to explore the creation and interpretation of 2D artwork. The author reexamines rituals in studio teaching practices and engages narrative inquiry to reflect on the effects emergent curriculum and contract grading have on both students and the instructor. The curated environments of the classroom, campus art museum, city streets, and students’ homes influenced questions, materials, research, conversations, and artistic possibilities while blurring studio traditions. The resulting emergent curriculum forged new connections among the students, the instructor, and their community while shifting learning toward dispersed, collective power rather than concentrated, individual power.

Learning and Teaching Urban Design through Design Studio Pedagogy: A Blended Studio on Transit Urbanism

Studio-based pedagogy has been central to urban design programmes as it can enable future urban designers to more effectively acquire an understanding of how cities work and critically engage with the role of design intervention. This paper aims to explore the capacities and challenges of learning and teaching urban design through studio pedagogy by drawing on empirical research from a blended urban design studio experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. This is part of a broader exploratory project using a case study research design and mixed methods approach. This paper explains the process of designing and delivering two constructively aligned postgraduate urban design studios as part of the MA Urban Design programme at Cardiff University in the 2021–2022 academic year. It further discusses the findings of an online survey on the perceptions and experiences of students regarding blended design studio pedagogy. Designing two consecutive and constructively aligned design studios is argued to work better in comparison with designing two entirely separate stand-alone design studios engaging with different topics and sites. The paper highlights the importance of learning from cities as real urban design laboratories rather than merely analysing abstract secondary datasets. The value of policy review, small group reading discussions, and formative feedback opportunities is also highlighted as integral parts of the urban design studio pedagogy. The paper concludes by discussing a range of key issues concerning field site visit, policy review, community engagement, precedent review, student diversity, design studio topic, reading discussion, group size, formative feedback, engagement, educational background, and English language skills. The outcomes of this paper can inform future practices of developing pedagogical frameworks for blended urban design studios.

Landscape architecture design as an art creative practice: A studio teaching model

Landscape Architecture is defined as a blend of art and science. However, it has been acknowledged that configuration of design forms, which is related to spatial composition and element forms is the most challenging design aspect that the students face in learning the design process in the basic design course. This is not the case for the scientific aspects where students can establish their ability and confidence in learning landscape technical issues and functional requirements. This paper discusses the outcomes of the first Landscape Architecture Design Studio at the Department of Landscape Architecture at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU), which represents the first foundation stone for Landscape Architecture design education. The Landscape Architecture Studio has examined the role of creative practice in art plays in the landscape architecture design process in the light of Zangwill’s Aesthetic Creation Theory (ACT), and following the Form-Based Design (FBD) approach process defined by Stefano Fillipi. In this studio, students were asked to design a private garden related to, hypothetically, an artist’s family house. Based on the FBD approach, each student chose a specific modern artist, supposedly owning the garden house, and studied his artistic principles of forms, patterns, colours and composition, and used them as an inspiration for their own art paintings. The students’ art pieces acted as the basis for conceptualising their design preliminary plans and 3D images. As a result of this studio, students showed a great interest in the studio artistic approach, and demonstrated a significant ability to translate the artistic principles and qualities existing in creative painting successfully into their landscape architecture design. At the end of the teaching process, a reflective student survey feedback from instructors indicated that students had learned about the aesthetic creative approach and were able to understand the role non-aesthetic properties played into manifesting the design aesthetic quality.

Spatial transformation of remote working spaces of university students receiving studio education during the pandemic

The problem of interacting in the distance learning education process comes to the forefront, especially in applied and in-studio courses such as design education. To increase this, a unilateral effort is not enough; a different mutual effort is required compared to face-to-face education. One of these efforts is the construction of the learning environment. Based on this, this study focuses on how studio education students organize their physical learning environments during their distance education process. In this study, it is aimed to observe transformations caused by the learning process in the home components. The study was held with students who received design studio course at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Department of Architecture and Karabük University, Industrial Design and Graphic Design departments. The search in the process of creating a personal learning space, the relationships between old-new positions or situations, and the reasons for which these transformations are needed are examined. The ability to establish this interaction even in different environments will carry the perception and awareness of learning to a different point and enable the discovery of unique processes in a personal sense. The current position can be considered an intertwined ‘breaking’ moment when everything becomes complicated and seems unresolved. In this study, which is a search for spatial arrangements made by students within their possibilities, the primary research question is ‘how does spatial transformation take place during the pandemic?’. This study reveals how students create learning codes for the physical space in which they will perform creative thinking and how these codes are reflected in the transformation of physical space. It is thought that codes related to personal learning can be developed with the hypothesis stating that efficient production stages can be realized by solving location-related problems with experience.

Drawing ex-studio: An eccentric case for correspondence courses

Digitally networked distance learning strategies in the virtual learning environment (VLE) have been increasingly mandated in studio drawing courses in the COVID-19 era. This phenomenon of studio teaching in absence of the studio is referred to in this analysis as an ‘ex-studio’ model. This article posits an alternative and a corrective to the failures and limitations of digital ex-studio learning and teaching through the understudied, underappreciated and largely defunct strategy of correspondence teaching via postal networks. A critique of online studio teaching experiences in the field of drawing is contrasted with the potential for correspondence courses, informed by mail art practices, to re-engage distance learning with community building, material knowledge, skill formation, effective formative assessment, coherent workload allocation and teacher–learner rapport.

The diagonal axis from VERB to VOID: interdisciplinarity in basic design studio education

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss the potentials of interdisciplinary exercises that bring together art and design methodologies in expanding as well as redefining the given methods and principles of basic design in architecture education. The primary purpose is to improve the conventional, well-established principles and methodologies of basic design studios into fresh perspectives.Design/methodology/approachFocussing on the case study of a basic design studio assignment that translated Richard Serra's Verb List (1967-68) into space-generating operations, the authors analyse how a diagonal interdisciplinary approach to studio pedagogy opened up the basic design studio into the exploration of new concepts and approaches. The assignment encouraged architecture students to productively and creatively engage with a significant art historical work for the purposes of design thinking and exploration.FindingsFindings reveal that the students explored the possible reciprocal influences between materials, actions, and issues of form and organisation, thereby operating in an interface between art, architecture and design surveying the possible interactions between these disciplines. Based on the outcome of this studio exercise, the authors argue that designing assignments that would bring together various and sometimes even conflicting approaches of different fields allow us to reassess and conceptualise anew the pedagogical aims and modi operandi.Originality/valueThe research is original in the ways in which it suggests many possibilities of dialogue, interaction and collaboration between art, design and architecture studios.

Orientations on studying crafts in higher education

Crafts in higher education (HE) are scattered and typically lack departments of their own, instead being integrated in art, design, technology, education or culture-oriented departments. The purpose of this research is to shed light on the orientations of crafts in HE programmes that have crafts as their foci. Based on document analysis of the curricula of one American and four European (Finland, Sweden, Estonia and United Kingdom) craft study programmes and fieldwork observations, the following five orientations were identified: educational crafts, traditional crafts, critical crafts, cultural heritage of crafts and design-based crafts. Both similarities and differences were found. The targets, prospective career paths and pedagogical methods of these study programmes were adapted to the broader targets of the various departments. Craft teaching followed the basic principles of studio pedagogy. The sought-after skill acquisition level varied from expressive purposes to ability to make quality products. There were also differences in whether a programme focused on a specific craft field or covered a broad spectrum. The requirements of academization were adapted in all study programmes. However, the role of writing differed from free and short reflective writing in the art department to a strict academic writing style in the education department. Professional goals varied from becoming a teacher or an artist to self-employment in a small-scale craft enterprise or achieving commercial success in industrial production. Concerns about losing craft traditions and dedication to maintaining them were shared across programmes. Despite being situated on the outskirts of academia, the status of crafts as an HE discipline adds value and visibility to the crafts and strengthens their identities.

The New Normal for Architecture Design Studio: Conceptualizing a Design Implementation Model

Architectural design studios are the crux and core of architecture education. The closure of face-to-face Design studios due to the COVID-19 pandemic during the years 2020 and 2021 has indeed posed a set of challenges to architectural education. Through a rigorous set of research methods, the paper investigates the various possibilities and perspectives of making the challenges into opportunities to rethink, innovate and move on. The paper aims to develop a model for implementing studio-based learning innovative, appropriate, and conducive to covid and post-covid environments. The first objective dealt with in this paper is to find the consensus on the directives to solve and respond to the contemporary challenges of the pandemic for the SBL. The second is to arrive at a toolkit or a model that strategically summarizes the processes for the directives. The School of Architecture, Building, and Design from Taylor’s University Malaysia has been the case study of the investigation. The research methods involved conducting focus group meetings with various stakeholders, such as the Students, Tutors, Studio Coordinators, Program Directors, and the Head of the School. The findings firstly offered a set of shifts in paradigms of SBL and secondly, a toolkit that we named as Design Implementation Model (DIM) for a hybrid studio pedagogy that we envisage and envision to be the future of architectural education.

Shutting the studio: the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on architectural education in the United Kingdom

The Covid-19 pandemic instigated a rapid shift to remote learning in schools of architecture in the United Kingdom. Through the largest survey of its kind of architectural students and tutors in the UK, this research compares experiences in the physical design studio and its remote equivalent. The context of the pandemic provided a unique opportunity to survey a range of cohorts, at different stages in their architectural education to compare these two modes of studio delivery. The findings show a fall in student satisfaction after the move to remote learning in every metric assessed. Peer interaction and support were particularly effected. More formal teaching interactions, such as reviews, crits and tutorials, also suffered but to a lesser extent. For teaching staff, some small improvements in the working environment were observed as well as organisational factors. However, these small gains were outweighed by the negative changes. The research suggests that despite the replication of teaching activities digitally, the situated learning of design education and the facilitation of informal learning scenarios are critical components of design education. This research contributes to the ongoing characterisation of architectural education’s signature pedagogy and suggests that for effective remote learning, design studio education must be reconceptualised, and alternative pedagogies embraced. This can direct educators looking to develop remote design studio learning as well as highlighting areas in which the traditional model of architectural education may be enhanced.

Designing an equitable city: confronting gentrification in studio pedagogy

ABSTRACT The article offers a methodological contribution to the pedagogies of urbanism by examining how design can address the urgent issue of urban inequality from an in-depth, long-term, and ultimately, transformational, perspective. We conducted a 3-year experiment in studio pedagogy at Cardiff University to address this question by confronting one of the most prominent spatial expressions of urban inequality, i.e. gentrification. The site of the studio was the Grangetown area in the city of Cardiff, which is the capital of Wales in the United Kingdom. Grangetown contains concentrations of low- to moderate-income groups that are threatened with large-scale involuntary displacement due to incipient gentrification. The goal of this experiment in design pedagogy was to gain an in-depth understanding of processes of gentrification while simultaneously developing design strategies that not only address gentrification’s root causes but also propose equitable alternatives to the future of the city. The studio was guided by an overall framework–based on extensive research on gentrification–consisted of its most critical aspects (e.g. patterns of land ownership and uses, housing finance and commodification, public policies and regulations). The article describes this design studio process, its multiple innovations and different outcomes, and then critically reflects on its implications for studio pedagogy as well as for design practice. The goal of confronting gentrification in this experiment was to help graduate students--and future practitioners--design a far more equitable city by combining theoretical knowledge and scholarly research with critical thinking and design skills, and by engaging with values that are closer to social justice than what market-oriented thinking and mainstream practices currently allow.

Participatory Stakeholder Engagement in Design Studio Education

AbstractResearchers have highlighted the need for ongoing design pedagogy reform in order to reflect worldwide transformations, changing socio‐cultural contexts and the expanding scope of design practice. New pedagogical models have emerged in architectural education that incorporate stakeholder perspectives and encourage community engagement. Participatory Design (PD) methodology has become a promising pedagogical approach to engage diverse stakeholders and communities in the design process. The twofold goal of this article is to describe and categorise student learning experiences in an architecture studio and to delineate the benefits of applying PD methodology to architecture studio pedagogy. Students from a graduate level integrated architectural studio participated in the study and led a series of three participatory co‐creation activities with diverse stakeholders who were planned for the front, middle and backend of the design process. Observations, questionnaires and interviews were used to describe and categorise student learning experiences as well as determine the benefits of integrating PD methodology into a design studio. The study results demonstrate that participatory activities positively impact student learning experiences as well as greatly enhance student empathy for stakeholders, thus integrating the social and technical aspects of their experience and demonstrating the importance of stakeholder engagement in collective and creative experimentation.

Relational Planning as a Collective Critical Inquiry. Socio-Environmental Justice, Critical Moments and Reflective Responses in Six Years of Studio Teaching

ABSTRACT This paper presents a practical and pedagogical model of socially innovative planning based on four dialectical relations between actors, institutions and planning instruments that frame, constitute and position planning actions. The paper illustrates and evaluates this model by analysing four spatial planning studios that took place during the authors’ six-year long engagement in a heavily contested urban renewal project in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. The paper shows how a frame for critical inquiry helped to address changes in the studio and project realities. by understanding, experiencing and responding to the ethical and socio-environmental consequences of spatial planning practice.