Re-narrated Stories: A Reflection on Narrative Learning in a First Year Design Studio

Abstract

Article history: Received November 21, 2020 Received in revised form Nov. 29, 2020 Accepted December 07, 2020 Available online August 01, 2021 This paper explores the implementation of narrative learning in first-year architectural design studios and how it can amplify the making, communicating and reflecting aspects of the study. In particular, this paper examines the estrangement technique, which enables an objective view of a story and its telling. The technique allows the students to detach an existing narrative from its context to be analysed, and then recontextualise it. We focus on the main studio project for the first-semester architecture and interior architecture students in Universitas Indonesia as the context of this study. This paper analyses their process, final outputs, and feedback to see the lesson learned from their perspective. The content analysis method is used to reveal the details on students’ inside process that leads to the final output. As a result of this study, we found that there are two main categories in systematically adapting existing narrative into a new form of representation; by transforming its story or its telling. In the end, estrangement technique provides the students with a way to retain some aspects of a narrative while playing with others, producing a fresh view on telling stories through enhancing their ambiguity and interaction between design author and their audience.