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Focus on architectural design process through learning styles

Abstract Learning as an interactive process is an important issue in architectural design education. This study aims to focus on architectural design process through learning styles that are ‘accommodating’, ‘diverging’, ‘assimilating’ and ‘converging’ as stated in the Experiential Learning Theory of Kolb. A research was conducted to evaluate the effects of learning style preferences on the performance of design students in a design process. It was found that there were statistically significant differences between the performance scores of students having diverse learning styles at various stages of design process. Also, it was found that performance scores of all students having different learning styles had increased at the end of the design process where the progress of assimilating learners were the highest and accommodating learners the lowest.

Understanding the Effects of Cognition in Creative Decision Making: A Creativity Model for Enhancing the Design Studio Process

ABSTRACT The essential components of creativity—persons, processes and products—were investigated inside a creative environment by deeply focusing on the cognitive stages of the creative decision making process. Mental imagery and external representation were considered as the implicit parts of creativity for enhancing design studio process. An experiment was conducted with 15 subjects who designed the public area of a train as the task in design studio. Observation, protocol analysis, and rating scales were used as assessment tools. Considering the components of creativity, it was found that the highest correlation was between process and overall creativity. Person and product followed process, respectively. However, no significant relationship was observed between imagery and creativity in design process. Three-dimensional representations were found to lead to more creativity compared to 2-dimensional depictions.

An ontology-based universal design knowledge support system

An effective and efficient knowledge support system is crucial for universal design process, as it has become a major design issue in the last decade with the growth of the elderly population and disabled people. There are a limited number of CAD investigations on the nature of knowledge processing that supports the cognitive activities of universal design process. Therefore, this paper proposes an ontology-based computer-assisted universal design (CAUD) plug-in tool that supports designers in developing satisfactory universal design solutions in the conceptual design phase. The required knowledge processing and representation of the developed tool is motivated by the ontological language. It is based on the multiple divergence-convergence cognitive strategies and cognitive needs of designers in the analysis/synthesis/evaluation operations. The CAUD plug-in tool is the first attempt to interface the universal design knowledge ontologically and respond to the requirements of conceptual design phase. According to the user acceptance study, the tool is assessed as useful, understandable, efficient, supportive and satisfactory.

A Framework for the Design Studio in Web‐Based Education

Design education should integrate design concepts and skills with practical and theoretical knowledge through collaborative learning. Computer-mediated communication systems used in web-based education systems are quite appropriate for this principle by enabling global access to course material as well as allowing interaction of participants at distributed learning environments at anytime. Course design broadly requires the organization of time, space and activities considering the tools and methods used. Based on these issues, this study proposes a framework for the design of a web-based studio course with respect to the nature of the design process. An implementation of a sample web-based course design is included to support the idea. Considering the benefits and limitations, the nature of web-based design courses is explored first. Then, the sociological, ideological, epistemological and pedagogical aspects of a design studio are examined within the framework of objectives (why), objects (what), methodology (how) and management (who) with special emphasis given to synchronous and asynchronous communication.

Collaborative digital environments to enhance the creativity of designers

Creativity components in a collaborative digital design education environment.Analysis of process, skills and task motivation in a digital social environment.Protocol coding method for the analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data.Correlations among the individual and social creativity environment components. This study explores the interaction of the essential components of creativity and collaboration in a digital environment in the design process. The framework is based on Amabiles componential theory of creativity, which is composed of three intra-individual components of creativity and the social environment. The digital environment as the social component of creativity provides the technical infrastructure for the analysis of data related to creativity and collaboration. Protocol coding method is used for the analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data stored in The Modular Object Oriented Developmental Learning Environment (MOODLE) forum posts that were formed by the comments or critiques given during the collaboration process by the team members, instructors or jury members. Findings indicate that the social environment component named as the reactivity to proposals is closely related to idea generation as the creative relevant process component and group interaction as the task motivation component. Furthermore, it is found that the number of sketches and design ideas produced through critiques are the main design issues that enhance creativity in collaborative digital environments.

A priority-based approach for satisfying the diverse users’ needs, capabilities and expectations: A universal kitchen design case

Universal design process is a multi-constraint task due to many user requirements and the complexities caused by the interaction of the requirements in developing design solutions. Since all universal design requirements cannot be equally satisfied, a designer must determine the relative importance and implementation order of each requirement. Prioritisation of requirements is needed, not just to ignore the least important but also to guide designers while coping with dependencies, conflicts and trade-offs between multi-attribute requirements simultaneously. Thus, this study proposes a priority-based approach for satisfying diverse users’ needs, capabilities and expectations in a design process conducted in a computer environment. The planning game technique and the analytic hierarchy process technique using a cost–value approach are the two techniques that are applied in prioritising the diverse requirements. The derived priority information is incorporated into a CAD interface with a developed plug-in tool. A universal kitchen design is chosen as a case study for the priority-based approach. The results of the acceptability studies indicate that the proposed plug-in tool is found useful, understandable, efficient, helpful and satisfactory in universal design process and can be developed for various architectural design applications.

Hidden Dimensions of Creativity Elements in Design Process

The aim of the study was to determine the items that can be evaluated as the components of creativity in design process. Factor analysis was applied to determine how well the items corresponded with the explored creativity characteristics. An overall component analysis was conducted to achieve a holistic approach to creative design process. It is found that the primary dimension responsible of 46% of the total variance is only composed of product components. The second dimension responsible of 19.54%, and the third dimension responsible of 14.46% of the total variance are both composed of the interaction of person and process components. Therefore, it can be concluded that the product is the strongest factor in determining creativity in design process.

A priority-based 'design for all' approach to guide home designers for independent living

The aim is to provide a priority-based ‘design for all’ approach list that can be used as a guide in the architectural design process for independent living of the home users. It is important to prioritize ‘design for all’ factors and their items as well as the significant differences among adults, elderly and adults with physical disability and visual impairments for the design of homes. A survey was conducted with 161 participants, including adults, elderly and adults with physical disabilities and visual impairments. The results of a factor analysis test identified six high-loaded (adequate illumination level, ease of use in kitchen, adequate space for approach and use, adequate contrast between essential information and its surroundings, ease of use in accessories and functional vertical circulation) and three low-loaded factors (provision of privacy and safety in bathroom, safety of floors and accessibility to all spaces). Multiple comparison tests were done in order to determine the group differences in each prioritized factor for diverse users. Furthermore, a priority-based list with the characteristic features of the ‘design for all’ approach for independent living is developed as a guide for home designers.

EXPERIENCES WITH MOODLE AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL FOR DESIGN TEAMWORK: A USERS’ PERSPECTIVE

With the rapid increase of technology every educational institution has the opportunity to make use of the Internet as a communication medium for instruction. This facility makes education independent of time and location and supports the students in an environment that can design in a team as active, independent, self-reflected and collaborative participants. Moreover, web-based design education enables flexibility for time and place constraints in collaborative teaching and learning (Sagun and Demirkan, 2009). However, it was observed that most of the existing studies on the utilization of Web-based tools in design education adopted a developer’s and/or an instructor’s viewpoint, while, users’ needs, perceptions, and experiences were rarely explored (Karakaya and Pektas, 2007).

Ergonomics And Universal Design In Interior Architecture Education

The focus of this article is on the application of Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) principles on design process. Designers begin acquiring HFE principles and data during their university education. Universal Design (UD) approaches HFE as incorporating the whole of the population rather than a certain percent. This study explores the effectiveness of a specially designed course on UD in an interior architecture undergraduate program. After completion of the course, students were asked to evaluate their learning process. It was observed that learning UD principles is a process and requires some time, rather than being book information. The majority found the course helpful in increasing their awareness of UD issues. They also found the course helpful for improving their design work. The research suggests UD to be integrated into the interior design curriculum both as a separate course on its own and within the context of the design studios.