Ivanka Iordanova

Teamwork in integrated design projects: Understanding the effects of trust, conflict, and collaboration on performance

Teamwork during integrated design projects is complex. We address this by investigating how trust, collaboration, and conflict evolve over time to affect performance. Our results stem from data gathered using validated self-report questionnaires with 38 participants in 5 multidisciplinary teams at three points in time during a 6-week integrated design competition. Results show that without collaboration, trust and conflict have no bearing on performance. In addition to an unambiguous practical outcome—fostering collaboration helps build trust and manage conflict—our study points to theoretical developments: as trust- and conflict-performance relations grow over time, so does collaborations mediating effect.

Teaching Digital Design Exploration: Form Follows…

This paper presents some challenges of teaching computational geometry to architectural students, and proposes a multi-level pedagogical scheme introducing associative geometry and parametric modeling/design into architectural design education. It reports on two pedagogical experiences: one held in the context of a spatial geometry course in the first year of education; and another one, in a digital design studio with third-year architectural students. More specifically, it discusses the impact on design exploration of a library of interactive referents models introduced into the architectural studio. Situated in the ‘performance’ paradigm of digital design methods, they allow for design object explorations based on modification of architecturally meaningful features (structural, environmental, functional, etc.). The form of a design object can thus ‘follow’ function, structure, or even sustainability. The digital methods and the design knowledge transferred by the interactive models, together with their visual nature, are found to amplify the processes of ‘seeing-as’ and the ‘reflective conversation with the situation’ considered essential for creative design.

Interdisciplinary team learning in the context of integrated design studio

Scientific literature and practical experience point out fragmentation of the building design process as one of the reasons for ineffective design and construction processes. This paper proposes interdisciplinary team learning in the context of an integrated design studio as a successful approach for both: achieving sustainable design solutions and transforming disciplinary cultures into integrated practices. In a rather unique collaborative experience based on strategies from situated learning and activity theory, students with different design and construction backgrounds were placed in multidisciplinary (co-located) teams to work on a real architectural project with specific requirements for sustainability. This integrated design studio was timed in three intensive 2-day charrettes. A coherent digital environment for integrated design was proposed in order to meet the needs of the multidisciplinary teams. The results from this experience were very positive in respect to both individual and team learning.

Is a Digital Model Worth a Thousand Pictures

This communication addresses the use of a new type of referents database in the context of an architectural design studio. It discusses the results of design experiences held with the objective to study the cognitive effects of a teaching approach based on precedents and metaphors available as interactive and reusable digital models to students. The introduction of this referent-based approach is inspired by three major principles: the largely accepted fact that the creative work of architects is highly supported by referring to precedents and metaphors; the use of algorithmic digital methods to encapsulate architectural knowledge; and the constructivist approach to architectural design education. The study finds that the role of the modeled referents is helpful for the design studio learning, and that they are most creatively used when internalized by the student.

Computational Environments with Multimodal Representations of Architectural Design Knowledge

This article discusses interaction between multimodal representations of architectural design knowledge, particularly focusing on relating explicit and implicit types of information. The aim of the presented research is to develop a computational environment that combines several modes of representation, including and integrating different forms of architectural design knowledge. Development of an interactive digital-models library and ontological model of architectural design factors are discussed, which are complementary in nature. In a time when BIM software is seen as embodiment of domain knowledge and the future medium of architectural design, this paper presents an interaction between ontological representation of architectural design knowledge and its embodiment in interactive models, thus focusing on the process of design and design space exploration. In the digital environments that we propose, representation of different formats of knowledge, such as visual, linguistic or numeric, are integrated with relational and procedural information, design rules, and characteristics. Interactive search and query based on contextual constraints, and parametric variation of the model based on the information received from ontology are the underlying drivers for design exploration and development.

An IDP-BIM Framework for Reshaping Professional Design Practices

Integrated design process (IDP) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) have been recognized as two approaches to address the problem of fragmentation in the construction industry. Adopting these processes and tools nonetheless requires drastic changes in design practices. There is a need for generating and formalizing new knowledge practices, and discarding obsolete ones. However, traditional approaches to create and transfer this new knowledge cannot cope with this need. This research builds on social learning theories, such as activity theory, to propose a situated learning environment in which BIM-related technologies are structured in an IDP framework. This learning environment is designed as a laboratory where traditional practices in planning, managing and designing construction projects can be challenged. BIM and simulation models, together with collaboration tools are used as boundary objects to break barriers between professional practices. Design teams, by adapting to this new environment, generate new practice knowledge. This knowledge is captured using ethnographic methods to enhance and consolidate the IDP framework. The proposed approach contributes to accelerating the co-generation of new knowledge practices within the proposed environment.

LibreArchi: library of interactive architectural models containing exploratory and didactic simulations

This paper presents a library of interactive architectural referents, LibreArchi, which can play a twofold role, exploratory and didactic, during the conceptual phases of an architectural project. The library is composed of interactive models of chunks of architectural know-how represented in a multimodal way: through an interactive model including simulations, pictures, text, video, etc. The concept of distributed intelligence provides a methodological basis for LibreArchi in two ways: a precedent or a new project can be informed by or include several different chunks of know-how, thus allowing for higher complexity and flexibility; and being open for qualified input of interactive models of know-how, it is constructed by the community. This paper is an invitation to reuse and share.

Using Historical Know-how to Model Design References

The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that new computer and communication technology has the potential to change architectural education in a positive way, based on previous experiences and learning from the past. This research is based on two historical aspects that we bring together in order to propose a new didactic method and material for architectural education: the first one consists in finding obsolete architectural training practices and reconsidering them from a modern point of view; the second one proposes using precedents in a new constructive way in situation of teaching architectural conception in studio. This historical approach, combined with architectural design studio observations, has lead to an outline of a prototype of a digital assistant for teaching architectural design. Some aspects of its functioning are here discussed.