Scholarly record

TOWARDS AN INTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING OF ARCHITECTURAL SPACE: A NOVEL PEDAGOGICAL METHODOLOGY IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN.

R. Manoliu

Abstract

Contemporary architectural education consists in a repetitive trial and error learning model. First year students, with no previous architectural education, are expected to create and design by using their innate talent and previous knowledge, as well as their subjective opinions and instincts. Since such a model can scarcely encourage the development of independent and critical thinking, architectural education needs effective teaching strategies in order to improve learning efficiency and the development of creative abilities. The present educational system uses a temporary scaffolding meant to help the students acquire knowledge and new creative qualities and to understand new concepts, often very abstract. These scaffoldings are progressively removed, as the student reaches the needed degree of independence that allows the development of one's own systems of knowledge and research abilities. The aim of this paper is to present a new teaching methodology used in the First Year Studio, based on a direct, felt experience of architectural space through the parallel observation and analysis of a diversity of built spaces that represent answers to the first design project. By understanding, through direct spatial experiences, the techniques used by architects to answer the requirements similar to the ones presented by their project brief, students can easily assimilate the basic blocks, as well as the quintessential architectural concepts, which in turn encourage cognitive development, independent creative thinking and design abilities.

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