Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Session: First year experienceThis paper discusses undergraduate freshmen experience in the core studio design course in the professionally accredited architectural program.The studio curriculum focuses on teaching digital and traditional tools in the design context while considering the level of knowledge and the nature of a student body.Design studio curriculum introduces students to traditional modes of creativity such as sketching and physical models.This preliminary stage is paralleled by an introduction of digital skills, which while visually familiar to students, often require broader conceptual and methodological underpinnings.Later in the semester students focus on digital design tools with particular pursuit of design explorations that are digitally-native, such as performance analysis, physically-based lighting and material studies.The focus on performance and materiality exemplifies a particularly effective use of digital tools that takes an advantage of an intrinsic ability of computers to substitute or modify already existing data with a minimal knowledge requirement to how the data (in this case three-dimensional digital architectural model) is created.This facilitates investigative and speculative approach to design while providing student with an interactive validation mechanism.Furthermore, it allows students to focus on "what and why" they are doing, while continuing development of the "how" knowledge in the context of their designs.This paper considers experience-based learning as such an effective method in student education that crosses various toolsets and discipline boundaries.While experience-based learning is a time-honored approach, there are also opportunities emerging specifically from digital tools that can further improve students' educational experience and ability to learn unfamiliar material.
Author: Andrzej Zarzycki
Institution: New Jersey Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Architecture
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4409109451