Design Studios: A Critical Review

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Brief Overview of the Design Studios
Conceptualisation and problem solving
Interdisciplinary collaboration
The relevance of open competition in architecture
Future buildings, sustainability, and the role of an architect
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

The contents introduce a broad range of architectural concepts and common issues that can be explored through design methods, critical analyses and practical exercises. Consequently, learners can acquire diverse design skills through critical thinking and representation of architectural concepts and undertaking vital decisions on building designs. Thus, the role of the architect becomes clear across cultures, history and in the application of technologies.

Design studios in architectural learning also strive to nurture, apply and evaluate the architectural design competence of learners. Students can acquire a comprehensive understanding of several theoretical, technical and professional elements of architecture while enhancing their abilities to incorporate knowledge gained into designs and representation during practical sessions. Every Design Studio presents new learning opportunities for learners. In this critical review, the focus is on Studio 7, Studio 8, Studio 9 and Studio 10.

Brief Overview of the Design Studios

Studio 7

The Design Studio 7 presents design challenges that explore the use of Cross Laminated Timber (CTL) in building high-rise structures and mixed-use architecture consisting of residential and wood learning facilities. The course is designed to equip learners with problem-solving skills such that they can comprehend various issues relating to climate design, comfort, building materials, energy usages in buildings, building technologies, and the rating schemes to determine performance.

In this case, learners can get opportunities to integrate and practise various concepts related to CTL implementation in high-rise building/mixed-use architecture (residential and wood learning facility). Studio, therefore, becomes the platform for practising and conceptualizing knowledge of urban and architectural designs to communicate the architect’s intentions.

Studio 8

Design Studio 8 reflects an architecture competition in Helsinki, Finland to design a new branch of the Guggenheim Museum. The competition advances architecture, design, and urban life. The open competition is meant to inspire innovation that would lead to a design, which will be both an excellent museum of the 21^st century and a globally acknowledged symbol of Helsinki (Malcolm Reading Consultants 2014).

Studio 9

Studio 9 explores morphogenetic architecture, focusing more on the early stage of the design process (its growth and development) rather than the final architecture itself (Site: Rotterdam). By transforming Rotterdam through architectural morphogenetic, students will be able to demonstrate their competencies in advanced design processes, strategies and conceptualisation of complex architectural designs.

Studio 10

Studio 10 is a continuation of Studio 9. It mainly reflects the final design processes in architecture. As such, it depends on and elaborates the introductory architectural solutions. To achieve this role, Studio 10, offers critical perspectives by demonstrating that architecture is ‘constructable’ within the larger systems and situations. It also evaluates the built and occupied environments from within.

Conceptualisation and problem solving

The Design Studios introduce architects to a world of problem-solving each day with the available materials. They require students to reflect their both artistic and technological knowledge. When CTLs are used for high-rise buildings, for instance, this can be considered as a process of developing structures that reflect users’ social requirements and values. In this regard, the building should be successful in skilfully reflecting the beauty expected, promoting architectural approaches to sustainability, advance the social aspects of a community and the concept of the building. As such, the Design Studios capture interdisciplinary elements that are appropriate for conceptualisation and problem-solving in architectural design initiatives.

Interdisciplinary collaboration

An intricate interplay is observed in the Design Studios. This implies that the Design Studios are used to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration among learners to promote a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving (Turckes & Kahl 2011). The Design Studios help learners to demonstrate their problem solving and critical thinking skills in the form of CTL implementation in advanced buildings. Thus, Design Studios should give learners opportunities to become the greatest individuals who strive to solve current design issues noted in urban developments. In fact, the course contents involving Design Studios are formulated to promote intricate problem-solving abilities in a learning environment. The skills used in designing, constructing and transforming CTL into high-rise buildings for multiple purposes reinforce the architectural capabilities of learners who will apply similar approaches to overcome emerging design issues in their communities. Thus, learners will develop skills and competencies as Design Studio experts who aspire for sustainable designs.

The relevance of open competition in architecture

Design Studio 8 focuses on architectural competition. In this regard, an argument may be based on the value of such competitions to individuals involved and the profession. While many critics have argued that competitions amount to nothing for professional architects because of a lack of compensation, time wastage and minimal chances of success, others have pointed out major advantages that competition creates in terms of learning and communicating ideas. Through competition, learners can assess design conditions, experiment and then explore elements of architecture. Competition helps students to express their architectural ideas, develop highly conceptualised ideas and demonstrate abilities to communicate intentions explicitly. Such achievements reflect greater reward perhaps beyond monetary compensation. Learners can use open competition to experiment with new design tools and demonstrate intense diagramming while capturing unique ideas. Not all ideas expressed in open competitions are rejected. Consequently, some ideas are most likely to be developed into real buildings to show that competitions go beyond the conceptualisation of ideas. Turning such ideas into a new branch of the Guggenheim Museum could be the greatest reward for the profession.

Future buildings, sustainability, and the role of an architect

Design Studios also give students opportunities to imagine future buildings, specifically intelligent buildings. McGinleya refers to this as an architectural singularity point in which the building will be more intelligent than the designers and occupants (McGinleya 2015). Thus, learners are thrown into a significantly changing landscape of architecture in which the built environment influences “design, fabrication, construction and operation of buildings” (McGinleya 2015, p. 4). To understand this concept, learners explore observable behaviours in biological development, morphogenetic. Development biology is defined as the science that aims to demonstrate changes in structures of organisms over time (Love 2015). The structure, which is also the morphology, consists of several parts, arrays of parts and various forms of parts. The morphogenetic architecture reflected in Studio 9 arises to offer new opportunities for architects in this era of architectural singularity. While some aspects of morphogenetic architecture have been explored across different fields focusing on intelligent building, architects have not been able to explore the full potential of specific approaches applied and, therefore, morphogenetic growth is yet to be transformative. In this regard, Design Studio 9 can present opportunities for learners to collaborate. Collaboration is most likely to enhance communication of design concepts, critiques of presented ideas and focus on raising issues to improve specific better designs among learners (Utaberta et al. 2013). Thus, the process of discovering morphogenetic architecture takes the centre stage as learners also strive to develop software solutions and use available software to create intelligent buildings that can transform Rotterdam, for instance. Overall, students would be able to develop and explore new forms of growth, urbanism and imagine possible scenarios for architectural applications.

Studio 10 reflects the need for more robust architecture. From morphogenetic architecture, cities of the future present new technical design challenges. Architects are in better positions to save sinking cities through sustainable development of the built environment using elements from morphogenetic architecture (Daly 2012). This is most likely to lead to performative design, which reflects a combination of an application of “spatial analysis simulation and form generation procedures to imbue architectural form with material characteristics and behaviours, which define desirable structural, environmental and economic performance” (Richards 2011, pp. 515-6). It is however observed that at present no robust design processes exist to enhance the integration of spatial analysis and form generation.

Consequently, morphogenetic architecture and performative designs would require critical thinking and collaboration from design students to eliminate the disconnect that would lead to cities of the future envisioned by British designer and architect Rachel Armstrong. Richards (2011) proposes ‘computational morphogenesis’ during early stages in design processes and further research. While students should be self-directed and display rigour in their attempts to develop new solutions for built environments, greater collaboration offered in a social learning environment is necessary to assist in developing the required architectural expertise for the future (Wu, Huang, & Weng 2014).

Conclusion

It can therefore be concluded that Design Studios offer active learning opportunities for students. They are engaged in critical analytical processes, thinking, application and evaluation to test prototypes. The collaborative learning processes, self-directed and rigour demonstrated by learners should prepare them to attain the necessary expertise expected from Design Studios.

Reference List

Daly, J 2012, New TED Book envisions the ‘living’ cities of the future. Web.

Love, A 2015, ‘Developmental Biology’,Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web.

Malcolm Reading Consultants 2014, Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition, Malcolm Reading Consultants Limited, London.

McGinleya, T 2015, ‘A morphogenetic architecture for intelligent buildings’,Intelligent Buildings International, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 4-15. Web.

Richards, D 2011, Towards morphogenetic assemblies: Evolving performance within component-based structures. Web.

Turckes, S & Kahl, M 2011, 4 Lessons The Classroom Can Learn From The Design Studio. Web.

Utaberta, N, Hassanpour, B, Bahar, MA & Ani, I 2013, ‘A Comprehensive Learning of Architecture Education: Understanding Critique Session as Learning Process and Criteria-Based Assessment in the Architecture Design Studio’, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 102, pp. 21 – 32. Web.

Wu, Y-W, Huang, C-F & Weng, K-H 2014, ‘A Study of an Architecture Design Learning Process Based on Social Learning, Course Teaching, Interaction, and Analogical Thinking’, Mathematical Problems in Engineering, vol. 2014, no. 465294, pp. 1-9. Web.

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