Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design

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Elzbieta Trocka-Leszczynska, Boguslaw Wowrzeczka Wroclaw University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Wroclaw, Poland 225


Colaborative design requires establishing communication platform and other ele-
ments of working environments. In this project the main elements of working space
conists of:



  • Communication platform. For the improvement of the communication with persons
    leading one founded the account the e-mail adress and internet page. On Internet
    site every day they appeared the report which informed about progresses of the
    group. The report into the well ordered manner show stages of the creative proc-
    ess – determine their own kind the records.

  • CAD workspace. Process of design was based on Autocad programme – educational
    packages. Using this platform students could manipulate and tacle all the design
    problems and echange information by internal connections as well as by inertnet
    links. They worked in different places: at homes and in faculty computer labora-
    tory fully equiped in design programs and other audio-video media.

  • Students monitored, recorded and stored each stage of design process in differ-
    ent forms: reports, design data, sketches, drawings, etc. All data were accesible
    through a website. Students prepared six weekly reports, video film, posters,
    and several drawings reflected the design process.The documentation of whole
    design and building process allowed the analysis of the whole experiment after
    its completion and was a basis for conclusions. Active participation of students in
    all stages of experiment resulted in fact that collaborative design were naturally
    memorized by participants

  • Students materialized their design in real space, 1:1 scale. Process of real building
    allowed them learnt and expierienced the necessity of management and collabora-
    tion and learnt from difficulties how to solve the conflict situation beetwen partici-
    pants. Students created timetable showing the organization of building process.


Evaluation and conclusion


Individual, formal evaluation of students in solving experimental design task was,
in fact, impossible - all students were equally engaged in a collaborative process of
design.
Structured evaluation, based on opinion of participating students, evaluated that
a good elaborative design process depends on:



  • Understanding of mutual goals

  • Communication environment and good technical support

  • Understanding each other intention and conflict indentification


The conculsions are:



  • Students worked in collaboration as an interactive teams

  • They generetad ideas and theory for this task during the interactive dissscusion

  • They were creative through interactive disscusion, they monitored all process of
    design and building

  • They involved ordinary people (students- observed and monitored how users
    behave in this space) as an partner in collaborative design

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