Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design

Julian Keppl Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Architecture, Slovakia 241

Academy of Architecture in the
cooperation with Bratislava
City Council and the Faculty of
Architecture specified the street
(or better the whole zone) to
be designed for the 21st century
requirements. The project was a
continuing of the previous Bra-
tislava docklands project. The
core aim was to support the
cooperation of talented stu-
dents at European universities
and gather new, modern ideas
for the participant cities rede-
velopment (fig. 7).

Centre of Czech Architecture in Prague, 2005-2006

This project is an actual peda-
gogical experience with virtual
collaboration between foreign
students from Socrates–Erasmus
mobility scheme, pursuing their
study at Faculty of architecture
in Bratislava (FA STU), profes-
sors of FA STU and Visiting Pro-
fessor Lizon from University of
Tenneessee, USA. He lives and
works in the US and majority
of his teaching at the FA STU
is via e-teaching. The topic of
the studio was the refurbish-
ment and enlargement of the
Centre of Czech Architecture in
Prague. Combined face-to-face
and long distance education has
been used during the two terms
studio works (fig. 8).
The unique distant learning consisted from the initial, continuous and final
intensive workshops at the FA STU and subsequent videoconferencing sessions and
electronic communication between students in Bratislava and the teacher in the
USA. Graphic files of students design have been critiqued through computer nets.
For the long distance synchronous communication the systems of VRVS (Virtual Room
Videocinferencing System) and Skype were tested (fig. 9).
Skype videoconference system provided good sound and video transfer and was
easy to manage. However, it did not allow us the multipoint sessions an online

Fig. 7

Website of the international student competition Street

of 21st Century

Fig. 8

Centre of Czech Architecture - preliminary design and

photomontage, student Isaa Assad from Spain, tutor

professor Lizon