Nadia Charalambous Maria Hadjisoteriou Intercollege, Design Department, Nicosia, Cyprus 287
- spatial organization (for example relationship between space and labeling of
space, room-function relations), - social organization (for example family structure and profile in a domestic environ-
ment is inevitably influenced by the social and personal background of students)
and - formal organization (for examples students may be influenced by “styles”, “fashion
trends”)
“Preconceived ideas” or the designer’s “prestructures” is, we believe one of the most
important issues central to the approach towards architectural education in general
and the introductory architectural studio/design in particular; it raises a fundamental
question in relation to the pedagogical approach to the studio. Historically, we have
been familiar with a “rational” approach to design as a problem-solving method
which links a procedure to a field of information (analysis and synthesis of a number
of constraints through a given brief, user profile and site conditions); in fact the
designer has been repeatedly referred to as “problem-solver”.
According to a very interesting article on what makes design possible, Hiller and
Leaman suggest that this “rationality” in design aimed basically at purging the mind
of preconceptions^5. Approaching the question “how is design possible”, Hillier and
Leaman suggest that design is a relatively simple set of operations carried out on
highly complex structures. They stress through their work that the designer’s “pre-
structures” are not at all an undesirable phenomenon but the very basis of design.
Moreover, it is exactly these “prestructures” they argue, that are not only the basis
for creative action, but also the basis for understanding and interpretation^6. Design,
they conclude, is the transmission and transformation of “prestructures”, a process
of elaboration and discovery within which every solution may be unique; this is what
facilitates and enhances design creativity^7 and possibly allows for a multiplicity of
approaches through a range of possibilities.
In line with the aforementioned observations, this paper presents through a
number of case studies, experimentation in teaching architectural design during
the first years of study; this experimentation aimed at exploring and questioning
a) preconceived ideas and conceptions about spatial, formal and social organiza-
tion^8 b) the “brief” or “program” traditionally given to architecture students at the
beginning of each project.
Case Studies
Case study 1 – adding
Task:
Students were asked to create a rectangular volume of a given size on a scale 1:1;
no architectural scale, program or site was given. They were asked to deal with the
volume as an object, think of it in terms of lines, planes and volumes and experiment
with a variety of materials.