Saeed Arida, Becca Edson MIT, School of Architecture, Cambridge, USA 327
figure 18
Part III: Evaluation
How do we evaluate our pedagogical experience, especially when dealing with a
creative discipline like architecture that has fluctuating notions of values and aes-
thetics?
We believe that the role of the instructor, especially at a graduate level studio,
is to evaluate the design process rather than the product, that is, to evaluate the
students based on the decisions they have taken to reach a certain conclusion.
- Design process _ rigor
Working with an explicit system during the design process gives us the opportunity
to understand this process more, to track all the design moves, and to preserve the
knowledge developed along the way. It also forces the students to be explicit about
their design parameters. It develops a responsibility in the students towards the
architecture they are producing.
Because the process is registered through the use of an explicit system, the
students were able to go back to any point in the design process and use it as a
departure point.
As illustrated in the paper, students embarked on an extensive systematic process
to construct a computational system that is robust and relevant to the issues they
were dealing with. Most of the students did not have any trouble employing that
system in the final architectural phase.
- Smooth transition
A main concern for us was how to bridge the gap that always exists between the
early abstract exercises and the final architectural project. We believe that starting
with form then moving to abstraction then to form again made the transition much
smoother. The abstract phase was mainly concerned with understanding how every
formal feature dictates a certain performative aspect.
- Visual & numerical
One of our main concerns was how to design a process that requires both numerical