Combinations of Conventional Studio and Virtual Design Studio (VDS) have created valuable learning environments that take advantage of different instruments of communication and interaction. However, past experiences have reported limitations in regards to student engagement and motivation, especially when the studio projects encourage abstraction or are detached from context or reality. This study proposes a hybrid approach that overcomes these limitations by blending conventional studio, VDS and live projects. This blend aims to foster opportunities from within a real design situation, while promoting different levels of motivation and engagement. Two case studies comprising academic projects between the University of Los Andes, Colombia and the University of Nottingham, UK were used to validate the approach. In these, students interacted with peers, teachers, people from industry and the community to build 1:1 scale projects, with budgets and timeframe constraints. The study proved that students could successfully work collaboratively and build confidence in their own abilities when placed in a real setting, which enabled interactions face-to-face and at a distance to solve a challenge and achieve a common goal. The article reports on lessons learnt from these collaborative learning experiences, which reflect on contemporary cross-cultural design practiced today.

This paper seeks to understand the interplay between the acts of (pen-and-paper based) sketching and the use of mental imagery. A protocol study of four novice designers was conducted in two different environments: with access to sketches only; and blindfolded and delayed sketches. In total there are eight forty-five minute design sessions. This study confirms that sketches and mental imagery support ideation stages in unique ways and both are equally germane. Identified interplaying roles when only sketches are utilised are: supporting, co-evolving and reflecting roles. In addition, interplay can happen at the exact moment or distantly; and the order of an interplay depends on the designers' strategy. In sessions where sketches are for externalising design proposals only at the end, identified roles are: generative, and provocative to idea exploration. It is also observed that gesture does not compensate for the absence of external representation; although it conveys important design messages.

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This paper compares the cognitive performance of architecture students when designing tasks using one of the three design tools: pencil and paper, software Sketch Up and Rhinoceros 3D. It questions if a design tool can affect when knowledge is generated and used in the duration of design activity. This is explored through a protocol 'think aloud' study for which a new coding scheme was developed. The methodology is grounded on the theory of Distributed Cognition and Zhang and Norman's (1994) method of 'representational analysis', based on which, knowledge is either 'internal' in that it is actively memorized by the designer or is 'external' in that it is implicitly made available via a stimuli like a design tool. Using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test, for the five participants of this study, external knowledge generated significantly earlier on within the process when using Sketch Up compared to the other two tools.

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