No abstract

No abstract

PurposeThis paper questions the change in patterns of use of the balcony during lockdown. It investigates whether residents, specifically of apartment buildings in Cairo, used their balconies more frequently or for different activities during the lockdown.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted through a mixed methods approach. More specifically, a sequential explanatory design was adopted where quantitative data were collected at first followed by qualitative data collection. The study proceeded in two stages. First, an online questionnaire with 160 respondents was conducted to depict the change in the frequency and use patterns of balconies pre/post lockdown in Cairo. The respondents were approached through snowball sampling. Second, in-depth semi-structured interviews with 20 participants, approached through convenience sampling, were done. The interviews aimed to provide interpretation and rationale for the responses, patterns and correlations identified from the questionnaire results.FindingsThe findings of this study confirm that there is a change in the pattern of use of balconies in terms of frequency and the types of hosted activities. The analysis revealed three key ideas that characterize those changes: the balcony as a found space, as a loose space and as a space of self-expression at home. It also expands on spatial qualities of balconies that promoted their use. The study emphasizes the significance of such outdoor private spaces in apartment buildings and puts forward balconies as an essential element of future dwellings design for the multiple benefits they behold.Originality/valueThe originality of the study stems from tackling such a timely and unprecedented situation, where still few studies investigating the relationship between pandemic and the architecture of homes have been conducted. Furthermore, this study focuses particularly on exploring the use of balconies in Cairo, one of the largest cities in both Africa and the Middle East, during lockdown. Its findings might ultimately help formulate, define and characterize new trends in the architecture of homes that would embrace human needs in times of prosperity and rising tensions alike.

Architectural engineering students are constantly dealing with ill-defined and tangled design problems. Many scholars accentuated the importance of creative thinking in tackling such wicked and complex problems. Accordingly, getting engaged in an ill-defined problem solving process requires specific personality traits that are often critical to creativity and innovation in design. In that sense, architectural engineering curricula need to provide various strategies through which such individual skills can be nurtured and developed. The objective of this study is to empirically identify the different patterns of students’ approaches in solving problems and the role of group discussions in such a process. The study adopted a qualitative approach, in a live class setup, through a series of workshops to allow for in-depth exploration of the students’ problem solving skills and abilities. The intention is to help students in discovering and in being aware of their own way of solving problems and identifying its strengths and weaknesses. This is considered a core and significant step towards the improvement and development of their design thinking skills. The findings of the study have emphasized the positive impact of the cyclical behavior in the creative problem solving process and highlighted the different key issues and lessons emerging from students’ consciousness of the mental processes that occurred during this iterative process. Such awareness and consciousness of those emergent issues is expected to encourage conscious design, increase tolerance for ambiguity and improve self-confidence which are believed to dramatically help students in creatively solving ill-defined architectural design problems.

Reviewing the literature indicates a lack of studies that explicitly describe the dynamics of design-knowledge construction in architectural pedagogy. Accordingly, this study attempts to empirically explore the process of constructing design-knowledge within a freshman architectural-design studio in the Egyptian context. In the spring 2020 semester, interpretive qualitative research was initially conducted in an on-campus setting, followed by a period within an online setting, after the COVID-19 lockdown. A total of 12 students, in addition to four teaching assistants and the course instructor, were involved in this study. Multiple data-gathering tactics, such as field observations, semi-structured interviews, and document archives were employed. Conventional content analysis was adopted, in order to extract the patterns that describe the design-knowledge construction within the case under investigation. The study revealed ten themes within three categories: students’ learning activities, faculty-pedagogical strategies, and social interactions. This paper discusses one theme from each of these categories: (1) students’ recourse to self-directed learning, (2) the faculty’s coaching within the educational setting, and (3) the studio’s socio-communal cohesion. The findings of this study confirmed that the construction of design-knowledge is an integrally situated process, which cannot be studied without the presence of all its various components. Such a study presents a contribution that could inform future pedagogical initiatives which aim to create stimulating architectural learning environments in a post-pandemic reality.