The New Normal for Architecture Design Studio: Conceptualizing a Design Implementation Model

Abstract

Architectural design studios are the crux and core of architecture education. The closure of face-to-face Design studios due to the COVID-19 pandemic during the years 2020 and 2021 has indeed posed a set of challenges to architectural education. Through a rigorous set of research methods, the paper investigates the various possibilities and perspectives of making the challenges into opportunities to rethink, innovate and move on. The paper aims to develop a model for implementing studio-based learning innovative, appropriate, and conducive to covid and post-covid environments. The first objective dealt with in this paper is to find the consensus on the directives to solve and respond to the contemporary challenges of the pandemic for the SBL. The second is to arrive at a toolkit or a model that strategically summarizes the processes for the directives. The School of Architecture, Building, and Design from Taylor’s University Malaysia has been the case study of the investigation. The research methods involved conducting focus group meetings with various stakeholders, such as the Students, Tutors, Studio Coordinators, Program Directors, and the Head of the School. The findings firstly offered a set of shifts in paradigms of SBL and secondly, a toolkit that we named as Design Implementation Model (DIM) for a hybrid studio pedagogy that we envisage and envision to be the future of architectural education.

Defying tradition or maintaining the status quo? Moving towards a new hybrid architecture studio education to support blended learning post-COVID-19

“…The rest of the country contributed one each on the framework formulation for post-COVID-19 studio education from Malaysia by Srirangam and Ng (2022). From Spain, Fonseca et al .…”

“…The rest of the country contributed one each on the framework formulation for post-COVID-19 studio education from Malaysia by Srirangam and Ng (2022). From Spain, Fonseca et al (2021) identified and improved essential areas that determine usability and space understanding in the user's engagement with VR environments applied to architectural and urban design, virtually exploring scenes that would not be conceivable.…”

“…There are unavoidable needs and opportunities for pedagogical adjustments and methods by employing online learning to supplement in-person or face-to-face learning. It is acknowledged that such transformations present both obstacles and possibilities (Srirangam and Ng, 2022). Therefore, the goal of this study is to explore what has been talked about in studio education among researchers and how studio education might move ahead post-pandemic, as well as to answer the following research questions.…”