LEARNING BY DOING IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AND EDUCATIONAL PAVILIONSMANUFACTURED BY STUDENTS

Abstract

As in all design disciplines, architectural design education approaches integrate many concepts of thought and design methods. In architecture education, learning activity is based on learning by doing. Architectural design studios; is a place in which students experience new theories, ideas, materials and structures. They have the opportunity to work together, learn together and follow each other's design processes. Nowadays, computational design and production methods have become effective tools and environments for teaching and learning. Students can easily choose the most advanced ones among the many alternatives in their designs and they can represent the design with the prototypes they produce with the help of digital tools. The experimental approach inherent in the architecture is now supported by digital technologies and has begun to influence and transform architectural design and production processes. With this evolution, the concepts of material, form and structure which are the basic elements of an architectural design can be reinterpreted. Temporary structures, which are among experimental areas in the architecture, are the most successful examples reflecting these innovations due to their scale. Temporary structures / pavilions make it possible to build an alternative beyond just physical building an architectural practice. Moreover, a non-permanent experience; a new material experiment, a different fiction, an untested form and structure. The design practice is a experimental process in which new thinking and production formsare discussed from a different point of view. Due to their appropriate scales, pavilions are not only successful examples of prototypes to reach the desired applicability of novel architectural forms but also they can be accepted as bridges to the new design tools and manufacturing technologies. In this context this paper discusses and exemplifies the learning by doing approach in architectural design education through the recently constructed 7 student pavilions in different universities which are following different notions in architectural education. As a result of the study, it was questioned how learning-bydoing approaches, integrated with digital technologies, could be a field of research in architectural education, especially in educational pavilions.