Rotational critique system as a method of culture change in an architecture design studio: urban design studio as case study

ABSTRACT

In this century, all educational efforts strive to achieve quality assurance standards. Therefore, it will be naive to deny the existence of problems in architectural education. The current design studio critique method has been developed upon generations of students and educators. Architectural education is changing towards educating critical thinkers who are equipped with risk-taking abilities. Therefore, it is imperative to find innovative methods of teaching. It is essential to reuse the potential of the current model, break down the undesired structures and develop a new method of teaching and learning. This study pioneered in aligning a design studio teaching method with new architectural education goals. The results of testing a nonlinear critique method show that the proposed model is supportive of students’ autonomous design ability and positively influences such ability.

Keywords:

• Architectural education
• design studio culture change
• rotational critique session
• teaching method