Architectural Prototyping in Architectural Education: How design knowledge is constructed within physical-digital hybrid environments

Overview

In the last three decades Architectural Prototyping (AP) has been reinstated as a useful teaching tool by a growing number of architecture higher education institutions. These institutions are using AP within two main frameworks: designbuild courses and Digital Fabrication Laboratories (DFL). These frameworks are characterized by intensive technological and hybrid digital-physical environments, and they promote an alternative teaching and learning approach to mainstream architectural education. However, the ways in which learning is constructed within these frameworks is yet to be fully understood. Therefore, this research aims to explore how AP affects the ways in which architectural knowledge is being constructed in contemporary architectural educational settings. Our multidisciplinary research is positioned at the intersection of three research areas: architectural education, craft practice, and Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). It adopts the ‘enactivism’ epistemology and investigates the cognitive processes behind the craft of architectural prototyping within the context of entangled social-material and digital learning environments.

Keywords:

• Architectural education
• designbuild
• Digital Fabrication Labs
• architectural prototyping
• enactivism

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my PhD supervisors Prof. Amit Raphael Zoran and Prof. Tamar Elor from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem for their guidance through the development of this proposal, as well as to thank my PhD Advisory committee, Prof. Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen from University of Helsinki and Prof. Aaron Sprecher from the Techion – Israel Institute of Technology for their illuminating remarks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Barak Pelman

Barak Pelman is an educator in the field of architecture, a lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem and a PhD candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In his research and teaching barak is interested in the role of craft in architectural education.