TEACHING ARCHITECTURE, LEARNING ARCHITECTURE Technology in support of design learning

In the many years of conferences on the teaching of computer skills or application of computers in design studios, we see discussions about the needs, methods and benefits of teaching the use of computer tools. A few of the papers review how students learn but none report how computer tools can be directly beneficial to the student’s learning of design. This paper reviews design learning ad illustrates how computer tools have been used to support learning. 1. Web supplemented teaching A group of students at the University of Hong Kong have been using a web bulletin board to support their design studio learning. The reason for choosing this particular software was its ease of use through a normal web browser interface, rapid access over dial up lines, capacity for customization in the interface, ability to include graphic images and URLs directly in messages as well as its ability to attach other files. The web board was used to supplement and support traditional face-to-face deskbased design teaching, not to replace such contact. The reason for using the web board, though, is to introduce an element of asynchronous textual communication to the design studio in the belief that this support will increase the learning of design. This belief is founded on several theoretical bases which will be explained in this paper. The students were in the second year of a three-year undergraduate BA in Architectural Studies that leads to a two-year Masters as a professionally recognized degree. Thus, the students in the second year are beginning to come to grips with the larger issues of architecture and its multifaceted problems. The design task set for the students was to (1) survey a community area; (2) prepare a design brief for a community center from needs identified in the survey; (3) find a site for the center; and (4) design