Role of Conceptualisation as a Catalyst in Capturing Urban Issues within the Studio Learning Environment

AbstractThis study focuses on the role of conceptualisation in capturing the urban issues within the studio tutorial learning environment in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Essentially, it looks into how the conceptualisation process during design facilitates students’ problem solving ability in dealing with tasks in hand. Evidences of this come from students’ dynamic cognitive interactions with knowledge and experience as transpired through the studio environment. The study provides insight into the interactive role of experience as a key factor in facilitating design conceptualisation process and the course enables students to harness relevant problem-solving skills

A feasibility study for developing 3D sketching concept in virtual reality (VR) environment

There is limited digital media available to encompass conceptual design which requires spontaneous and flexible design tools. The constraint is causing less digital integration during the architectural conceptual and engineering design stages. This paper presents the results of an ethnography research on understanding how design collaboration, design transactions and knowledge flow characteristics between studio masters and their students are supported by available technologies in a studio project in Malaysia. The study found three types of external representation modes used by designers: Full Manual, Mixed and Full Digital. The study revealed the inflexibility of traditional geometric modeling tools within intuitive ideations. On the other hand, it also observed the shortcomings of conventional manual sketching tools for articulating design ideas and translating tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in complex design problems. Results from this study support further studies towards implementing 3D sketching in Virtual Reality (VR) environment to digitally integrate the conceptual architectural-engineering design process

Conceptualisation in architectural design process at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

This research investigates conceptualisation as a process of giving meaning to a design problem in a bachelor of architecture program. As design always starts with vague and half-formed ideas, sketching is conducted to clarify the ideas and to generate new ones. Thus, sketching allows for student’s reasoning of design through problem solving and critical thinking. However, in the reality of studio learning the student’s capability in thinking about design is shallow and uncertain. This occurs as resulted from an ill-defined nature of design problems as well as a failure of students in carrying design from one stage to another. Therefore, this study aims to identify how students conceptualise their design ideas in the design process as part of studio learning. Three factors which are (i) framing problem, (ii) evaluating moves and (iii) reflecting design influencing the conceptualisation process in the architecture design studio, which deal with the reflection in action between the students and their design process in the studio learning. Using the framework of Schon’s Reflective Learning in tackling a design problem, the research employed a case study of six third-year architecture students of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru to understand the conceptualisation process. The selection of the students was based on the purposive sampling technique. Data were elicited using two methods: (1) observations of students’ sketches and (2) description of students’ interviews on studio reflections from three design stages of the initial design, refinement design and the final stage of the architectural drawing software. Data were analysed using content analysis by segmenting and coding of the raw data of the students’ sketches. A total of 191 sketches were identified in the study that involved ten design activities. The research reveals that 36.6% of the students’ sketches were produced during the initial design stage, 45.5% of the sketches during the refinement design stage, and 17.8% of the sketches during the final stage. The finding suggests that the differences in students’ sketches were constructed from the logical relationships of the design elements, analytical strategies and creative thoughts of the students. Students also exercised four methods in developing their understanding in design; (i) revising precedents, (ii) visualising images, (iii) form-making design, and (iv) developing space planning. Consistently, through segmentation of entities and making order of sketches, the research suggests that the conceptualisation process has aided the students’ thinking in identifying and evolving design ideas. Overall, the study emphasises that Universiti Teknologi Malaysia architecture students reasoning about design is influenced by many aspects as it involves the adaptation of metaphors, analogies, precedents, self-preferences of the preferred events, functions, forms and meanings. iv

Investigation of Prototype Roles in Conceptual Design using Case Study and Protocol Study Methods

Prototypes play an important role in the engineering design process. Engineering design textbooks often discourage the use of prototypes early in the design process, citing past research on prototypes in engineering design has focused describing and classifying the prototypes themselves. The gap in this research is the investigation of prototyping processes. While researchers have studied the characteristics of different prototypes and in some cases have tried to tie characteristics to the outcomes of the design process, the actual prototyping activities and the process of building and using the prototypes has not been studied in detail. The work presented in this thesis is an initial attempt to explore the the prototyping process in engineering design. Two research studies are presented that have been conducted to explore the roles prototypes fulfill in the early stages of the engineering design process and to study how designers interact with physical objects and prototyping materials. A case study was conducted to investigate the roles that prototypes fulfill in two different industrial settings. To complement this, a protocol study was developed to see how individual designers interact with physical media during a conceptual design activity. The results from these studies were analyzed and it was found that along with the commonly described prototype roles: learning, integration, communication, and demonstration, prototypes can also be classified in terms of divergent or convergent activities; helping designers to either explore a design space or narrow down options and make decisions. Divergent and convergent prototyping activities are presented along with a discussion on how prototypes can be used effectively in conceptual design

Room for chaos? : authenticity and performance in undergraduate spatial design students’ accounts of ideational work

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Professional DoctorateThis study was prompted by my suspicion that spatial design undergraduates’ production of paper-based freehand sketches during design ideation was in decline. Seeking to find out why, I conducted video-recorded focused interviews with undergraduates from a range of UK spatial design degrees, during which we examined their sketchbook material and discussed their ideational activities (termed ‘ideational moves’). I subjected the data to a form of content analysis, but the outcomes appeared to contradict my initial premise whilst revealing that the interactions during the interviews between myself, the respondents and the sketchbook material (termed ‘discursive moves’) warranted examination. This persuaded me that the study’s focus should emerge through ‘evolved’ grounded theory rather than being stated a priori, which highlighted my presence in, and impact on, the data and prompted me to adopt a constructivist grounded theorising approach in combination with actor-network theory’s concepts of translation and circulating references. This study has thus been qualitative, relativist, iterative and multi-modal. Grounded theorising led to the identification of a number of categories and sub-categories of ideational move across the sample, and indicated that the respondents had used a ‘core’ of each. ‘Core’ categories comprised: making paper-based ideational moves, carrying out research and using photographic material. Several respondents also evidenced producing digital imagery and physical models. ‘Core’ sub-categories comprised using paper-based freehand perspective sketches, sketch diagrams and word-based approaches, plus supporting visuo-spatial research. Several respondents also evidenced producing paper-based freehand plan, section and elevation sketches, plus collage. Grounded theorising also revealed that each respondent had utilised a different combination of sub-categories, with different degrees of connectedness. I did not set out to evaluate the design outcomes showcased, but, as a spatial design academic and practitioner, I felt compelled to. This led to the tentative conclusion that respondents who added to the ‘core’ of categories and sub-categories and worked with greater connectedness appeared to produce more thoroughly-considered work, whilst those who forsook the ‘core’ and worked with less connectedness appeared to produce more unexpected results by allowing ‘…room for chaos…’: periods of confusion and surprise. Regarding the discursive moves, grounded theorising indicated that the sketchbook material tabled by each respondent during the study was not one fixed thing, but an abstraction using placing-for and directing-to techniques to focus attention on certain ideational moves and away from others. This made the sketchbook material a performance within the network of human and non-human actors who, in effect, co-constructed it as a temporary reality without necessarily realising this. Research into sketchbook material appears to regard it, once shared with others, as having the candour of a secret diary, and as eligible for formative and summative assessment because it documents design process authentically. My study, whilst not claiming generalisability, suggests that this view should be challenged. The new knowledge is now informing my future teaching practice and will, I hope, prompt other academics to investigate whether their own students manifest similar outcomes and, through this, contribute to wider discussions on the formative and summative assessment of undergraduate spatial design development activity

Creative Discovery in Architectural Design Processes: An empirical study of procedural and contextual components

This research aims to collect empirical evidence on the nature of design by investigating the question: What role do procedural activities (where each design step reflects a unit in a linear process) and contextual activities (an action based on the situation, environment and affordances) play in the generation of creative insights, critical moves, and the formation of design concepts in the reasoning process? The thesis shows how these activities can be identified through the structure of a linkograph, for better understanding the conditions under which creativity and innovation take place. Adopting a mixed methodology, a deductive approach evaluates the existing models that aim to capture the series of design events, while an inductive approach collects data and ethnographic observations for an empirical study of architectural design experiments based on structured and unstructured briefs. A joint approach of quantitative and qualitative analyses is developed to detect the role of evolving actions and structural units of reasoning, particularly the occurrence of creative insights (‘eureka’ and ‘aha!’ moments) in the formation of concepts by judging the gradual transformation of mental imagery and external representations in the sketching process. The findings of this research are: (1) For any design process procedural components are subsets in solving the design problem for synchronic concept development or implementation of the predefined conceptual idea, whereas contextual components relate to a comprehensive view to solve the design problem through concept synthesis of back- and forelinking between the diachronic stages of the design process. (2) This study introduces a new method of looking at evolving design moves and critical actions by considering the time of emergence in the structure of the reasoning process. Directed linkography compares two different situations: the first is synchronous, looking at relations back to preceding events, and the second is diachronic, looking at the design state after completion. Accordingly, creative insights can be categorised into those emerging in incremental reasoning to reframe the solution, and sudden mental insights emerging in non-incremental reasoning to restructure the design problem and reformulate the entire design configuration. (3) Two architectural designing styles are identified: some architects define the design concept early, set goals and persevere in framing and reframing this until the end, whereas others initiate the concept by designing independent conceptual elements and then proceed to form syntheses for the design configuration. Sudden mental insights are most likely to emerge from the unexpected combination of synthesis, particularly in the latter style. In its contribution to design research and creative cognition this dissertation paves the way for a better understanding of the role of reflective practices in design creativity and cognitive processes and presents new insights into what it means to think and design as an architect

Proposition d'une méthode mixte d'évaluation de l'incidence des médias sur le processus de conception architecturale

La thèse traite de l'incidence des media d'aide à la conception sur le processus de conception architecturale. Plus spécifiquement, en se basant sur une littérature multidisciplinaire, l’objectif de la thèse est d’analyser l’incidence de trois media, utilisés traditionnellement dans les milieux académique et professionnel, soit l’esquisse à main levée, la maquette et le logiciel de conception assistée par ordinateur (ici, Sketch-UP 7.0) sur le concepteur, le processus de conception architecturale et de la qualité des projets générés. 35 étudiants en architecture ont participé à cette étude. Une méthodologie d’évaluation mixte de cette incidence est proposée, soit d’une part des mesures quantitatives pour évaluer les capacités visuo-spatiales des étudiants-concepteurs (tests psychométriques), la gestion de leur charge cognitive (tâche secondaire) lors du processus de conception et d’autre part, des mesures qualitatives de la gestion de la charge cognitive (questionnaire du NASATLX) et de la qualité des projets générés (évaluation consensuelle d’experts). Les résultats n’ont pas permis de montrer de différence significative entre les media concernant les deux mesures de la charge cognitive, ainsi que pour la qualité des projets générés. De plus, aucune corrélation n’a été établie entre la charge cognitive et la qualité des projets.The thesis discusses the impact of design media upon architectural design. Based on a multidisciplinary literature revue, the objective of the thesis is to analyze the impact of three media, namely the freehand sketch, the physical model and the software (here, Sketch-UP 7.0) on architectural design. 35 students in architecture have participated in the study. A mixed evaluation methodology is proposed to evaluate the impact, namely quantitative measures of visual-spatial abilities (psychometric test), and the cognitive load management (secondary task technique) during the design, and also qualitative measures to evaluate the cognitive load management (NASATLX) and the quality of projects generated (consensual assessment technique). The results show no significant statistical difference between the three media for the cognitive load management, and the project quality. Furthermore, no correlation was found between the cognitive load management and the project quality