Onsite/online: a case study approach pivots to virtual and back with new strategies learned

The course ‘Concepts in modern architecture’ is a hybrid between a lecture on the history of modern architecture and an interactive studio. Unlike traditional history courses that discuss many buildings per class, this one delves into a small, highly curated list of projects per session, allowing the students to develop a deep understanding of the architectural concepts used. As such, students form a critical eye to analyse buildings, and work on creative assignments that enforce and communicate these intentions. The course uses the author’s IDEA (interaction, define/draw/diagram, engage and assess) methodology as a case study approach. From this ‘learn by doing’ perspective, students emerge with knowledge that speaks to historical references while utilising their creativity and design skills to assess the works studied. The shift to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced this course to shift and evolve, as faculty educators in all disciplines had to rethink their teaching methods. Thus, the online and synchronous version of this course was reimagined in a different environment, using a combination of technological and pedagogical tools that resulted in a strong learning experience with new objectives that engaged the students. Following the adaptation of this course into the virtual sphere, and then back again to the physical classroom, the article reflects on and considers the lessons learned from the experience. There is now a strong virtual course that in the future can continue to reach a broader audience, while the in-person version, which meets regularly back in the studios, has incorporated new techniques that will continue long after the pandemic is over

The Language of Architectural Diagrams

Complex buildings frequently present a challenge to users' understanding, which may affect wayfinding as well as appreciation of the building's structure. In this paper we focus on the building's diagram, a representation by the building's architect that captures its main 'idea'. Motivated by the intuition that a building may be easier to understand if its conceptual diagram can be clearly and easily described, we explored perceivers' descriptions of such diagrams' features. We asked students of Language and students of Architecture to write about the buildings represented in a variety of diagrams, and then repeated the task for photographs of the actual buildings. Using Cognitive Discourse Analysis, we aimed to create a first qualitative exploration of the linguistic and conceptual patterns that are associated with the perception of diagrams and images of complex buildings. Among other factors, results show how perception of the diagram's meaning is fundamentally affected by subject expertise. Linguistic patterns demonstrate the ways in which written descriptions reflect observers' understanding and concepts of building representations, providing a starting point for future studies which may address the possible relationship between the verbalisability of a diagram and the legibility of a building

Conceptual diagrams: representing ideas in design

Studies in cognition In many studies of well-defined problems, diagrammatic representations illustrate either causal or temporal relationships between parts of entities and phenomena that the diagram represents. In architecture, diagrams are used to represent causal relationships, such as with orientation diagrams, or temporal relationships, such as with circulation diagrams. There is, however, another kind of diagram that is used to represent the main idea or the core of a design. We call these diagrams conceptual diagrams. They differ, potentially, from other diagrammatic representations studied thus far in that they represent an abstract conceptualization of a potential problem solution. Diagrams in other fields can be interpreted as conceptual diagrams as well, such as a diagram that shows the electron orbiting around a nucleus in atomic physics, or the supply-demand diagram in economics. In the domain of scientific discovery, Nersessian Conceptual diagrams are abstract representations that embed the core of a conceptualization of a problem solution. They are concise, yet powerful aids in problem solving in that they provide high-level commitments constraining solutions. In architecture, they embed the core of a design solution encapsulating its generic characteristics and constraints and conveying the form of possible specific solutions. That they are not detailed prevents early commitment to a specific design solution and, thus, they facilitate exploratory reasoning. At the same time they are not ambiguous in the way sketches are in that they fix meaning and define a set of related solutions. This latter is important because design problems are ill-defined in that either the initial state, the goal state, or the operators--or all of them--require further specification. With ill-defined problems there exists a set of potential goal states instead of one goal state. One way that architects delimit the range of alternatives is by analogy. Conceptual diagrams function in a way similar to analogies in that they provide constraints that restrict the set of specified goal states. We propose salient characteristics of conceptual diagrams that are significant fo

Inducing visibility and visual deduction

Scientists use diagrams not just to visualize objects and relations in their fields, both empirical and theoretical, but to reason with them as tools of their science. While the two dimensional space of diagrams might seem restrictive, scientific diagrams can depict many more than two elements, can be used to visualise the same materials in myriad different ways, and can be constructed in a considerable variety of forms. This paper takes up two generic puzzles about 2D visualizations. First: How do scientists in different communities use 2D spaces to depict materials which are not fundamentally spatial? This prompts the distinction between diagrams that operate in different kinds of spaces: ‘real’, ‘ideal’, and ‘artificial’. And second: How do diagrams, in these different usages of 2D space, support various kinds of visual reasoning that cross over between inductive and deductive? The argument links the representational form and content of a diagram (its vocabulary and grammar) with the kinds of inferential and manipulative reasoning that are afforded, and constrained, by scientists’ different usages of 2D space

Tasarımcı tarafından geliştirilen sayısal modeller için tasarım koşulları ilişkilerinin seri özelleştirilmesi.

The starting motivation of this study is to develop an intuitively strong approach to addressing architectural design problems through computational models. Within the scope of the thesis, the complexity of an architectural design problem is modeled computationally by translating the design reasoning into parameters, constraints and the relations between these. Such a model can easily become deterministic and defy its purpose, if it is customized with pre-defined and unchangeable relations between the constraints. This study acknowledges that the relations between design constraints are bound to change in architectural design problems, as exemplified in the graduation project of the author. As such, any computational design model should enable designers to modify the relations between constraints. The model should be open for modifications by the designer. v The findings of the research and the architectural design experiments in the showcase project suggest that this is possible if mass customized sequences of abstract, modifiable and reusable relations link the design constraints with each other in the model. Within the scope of this thesis, the designer actions are mass-customized sequences of relations that may be modified to fit the small design tasks of relating specific design constraints. They relate the constraints in sequence, and are mass customized in an abstract, modifiable and reusable manner. Within this study, they are encoded in Rhino Grasshopper definitions. As these mass customized relations are modifiable, they are seen as a remedy for enabling the designers to build models that meet individual and intuitive needs of the design problems that designers define.M.Arch. - Master of Architectur

Desenvolvimento de sistema de feedback de consumo integrado a software de restaurante

Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade UnB Gama, 2018.No ramo de alimentação, bares e restaurantes têm o crescente desejo de criarem vantagens competitivas em relação aos seus concorrentes e uma maneira é a utilização da tecnologia para criação de sistemas que permitam uma experiência inovadora e útil aos seus clientes. Com isso, esse trabalho é um esforço para a criação de um sistema web utilizando o framework ASP.NET Core que permita clientes de um restaurante acompanharem as informações dos pedidos realizados por eles, podendo realizar a conferência dos itens lançados, verificarem o status da produção dos itens, obterem informações sobre o atendimento em geral, como o valor parcial dos pedidos, nome do garçom e horário de chegada ao estabelecimento, além de permitir futuras implementações como o acúmulo de pontos por cliente, pagamento dos pedidos pelo sistema e acessar o histórico de pedidos já realizados no estabelecimento. O sistema desenvolvido será integrado ao software de restaurante já utilizado no caso estudado. A metodologia de desenvolvimento utilizada será o SCRUM gerando entregas parciais que facilitarão a validação do trabalho realizado com o cliente.In the food sector, bars and restaurants have the growing desire to create competitive advantages over their competitors and one way is to use the technology to build systems that create innovative and useful experience to their customers. Therefore, this work is an effort to build a web system using the ASP.NET Core Framework that allows customers of a restaurant to view the information of the orders made by them, being able to carry out the conference of the items asked, check the production status of the items, obtain service information in general, such as the partial value of the orders, the name of the waiter and the time of arrival in the establishment, besides allowing future implementations such as the accumulation of points per customer, payment of orders through the system and access the history of orders already made in the establishment. The developed system will be integrated with the existing restaurant software in the case studied. The development methodology used will be the SCRUM generating partial deliveries that will facilitate the validation of the work performed with the client

Design Thinking: A Model Development Based On Archived Documents

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User-interface design and evaluation in a mobile application for detecting latent tuberculosis

Treatment and monitoring of tuberculosis have been met with various interventions to reduce its prevalence. One such intervention, to detect and prevent latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), is the tuberculin skin test (TST), for which an induration response on a patient’s arm is an indication of LTBI. The test requires the patient to return to a clinic 48 to 72 hours after TST administration for assessment of the response. This is a challenge because of financial and accessibility obstacles, especially in under-resourced regions. A mobile health (mHealth) application (app) has been developed for remote assessment of the response to the TST. The previous version of the LTBI screening app, however, had usability limitations. The app is intended for use by patients and healthcare workers; thus, ease of use is important. There is a lack of literature on the usability of mHealth apps, especially in under-resourced settings. In this project, the user interface of the app was redesigned and tested. The Information Systems Research (ISR) framework was integrated with design thinking for this purpose. The project included creating mock-ups of the interface which were iteratively prototyped with ten student participants, adjusted, and assessed according to the user feedback. Thereafter, the Android Studio software was used to adjust the user interface based on the insights gained through the progression of prototypes. The usability of the updated app was tested and assessed with ten healthcare workers at a community health clinic in Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa. Data collection and analysis comprised both qualitative and quantitative methods. Observations, the “think aloud” approach, and the post-study system usability questionnaire were used for data collection. Student participants highlighted various usability limitations of the app during each iteration. The major usability limitations included: the complex image capture protocol, misunderstanding of instructions, and time taken to capture images. Engagement with students allowed for improvement of the app interface and enabled adequate preparation for testing in the field with end-users. Furthermore, improving the app interface before engaging with healthcare workers, enabled context specific limitations that would affect the usability of the app, to be explored during the field testing. These included safety concerns when using the app and the privacy of health information. Future work should explore how these concerns, as well as other social factors, affect usability. Furthermore, improving the image capture protocol is required for improving the usability of the app