Quality of collaboration in a distant collaborative architectural educational setting

peer reviewedThis paper analyses the quality of collaboration of two student teams in a longitudinal study of a collaborative distant architectural studio. Based on a simple method to assess several dimensions of this quality of collaboration, we compared the two groups at three stages of the design process. We also analysed how the quality of collaboration evolved over time and as a function of the design stage. We finally discuss the interests of the method and some insights to support a better understanding of mechanisms of collaboration

Adaptation mutuelle du processus de conception, du rôle de l’enseignant et de la qualité de la collaboration dans une situation de conception collaborative à distance.

peer reviewedCet article présente les résultats d’une étude des modes de collaboration dans un dispositif d’atelier de conception architecturale à distance, effectué par des groupes d’étudiants français et belges. Cette activité de plusieurs mois a été outillée notamment par le Studio Digital Collaboratif, dispositif multimodal de collaboration à distance visant à reproduire les conditions de la coprésence. Nous investiguons de manière longitudinale et comparative trois variables et leurs interrelations : la qualité de la collaboration, le processus de conception collective et la posture spontanément adoptée par l’encadrant. Nous montrons que ces variables sont étroitement dépendantes les unes des autres.This paper presents the results of a study on the collaboration modalities in a architectural design remote studio, gathering students from France and Belgium. This several months activity has been supported by the Collaborative Design Studio, a multimodal collaboration setting aiming at re-creating, remotely, the conditions of the copresence. We investigate, on a longitudinal basis and with a comparative approach, three variables and their inter-relations: the quality of the collaboration, the collaborative design process and the role spontaneously adopted by the teacher. We show that these variables are closely interdependent