Abstract:

Last year, while standing in the middle of an unprecedent pandemic, we as instructors experience an unexpected collateral effect: we were forced to abruptly transition to an online teaching environment, regardless the type of course imparted.

In addition, the situation exposed multiple other issues that the students are dealing with, that had remained hidden behind the carpet. The social impact is immeasurable, and it should be a wake-up call for us as instructors, on how to address certain issues and take the lead in supporting our students. However, we also must confront the academic consequences of this forced transition to the online modality, especially in lab-centered courses.

As we all know, Studio classes in Architecture have a strong practical component. The dynamics generated in the lab, the interaction among the students and the sense of belonging to the group, are extremely hard to replicate online. One of the most important issues to confront is the fact that the students fundamentally learn from experience, their own and their peers. It is not a unidirectional system; it is a multidirectional scheme based on multiple interactions that it is very hard to simulate in a virtual environment. It also has a physical component, based on the materiality of the model, the paper, and even the physical presence and personal interaction.

The sudden transition forced us to do our best to reconfigure the syllabus, creating and alternative program that removed the contact and physical interaction, without erasing the connectivity and collectivity.

Once we were able to overcome that situation, it is the right time to rethink the architectural teaching (and learning) in its entirety. We should embrace this challenge as an opportunity to provide our students with a better education and prepare them to the actual and diverse work of an architect nowadays, to empower them. If we do not learn from this experience, it would be a lost opportunity.

This research pretends to undertake a comprehensive review of the whole educational system in the Studio lab classes, from the teaching strategies to the relationship with the students, the Studio’s dynamics, the review system, and the overall understanding of the architectural environment nowadays.

We will analyze which virtual teaching strategies could be incorporated to the physical environment, which ones need rethinking and which ones should be removed.

We will base our research in the comparative study of a Studio class in two very different Institutions (European and American) and two different environments (online and face-to-face) and review the result in the aftermath of this pandemic. The main goal should never be coming back to past situation but arriving to a much better one.

Keywords:

Virtual, design, creativity, transition, teaching methodology.