Abstract:

Architecture and design professions have seen huge technological advances in past few decades. Many design educators have adapted these new technologies in their teaching, and the new generation of architects and designers are required to know these new technologies. Although many new technologies have been introduced since the inception of design education that made remote and online teaching and learning opportunities easier to offer; for more than a century, architecture and interior design institutions, educators, and students have preferred the in person, studio-based, teaching/learning model. In this education model, the design educators meet the design students in their dedicated studios to deliver face to face design feedback known as desk crits. These personalized desk crits are essential in students’ academic and intellectual growth, and development of their creativity. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 Pandemic abruptly put a stop to in person teaching/learning: all design educators had to switch to online teaching almost overnight.

This author, a design educator, also faced the same challenges all her counter parts were facing – how to make remote design instruction relevant, exciting, and easy for her students, who were also facing the same challenging times. She found the new technologies to be very useful in developing a remote, yet personalized teaching model that allowed her to develop a studio culture that promoted peer to peer, collective, as well as personalized instructor feedback. Although the students were skeptical in the beginning and missed meeting and working with their classmates in person, their final studio outcomes were outstanding.

Based on her experiences of three consecutive semesters of emergency remote teaching, this author raises questions about what we all learned during COVID-19 pandemic, and how it will impact the future of design education: is the in-person education is truly the only way to deliver design education? Whom is it serving the best? When and which level can one introduce remote or online learning? Which are the best remote teaching practices to adapt for the best student learning outcomes? The author wants to start a discussion about the future of design education in the hope that it will help in developing a new way of delivering design education that is inclusive, provides diverse perspectives, flexibility, and choice, is cost-effective and accessible, and assists the students in completing their design education.

Keywords:

Covid-19 Pandemic, Architecture and Design Education, Remote Teaching, Emergency Remote Teaching, Online education, Future of Design Education, Pedagogies.