Abstract:

The design studio is the main subject in architecture school. It is the place where students learn to do research, to document and to observe, to appreciate and to be critical, and most importantly, they learn by doing. Therefore, design studios are in themselves places of continuous experiment, of change and adaptation, in order to build necessary abilities by learning from history and from the newest and best examples and by using the best methods.

First year studio has an even higher role in the fact that it introduces students to the typical activity of architects and teaches them the basics of the profession. In this context, the life changes brought by the Sars-Cov2 pandemic that affected the teaching-learning activities are worth investigating and learning from. First year architecture students have been subject to a double experiment of on-line learning and of studying architecture, while teachers had to offer the framework.

Architecture studio in isolation had diverse impact on the creativity and communication between the two aspects of the teaching process, the student and the teacher/tutor. The article proposes an analysis of the architecture teaching during the recent pandemic, based on the authors’ activity as tutors in the 1st year design studio.

In order to understand the changes that tutoring underwent in on-line activity, a comparison is drawn between the activities in the first and the second year of the pandemic, focusing on the evolution of communication skills and the use of new tools. Recent projects from first year design studio are analyzed in order to emphasize what can be learned from these experiences, what works and what makes the project process better, what methods are of temporary use, and which are worth keeping.

Keywords:

Architecture, on-line, practice, experience, communication, tutoring, pandemic, experiment.