Abstract:

Design Creativity and Design Thinking serve as underlying fundamental drivers in the pedagogy of architectural design. Within the design studio educational setting, methodologies of “how” architectural design is taught and learned, encompass a range of modalities, including but not limited to, traditional studio-based learning and design reviews to site visits, collaborative projects, and the integration of new technologies, all aimed at developing students' creative and critical thinking skills with the ultimate goal of creating functional and meaningful built environments. Design projects introduced in the studio setting, more often than not, tend to be centered and focused on design constructs that revolve around the formal-composition doctrine of form – space – order. And subsequently, the generation of architectural built-form in the design studio setting appears to be grounded on seemingly arbitrary design constructs, concepts and contexts, that may have little or nothing to do with the creation of sustainable and meaningful place. Such un-connected pedagogical parameters introduced in the studio environment, therefore remain fragmented and baseless to design students.

Random ‘ideas’ or ‘concepts’ incorporated by design students in studios typically remain un-founded, un-substantiated and without any contextual meaning in relation to the notion of extraordinary place-making. These whimsical design-informing concepts have almost nothing, or very little, to do with the deeper phenomenological understanding of timeless design values that have always remained embodied in place-making. Consequently, within the framework of the pedagogy of design conceptualization in the design studio setting, and therefore within the very phenomenology of architecture itself, the following critical questions may be posited - What meaning does the term ‘Design Concept’ bare to design students in architectural education? Are random form-generating concepts critical to informing the outcome of the design process, and if so, to what extent? And, can concepts influence the design process and/or design outcome, at all? If so, how may creativity be addressed in design studios, such that the modalities of engagement in terms of design thinking and creativity remain based not on pre-conceived arbitrary notions, but rather grounded on a deeper and more intentional and phenomenological understanding of place-making itself?

This paper addresses these and other critical issues related with the ‘making of place’ in the educational design studio setting. The paper first delves into a thorough exploration of recurring Hierophanies, as observed in sacred places around the world, followed by an in-depth case study analysis of how these higher-order archetypal principles seem to be embodied in an acknowledged extraordinary place - The Salk Institute in California (designed by renowned architect, Louis Kahn). Finally, the paper articulates several examples of design studio (student) projects that are founded on the meaningful introduction and embodiment of the sacred-place archetypes in space design.

Keywords:

Creativity, Design Thinking, Space Design.