Abstract:

This paper presents an ongoing educational innovation developed within a compulsory course in the final year of the Bachelor in Interior Architectural Design. The project applies a Design and Build methodology to immerse students in a real design and construction process that integrates manual learning, material experimentation, and social engagement. The course is framed within a service-learning orientation, as students design and build children’s installations for a permaculture project in the nearby rural landscape. This collaboration allows design education to become a form of situated practice—one that connects academic learning with community needs and environmental awareness.

The pedagogical structure unfolds through three progressive phases that correspond to complementary approaches to design: place, material, and function.
- In the first phase, Approach to the Place, students explore the physical and sensory qualities of the site through analog collage. These collages serve as interpretive tools that synthesize atmosphere, scale, and context, fostering spatial empathy and critical observation.
- The second phase, Approach to the Material, deepens technical and sensorial understanding through the analysis of constructed references and hands-on experimentation. Each student documents their findings in material sheets and an expert knowledge matrix that articulates the structural, expressive, and ecological capacities of materials such as reed, wood, jute, or pita rope. Manipulating and testing these materials enhances concentration, haptic intelligence, and environmental responsibility—especially since they are natural or recycled, sourced from the local huerta.
- The third phase, Approach to the Function, links individual creativity with collective construction. Students first develop individual proposals for playful artifacts, competing in a conceptual ideas contest focused on ludic value and spatial innovation. The most compelling concepts are then developed in groups into full-scale, buildable projects, resulting in tangible contributions to the permaculture site.

The children’s installations theme encourages an open, imaginative attitude toward space and function, freeing students from rigidly functionalist constraints and allowing design to emerge as an exploratory and inclusive act. Working for a real user and community context reinforces motivation and empathy, while collective construction fosters teamwork, negotiation, and shared authorship.

By combining individual and group work, manual and reflective learning, and academic and social objectives, this methodology cultivates a holistic form of design education. Students learn by doing, by collaborating, and by caring—for materials, for people, and for the environment. Ultimately, Design and Build becomes a pedagogical framework for rethinking interior design education as an embodied, contextual, and socially responsible practice.

Keywords:

Interior Architectural Design, Design and Build, socially responsible practice.