DESIGN-BUILD Build/Design: An Inquiry-Based Approach to Teaching Beginning Design Students

Abstract

This chapter describes an alternate design studio approach that eschews the concept first pedagogy universally adopted in design studio education, avoiding the resulting trap of the seemingly endless formal manipulations that all too often displace the more inclusive material and technical development of a design. The introduction of "design-build" studios and programs into the academic architectural curricula of many schools worldwide reflects recognition of the unhealthy and artificial separation made between design studio culture and the content of technical courses and constitutes an important way of bridging this self-imposed gap. Preserving the simultaneity of concerns and relationships during the design process, although difficult, is rather crucial to an "inquiry-based" approach to learning. When beginning design students start a project without a particular building system in mind, they tend to flounder with respect to design decisions about the tectonic constraints and technical/constructional possibilities of their designs. © 2019 Taylor and Francis.