Architecture
Kh. Daneshjoo; A. Hosseini Alamdari; M. Moeinipour
Abstract
Background and Objective:In the process of design development, it is the duty of the architect to find appropriate answers to design issues based on his experience and knowledge to provide the design goals considering diverse criteria. Therefore, the ability to create new and unknown solutions to issues, ...
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Background and Objective:In the process of design development, it is the duty of the architect to find appropriate answers to design issues based on his experience and knowledge to provide the design goals considering diverse criteria. Therefore, the ability to create new and unknown solutions to issues, commonly referred to as creativity, is one of the basic skills required from any architect. Responsiveness to the unique design issues requires a creative and flexible mindset. Accordingly, in teaching architecture, nurturing student creativity is critical to solving design issues. The present paper examines the extent of this goal realization in the undergraduate training course in architecture engineering in Iran. Methods: The present study is designed and implemented based on the exploratory mixing research method and the two paradigms of positivism and poststructuralism. In this regard, the research population was clustered based on MSRT’s qualitative classification, and one university was selected from the largest cluster (third grade universities). Considering the dual nature of creativity, using two standard tests of creativity (Torrance and Ned Herrmann), and the degree of creativity of students in the study process at the Malayer university was measured. In addition, the level of readiness of the educational environment for the development of creativity is also measured. In the next stage of the research, the appropriateness of the educational environment for improving creativity was examined based on five basic indicators. Graduated students were asked to evaluate their educational environment during their study in a closed-ended questionnaire based on these five criteria. Findings: The results of the research indicated that students did not increase their general creativity and significantly reduced their use of imagination and creativity as a tool for problem solving during the training period. Based on the results of the research, the instability of goals and design values during the course of the curriculum resulting from the structure of the educational system is a major factor in the disability of the educational environment in the development of student creativity. Conclusion: According to the results of examining general creativity of students, it seems that architecture education environment is useful for people with low general creativity, but it does not embrace very high creative students and provides conditions for high creativity to be suppressed and become close to the average creativity of the society. In general, this environment does not have a significant effect on the general creativity of the student community. On the other hand, a sharp decrease in the use of imaginative and creative thinking during the training course shows that the architectural design environment does not support and respect creative thinking and does not even tolerate creativity beyond a certain extent.
Architecture
M. Khakzand; F. Mozafar; M. Feizi; M. Azimi
Abstract
: This paper describes "Drawing Analogies", a shape based reminding program that uses freehand sketches to index and retrieve visual references for creative architectural designing.Architecture students and professional designers often employ reference images from books, magazines and other visual collections ...
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: This paper describes "Drawing Analogies", a shape based reminding program that uses freehand sketches to index and retrieve visual references for creative architectural designing.Architecture students and professional designers often employ reference images from books, magazines and other visual collections to find new forms and adapt them into their designs. Many designers indicate that, what architects imagine is the represent of what they have seen. So, it is evident that visual elements play a key role in design process. However, many architects believe that imagination is an essential factor in art and design while the investigation on its importance in architecture education is thoroughly neglected. In this paper, we investigate on imagination and analogy as potential aids to creative design and education. Some examples of how the designers use drawing and describe their approach to find similar visual analogies are also presented. We argue that a graphical reminding scheme based on sketching can help the designers to find interesting references from various domains. Finally, we discuss the ways of using diagrams and freehand sketches as visual sources and explain how students can retrieve them in creative architectural design process.