Architecture design studio pedagogy for translating environmental sustainable elements

Abstract

Sustainable design helps reduce negative impacts on the environment and improve building performance. The architectural educators strive to impart the sustainable requisite to students. Based on the literature review and the results of an exploratory study conducted, it is evident that the pedagogy employed by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) architectural educators follows reflective-in-action and Kolb‘s theory. However, the environmental sustainable design elements are not reflected in most architectural design studio curriculum. In fact, only a few courses have elements of environmental sustainable design embedded in them. This research aims to determine the manner in which architectural educators in UTM translate environmental sustainable design elements to students. A mixed method was employed in this study: observation on the second year environmental design studio was done for four (4) months (n=7); a questionnaire was distributed to all architectural students (n=150), and interviews of educators (n=17) involved in workbase studios in the department of Architecture were conducted. The data from the observation was analyzed with categorical data analysis with a percent agreement set at 70% inter-coder reliability coefficient. The questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS version 20, with a one way ANOVA set at p<0.05 significance level to obtain results for inferences, while the interviews were analyzed by content analysis. Results on the analysis show that the architectural educators imparted aspect of environmental sustainable design elements directly to the students through various pedagogies, and the students used those environmental sustainable design elements in their design studio work. The results also reveal that the architectural curriculum is a hidden curriculum which embeds sustainable design elements; however, understanding of building ecosystem and ability to design sustainable buildings are not enforced on the students across all the design studios. It is only mandatory in the second semester of the second year studio since the theme is on the environmental paradigm. This implies that in order to empower students with the ability to design environmental sustainable buildings, more sustainable core subjects could be included in the studio curriculum. Findings could be employed by architectural educators and policy makers as a guide for future curriculum upgrading and development.