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The purpose of this paper is to test a studio pedagogy that originates from an experiment of a collaborative design studio held between two departments of Architecture, as a useful way for students to learn mutually. Meanwhile, it aims to capture the effectiveness, efficiency and impacts of this collaboration.

This paper presents a qualitative research study to observe the role of collaborative design studio in the pedagogical structure of architectural education. It combines the conventional studio with live projects as a unique pedagogy within the studio of Architectural Design-I (AD-I). Primary data collected using open-ended questionnaires from students and focal studio tutors at both architecture departments generated results.

Built on the analyses of the questionnaires, this paper answers the research questions based on the collaborative studio pedagogy for the course of AD-I and reports on lessons learnt from this collaborative experience. It proves that students can successfully work collaboratively and build confidence in their own abilities to solve a challenge and achieve a common goal through practical experience as well.

This research used a qualitative approach to evaluate the perspectives of 81 students and 6 tutors within a specific pedagogical approach. Given the small sample size and delimitation of the one-course approach, findings from this study are not generalizable to a broader population. Furthermore, a longer duration is needed to address collaborative learning challenges. Nevertheless, it provides valuable data for future studies and also offers pedagogical options for other schools to consider implementing and studying.

The collaborative pedagogical approach experimented in this study was the first initiative of its kind in Karachi, between a younger institution, AED-SSUET and a more established one which was DAP-NED. A four-week collaborative design studio exercise of AD-I engaging third-semester students of AED-SSUET[1] and DAP-NED[2] was a hybrid approach that combined conventional design studio with live project to promote a novel and effective collaborative learning method. In the process, students were encouraged to interact competitively with peers, facilitated by rigorous engagement of focal design tutors from both Architecture departments. It also influenced the active participation of experts from the industry and Architecture community and was exclusively designed to eliminate the pairing up of a single tutor with one student each. The students at AED-SSUET were also able to build a 1:1 scale project with an allocated budget and time-frame constraints.

This paper introduces an alternative teaching model in a virtual architectural design studio, its application, impacts and constraints. This model aims for achieving collaborative learning through facilitating students to Inhabit, Design, Construct and Evaluate (IDCE) their designs collaboratively in a multi-user real-time 3D virtual environment platform (Activeworlds). The application of this model in virtual design studio (VDS) teaching has favorably impacted students' motivation for active, creative and explorative learning, social dynamics between studio participants. It also fostered learning electronic communication, collaboration techniques and etiquette in addition to design technology. The model assisted in developing collaborative experience and shared responsibility. However, there are some drawbacks of the virtual environment platform that hindered having a responsive design environment to users' needs with especially in modeling and rate of viewing. The advantages and constraints of applying the IDCE teaching model in a multi-user real-time 3D virtual environment for first year students at the University of Sydney are addressed in this paper.

With the ability of linking distant partners and diverse bodies of students and faculty, virtual design studios provide unique opportunities for examining cultural, contextual, and methodological differences in design and design collaboration. However, most evaluations of virtual design studio in the recent literature have focused primarily on technical and operational issues. In contrast, the social and cultural dimensions of virtual design studio and their pedagogical implications have not been adequately examined. To address this gap, this article examines the experience and outcomes of a recent virtual design studio involving international collaboration between faculty and student partners. Specifically, it looks at how presence of differences and process of dialogic learning create pedagogical opportunities in a collaborative 'virtual' environment. Based on the case study, this article argues that through dialogues, collaboration, and negotiation of cultural, contextual and methodological differences, collaborative virtual design studio offers an alternative to traditional design studio based on the primacy of individual practice and the master-apprentice model of learning. By creatively utilizing the collaborative environment involving diverse partners, virtual design studio can foster a critical understanding of cross-cultural design process and the significance of dialogues and negotiation in design.

The present work reviews the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on architecture education (AE), with the aim of discussing the interaction and integration of technology-based models.

Different research methods were used to achieve the research purposes including an online survey, semistructured interviews, observations and reviewing recent literature. The study proposes a theoretical framework to investigate blended learning (BL) approaches in AE, based on the blended teaching–learning continuum, the growth of online delivery mode and technology integration and the gradual responsibility adopted for the current Covid-19 pandemic.

The study proposes a vision to reimagine post-Covid-19 education and the required BL strategy to provide a theoretical framework that integrates the instructional models required to be investigated by instructors.

The research findings are based on a theoretical approach not tested practically. A further detailed investigation is required. Thus, the road to reimagining the post-Covid-19 AE is still evolving.

As faculty members, one should take steps toward preparing BL strategies. These strategies present other alternatives to continue teaching and learning while keeping safe in any other emergency in education. In this work, an overview of BL approaches, continuum and related technological and instructional models has been shaped to propose a new vision to post-Covid-19 AE.

This paper responds directly to the initiated call on the pandemic's effect on traditional education by taking a pedagogical perspective. The study presents a holistic BL strategy and proposes a new theoretical and instructional model to design a suitable and balanced BL environment in AE.

Utilizing creative campus partnerships, alliances, and mergers, libraries can move from a traditional support role to a more participatory role that actively engages a university’s academic mission. Libraries, as centralizing, politically neutral hubs for information, can serve as catalysts for collaborative planning that paves the way for creating innovative campus spaces and services in conjunction with other academic or general campus units. By forging alliances and merging services and resources with campus partners, such as Information Technology (IT) and the English and Communication departments, the library can address student need and initiate transformational changes—changes that are broader in scope than those within traditional library functions. The case study in this chapter provides an exploration of the merging of library services with a writing center, an effort which was enhanced by adding an oral communication support service. It provides examples of what can be accomplished through visionary leadership and teamwork in 21st-century academic libraries, focusing on how student need and library use prompted institutional change at a mid-sized regional comprehensive university. The authors highlight the essential structural and operational mergers and alliances involved in integrating existing and developing library and campus initiatives to create a unique integrated service point for research, writing, and oral communication in the heart of the university’s main library. The case study also identifies continued partnership and collaboration, and briefly outlines methods through which libraries might initiate similar transformational changes and mergers at their own institutions, serving as a model for similar alliances in other settings.

The purpose of this paper is to test an architectural studio pedagogy that originates from an experiment of a Summer School collaborative design studio, with participation of students, academicians and practicing architects, from seven Universities and five European countries.

This pedagogical method follows recommended education for sustainable development (ESD) model, by linking formal and informal learning, and targeting development of the key competences needed for promoting sustainable progress: participation and collaboration, along with inter- and trans-disciplinarity. Combining active participant observation method with descriptive survey research, the paper evaluates the perspective of a small sample size of 27 participating students, who worked with 15 professors alternately, during a two-week design studio course.

The results indicate that such a form of non-formal education has positive impact on acquisition of targeted competences, confirming the strategic role that non-formal education has in reaching quality education learning outcomes, and advocating for the adjustments of existing curricula towards a more collaborative educational approach in architectural design.

The modest sample size presents a limitation in reference to generalization of results, neverthless its data are valuable, particularly within the context of maximizing the development of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This endeavour was a part of an on-going Erasmus + CBHE (Capacity Building in Higher Education) project entitled transforming architectural and civil engineering education towards a sustainable model (TACEESM). Organized non-formal educational model is seen as a testing laboratory that blends a conventional methodology of a design studio with a highly collaborative, international and multi-disciplinary approach.

Urban design has historically occupied the gap between architecture and planning. Although there have long been calls for the discipline to bridge this gap, urban design has continued to lean more heavily on design than planning. The efforts to revitalize downtown Toledo, a mid-western U.S. town experiencing steep economic decline, present a classic example of the potentially unfortunate results of this approach. Over the past three decades, there have been many attempts to revitalize the city, especially its downtown, by constructing several large public buildings, all within a few blocks of each other, all designed with little attention to each other or to the surrounding public spaces, and with a remarkable lack of civic engagement.

Responding to calls in the literature for inter-disciplinarity in urban design, and to the city's experience with urban design, the authors created a collaborative studio for architects and planners from two neighboring universities with two purposes: first, to establish a collaborative work environment where any design interventions would be firmly rooted in the planning context (i.e., to erase boundaries between architects and planners); second, to draw lessons from this experience for the practice and teaching of urban design.

Despite the difficulties of collaborating, architects and planners benefited from exposure to each other, learning about each other's work, as well as learning to collaborate. The interdisciplinary teams developed richer proposals than the architect-only teams. Finally, critical engagement with the community is essential to shaping downtown development.

The paper describes how, in the first few weeks of each semester, the architecture students and faculty at Philadelphia University participate in a Survivor Competition. Inspired by the campy show where contestants battle the elements and each other for a million dollars, Survivor Studio pits teams of design students and faculty against each other to accumulate points in a variety of physical, intellectual and design challenges. Geared towards heightening the students’ respect for natural systems, understanding of indigenous cultures and the poetic potential for sustainable technologies, the challenges attempt to develop relationships with the students’ non‐design studio curriculum. This included a game show on the history of architecture, the reading and interpretation of a novel called Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, and a research documentation project focused on sustainable architecture and technologies developed by indigenous cultures. Physical challenges included scavenger hunts around campus that highlighted strategy, teamwork and knowledge/sensitivity to local environments. The main challenge for the students was to design a small community that could sustain the team without food or power or any supplies for one year. It elaborates on the ideas, pedagogical concepts, teaching strategies and eventual results of the Survivor Studio as a vehicle for exploring new and innovative ways to activate students’ imagination, energy and innate knowledge about sustainable design.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a unique pedagogical approach intended to address a need of the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) professions for graduates to work in cross-disciplinary collaborative teams. Addressing this industry need has been challenging for higher education programs in the past. The pedagogy evaluated in this study takes a unique approach to addressing the issue and the aim of the study is to capture the effectiveness of the approach.

This paper presents a qualitative research study evaluating perceptions of students and faculty participating in the cross-disciplinary course experience between architecture and construction. The study evaluated perceived vs received learning outcomes and perceived challenges of the cross-disciplinary course approach. Data were collected from open-ended interviews and observations of students and faculty participating in the course, as well as course artifacts.

Results of the study indicate alignment between perceived and received outcomes. Identified perceptions of challenges to the approach reflect many identified in previous studies. Areas for future study, and practice in collaborative education within the AEC disciplines are also suggested.

This research used a qualitative approach to evaluate perspectives of six students and two teachers in a specific pedagogical approach at one university. Given the small sample size and delimitation of one-course approach, findings from this study are not generalizable to a broader population. In addition to providing valuable data for future quantitative studies on a larger population, the study also provides pedagogical options for other schools to consider implementing and studying. The findings support previous research suggestions that collaborative approaches done early and often for longer durations are needed to address collaborative learning challenges.

The pedagogical approach evaluated in this study takes a unique approach to addressing a well-documented need in the AEC industry. Information included in this paper demonstrates an approach not yet documented in AEC higher education. Further, it provides a glimpse into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges that contribute a body of knowledge for others in the discipline to build from. The findings suggest a more in-depth approach may help cross the negative student impressions developed in shorter in-frequent approaches, and begin to develop student understanding of the value and necessity of multi-disciplinary collaboration.

This paper describes the curriculum design of an architectural studio course aimed at making concepts of sustainability accessible, understandable and practicable to second-year undergraduate students. Architectural education and design pedagogy is shaped and interrogated in the Global North or Western Europe and North America and influences various pedagogical approaches in the Global South. By including exemplars, voices and practices from global, historical, vernacular and contemporary contexts, understanding of sustainability is enriched.

The approach to course design included decolonising the curriculum and making it relevant for globally diverse future professionals. The studio theme of “memory and history” was framed as responsiveness to context and experiencing the site. Students were required to define place, and articulate form and space with sensitivity towards social, cultural, environmental and ecological aspects. The lectures, exercises and interactive activities emphasised design process, in-progress work, and experimentation through sketching, diagramming, drawing, and making study models which scaffolded student learning under the guidance of tutors.

The findings show that to make the process of learning to design in an environmentally responsive manner explicit for students, approaches to curriculum design must have a global and inclusive curriculum, engage students in experiential learning through doing/making to develop critical thinking skills, encourage students to synthesise and transfer learning to and from other settings and contexts, and interpret knowledge-power relationships and co-construction processes embedded in studio-based teaching and learning.

The original contribution of the course is that it creates an inclusive, experimental and decolonised space for co-construction of knowledge about designing sustainable environments.