A New Approach in Teaching Interior Design Studio at the Ahlia University

Abstract

The turn of the twenty-first century is witnessed extremely fast changes occurring in the interior design profession outside the traditional disciplinary boundaries by the dominance of information technologies that invites more complex design problems resulting in new design methodologies. Therefore, interior design is experimenting with significant changes outside the traditional disciplinary boundaries, where new terms, concepts, and vocabulary emerged replacing simplicity and clarity. Paradoxically, interior design graduates struggle to shift successfully from academic study to the interior design professional practice as they are not used on collaborative work in their study which is the nature of the interior design practice. Responding to these challenges needs to develop a design studio paradigm to improve our programs and the quality of education by creating curricula, syllabi, and teaching materials encouraging an inventive and collaborative design work that enable interior design students to develop the skills needed for their future professional practice. According to the Professional Relations Directorate at Ahlia University, career opportunities for interior design students were looking relatively negative, 62.96% of interior design graduates in 2018 were unemployed. Accordingly, this research describes and evaluate the vertical studio approach which allows students from various levels and skills to collaborate on a design project to create an innovative design that prepares them to the changing needs in the market for the 21st century, it is also believed that this model will be relevant to all design disciplines. The findings of this research show that vertical design studio has a strong potential in the high quality of the students' design projects and recommends applying this paradigm in the interior design department at Ahlia University and other design schools in Bahrain.

A blended model of interior design studio practice due to COVID-19

“…Students' confidence level, access to the Internet during online education, convenience in using MOODLE, Microsoft Teams, computer-aided software or developing projects, students' listening abilities, students' progress on projects, students' response to the online environment, and increased opportunities for interaction and collaboration with peers are the factors considered for this study. 22,23 Further, the factors observed in this study were the impact of online education allowing students to communicate with other students better than a conventional face-to-face teaching model. It is overall monitoring between the instructor and the students through discussion, feedback, and filling of the survey questions.…”

“…A total of 357 students participated in this study. 22 The participants were informed of the study objectives. All the students who showed interest in participating in the study gave their feedback, and none of the students dropped out during the course of this study.…”

“…https:// doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21543417.v2. 22 This project contains the following underlying data:…”

Role of Administrators in Blended learning in Higher Education Institution

“…Administrators believe that perceptions are an excellent approach for efficient, effective, and result-oriented teaching, learning, and research. Similarly, Assali (2023), stated that in addition to facilities and resources, institutions must provide opportunities for collaboration and ongoing support for academic staff and instructional designers. This can be achieved by faculty members exchanging best practises for blended learning and learning from one another through professional development programmes, workshops, of practice.…”

“…Institutions must offer faculty members and instructional designers' chances for collaboration and continuing assistance in addition to facilities and resources (Assali, 2023). This can be accomplished by faculty members sharing best practises in blended learning and learning from one another through professional development programmes, workshops, and communities of practise (Rice, 2023).…”