How does Concept Transform into Product? An Appraisal of Analogy-based Design Practices in Architecture Education

Abstract

When defining the concept of 'metaphor' as 'an intuitive abstraction of uniqueness in diversities', Aristoteles also creates a common-sense in comprehending analogy-based design processes. Therefore, as in all design practices, drawing analogieswith/to/between-by generating metaphors is also an important tuition for learners/students in architectural design education. Starting from the question of 'how a designer's initial concept is transformed into an architectural product', this study generates a discussion on architectural thinking and designing practices based on analogies, aiming at creating perspectives with regard to architectural design education which primarily intends to improve students' designing abilities by providing the sustainability of current environmental data through the subsequent designs. In this education, the students are firstly directed to reveal metaphors in their specific studying areas by gathering inspiration from directly formal and physical environmental data or from indirectly informal and contextual data; and secondly expected to transform analogies into spatial decisions with architectural programs. In this sense, this study is methodologically carried out in two sections. The first part analyses the stages of the process that lead students from concept to product in the education of architectural design by emphasizing the relational potential of design by considering analogies/metaphors. In the second section, six student studies/products selected from design education studios are appraised in context of the metaphors they captured in their study areas and the analogies they created -or in other words, the reasons they asked for to design-. Among the consequences of the study are the inferences to be made on how to transform design practices, in which the students interrelates between environmental data, into architectural products.

The Comprehension of Place Awareness in a Historical Context: Metaphors in Architectural Design Education

“…This is because they are the thoughts that ensure the communication of the context with the architectural product. In this sense, they create an architectural grammar in the transformation of concepts into products (Koca and Uluengin, 2014). Therefore, the second-year students' mimetic attitudes were engaged in a debate about the character(s) of the site and some of the students entered into a dialogue with the context of the place and develop feelings about the place.…”

“…The architectural design studio work presented in this paper deals with cognitive operations in the design studio and the application of concepts to a design problem. The metaphorical reasoning in the problem-solving exercises of architectural design education has been considered as cognitive operations in Welling's (2007) In this sense, they create an architectural grammar and fill it with form, content and context (Koca and Uluengin, 2014). By analyzing a studio process, the paper discusses how second-year architectural students might sense the space in which a "nexus of ideas" (Brook, 2001) captured from the site to implement into a design process.…”

Evaluation of an alternative approach to increase productivity in architecture project studios through student projects

“…To expand the concept of analogy and at the same time overcome conceptual difficulties, it is necessary to use analogical thinking skills in the process of bridging the source and target (Clement, 1987). According to Kant, analogy, which establishes a similarity between two different phenomena, increases and produces knowledge (Koca & Uluengin, 2014). The student was left free in the concept selection and design process but was kept away from the analogical approach.…”

Processo de projeto em iluminação

“…Tudo isso gera a necessidade de um viés da criatividade, que conduz a solução de problemas para abordagens inovadoras. Assim sendo, atualmente, há termos de pesquisa comumente ligados ao processo de projeto, alguns populares são: i) processo participativo; ii) design thinking; iii) design thinking process; iv) lean thinking (target value design) (LUCK, 2007;HANSEN;REINAU, 2006;DORST, 2011;RAZZOUK;SHUTE, 2012;GOLDSCHMIDT, 1994;KOCA;ULUENGIN, 2014).…”

“…-, se caracteriza pelo auxílio de algumas técnicas e instrumentos. Alguns conceitos e ferramentas do pensamento criativo podem, facilmente, ser relacionadas ao processo de projeto em arquitetura, como por exemplo: montar equipes multidisciplinares como forma de garantir visões de diferentes especialidades, ou mesmo diferentes áreas do conhecimento (KATZ; BROWN, 2010); uso da visualidade intuitiva como técnica de raciocínio visual e meio de encontrar respostas, e assim, sem preconceitos, inicia a criação através da forma, é possível associar essa técnica ao uso de analogias na concepção(GOLDSCHMIDT, 1994;KOCA;ULUENGIN, 2014). iv) Outra abordagem projetual é a filosofia lean thinking, que prega o descarte de tudo que não agrega valor ao projeto por meio de uma mentalidade enxuta(PICCHI, 2003).…”