Working with mass and light: A challenge for architecture students

Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Politehnica University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania

^a Corresponding author: diana.giurea@yahoo.com

Abstract

The distinctiveness of architecture education raises understanding issues and adaptation difficulties of first-year architecture students because of the abstract visual language they must become familiar with. Thus, a special attention should be given to the way in which the basics of architectural language are taught and implemented in particular design projects. The aim of this research is to test the efficiency of an intuitive-based didactical method through a specific design exercise. Therefore, in order to facilitate the shift from concrete elements to abstract ones we propose an exercise which will enable architecture students to design high-quality interior spaces. Starting from a personal space, each student will develop his/hers environment according to natural light needs, functional necessities and spatial relations between three main interior places, while working with an imaginary stone mass on which only subtractive operations are allowed. The illustrative part of the paper contains some of the students’ work that we consider to be successful responses to the proposed exercise. This type of teaching method can trigger students’ creativity by using only means which the students are already accustomed with: looking, searching and analyzing.