Experimental teaching of computational design tools by intensive workshops

Abstract

The current development of computational design tools brings new challenges to their timely curricular integration. Nowadays, architectural practice requires a wide range of skills and experiences in this field. However, the current setting of the related courses provides insufficient time to teach students all the required knowledge. This contribution describes an educational experiment tackling this issue by block teaching in two intensive workshops called Digital Belluš conducted in the Faculty of Architecture and Design at Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (FAD-STU), Slovakia. The workshops were named after Slovak well-known modernist architect, founder of the FAD-STU, Emil Belluš. The topic of both workshops was the reinterpretation of the work of this great modernist architect with contemporary computational design tools. The first workshop introduced the entire process of computational design to students in a short time, only in four days. In a similar way, the second workshop provided students with the actual concepts of computational design. The efficiency of block education and the involvement of students in the research were examined and proved. The contribution describes generalisation of the findings and their application in the further education process.