VERBAL DESCRIPTION AND ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

VRA Bulletin, 2007

The study of architecture has a special and problematic niche within the larger field of art history and visual culture. For many scholars, the complicated terminology of architectural components and the complex mathematics of engineering issues provide a powerful deterrent to engaging with architecture. The vocabulary of architecture is, by and large, not shared with painting and sculpture, although there are some exceptions; for instance, concepts such as texture and lighting are employed in architectural ekphrasis. Beyond the already mentioned engineering issues, formal issues such as massing, proportions, composition, and detailed studies such as profiles and capital analyses share vocabulary with the other arts, but the thrust of the question lies along very different lines. More impenetrable still is the architectural drawing, the abstract rendering in two-dimensions of threedimensional reality, whose conventions are often illegible to the uninitiated. At a fundamental, methodological level, the questions asked of architecture only rarely coincide with those investigated in painting or sculpture. Functional issues of use, social implications, political ramifications, gender questions and religious, devotional repercussions all carry a very different weight in architecture than in painting and sculpture. While these issues are reflected and embedded in other major media, buildings were and are designed to frame and control all these discourses, resulting in architecture being the locus of the lived historical experience, painting and sculpture serving as aspects (among others) of that experience within the building. Thus while the scholarly apparatus surrounding painting and sculpture on one hand and architecture on the other have developed into different organisms, the objects under study belonged together, forming part of the same experiential culture, not just visual in nature but simultaneously encompassing all of the senses, emotions, and intellect.

"Three levels of axioms matching three levels of disciplines: 1. Multidiscipline: Macro most general where the metaphors and axioms and metaphors used by the widest and diverse disciplines, users and societies. All of society, crossing culture, disciplines, professions, industrialist arts and fields as mathematics and interdisciplinary vocabulary. 2. Interdisciplinary axioms are between fields of art [I] whereas metaphors in general inhabit all these axioms drive a wide variety and aid in associations, interdisciplinary contributions and conversations about board fields not necessary involved with a particular project but if about a project about all context including city plan, land use, institutions, culture and site selection, site planning and potent ional neighborhood and institutional involvement. 3. Micro Discipline: Between architects all involved in making the built environment particularly on single projects in voting relevant arts[I], crafts, manufactures, engineers, sub-con tractors and contactors. As well as owners, users, neighbors, governments agencies, planning boards and town councils."(2.0)Indeed, users of a building designed according to these inherited solutions understand the building's organization and meaning because its underlying principles have been encountered before. Metaphors communicate what both composer and reader know from similar and common experiences. These are incorporated in building's vocabulary such as walls, doors, stairs, floors, ceilings, windows, etc. They further exude through scale, proportion, size, magnitudes, dimensions, geometry, patterns, etc. Architectural metaphors are communicated but are not only a kind of linguistic communication. It includes a three-dimensional content of what people want to know. It is more than the obvious materialization into physical form although it is the physical form which communicates. Students of architecture learn the language, vocabulary and syntax to communicate and compose but they also, unlike the linguist, actor, musician, draftsman, need to learn the content, program and 1three-dimensional concept of creation. (2.0) Gelernter, M.,"Teaching design innovation through design traditions" 1. three-dimensional: where architects discover spatial functional, structural, mechanical and constructional realities in well rounded completeness. "Metaphoric techniques": Architecture and the making of metaphors is a serious subject, not to be taken lightly nor reduced to one or another of its' variables. It deals with the whole and substance of much of what constitutes the treasure, wealth, success and accomplishment of a society, civilization and individuals. The school, university, college, professors, teacher, student, department, etc. which limits its' view of architecture then becomes and produces that view. What may seem relevant, marketable, compatible and timely may be circumstantial and as a result of the faculty's own projections. They are getting what they asked for. Not unlike most professions, architecture is self‑professing. If architects say they make metaphors, are draftsman, builders, project managers, restoration specialist, traditionalist, etc. that is what they are and those will be the kinds of architects produced and the demands placed on the facility. Architecture is classic, setting its' own standards and is standard setting. It is a type and model which others can add or emulate. If architects become builders or only designers to whom will the builders look to copy or emulate. Even those advocating traditional imitations would be at a loss for a world without full architectural expressions. This is the environment which has been abdicated by the architect which is then controlled by the real estate developer, lawyers, accountants, comptrollers, engineers, builders, constructors, municipality, etc. Students do wish to abandon a priori (2.0)"repertoire of mental images" which we may call cultural or traditional unless these images can be restored to value. Students are asked to abandon their very means of understanding buildings". For most involved in the dialectic process this is a welcomed and natural event. It fits well to current maturing and when accepted culturally can induce new experiences. (2.0) Gelernter, M.,"Teaching design innovation through design traditions" One can reside in an environment for a life time without seeing, perceiving or noticing its' relationships, structure and connotations. Education deals with extent reality, its' perspective and context in universal history. We can apply (2.0)Gelernter's analogy of learning language skills to learning not architecture but aspects of architecture related to technique, expression, building, construction, contract documents, model building, graphics drafting, rendering, writing etc. Those skills and facts as language that teach the student about words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a considerable community. These are the architect's means of communicating ideas and including feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, symbols, forms, shapes, textures, scale, height, width or features having understood meanings. Just as linguists utilize reading, spelling, literature and composition (the language arts) to develop the student's comprehension and capacity for use of the written and oral language so do architectural educators use history, two and three-dimensional design, construction, structures, research, programming, drafting, drawing, rendering, etc. In the way mimicking helps students learn a language, copying draftsmanship enables a draftsman. Neither mimetic activities are the source of ideas, but rather the very necessary art to express those ideas. It is often the mastery of some technique of expression which builds the ability of the composer to innovate and create. But the two, technique and ideas are not the same. They depend upon each other and are metaphorically interrelated but they are sovereign and cannot compete. (2.0) Gelernter, M.,"Teaching design innovation through design traditions" They are complementary and mutually supportive. Often our finest artists are both the source of great ideas expressed with excellent quality craftsmanship. Mastering an idea is not the same as learning to speak a language, yet language is replete with words which are ideas. We remember the words, grammar and syntax along with physical means of using them. Both the technical and the cognitive realms of architectural composition are involved in the same idea(s) but the former articulates, explains, divides and makes conscious that which is deduced, inferred, learned, experienced and decided. Without a language, ideas would not materialize nor be 1thought. Technique of the vehicles which conduct our thoughts through a system of senses, perceptions, decisions, and recollections of experiences of both the inner and outer world. (1.0)For the existentialist in this kind of experience the teacher and learner are partners in the learning process. Perennialists promote a cognitive approach to education : one that stresses 1thinking and particularly philosophical 1thinking as its' primary goal while essentialist educational theory has stresses that factual, observable data predominates a purely rational approach. (1.0)Behavioral engineers think of schools as total conditioning units. Though behavioral engineering faculties and students initiate the kinds of changes necessary to create a new and better world. Linguistic analyst maintain that what we need in education is to become aware of how language can be used to influence both thinking and action. (1.0) Ozman, H.A., and Craver, S.M., "Philosophical Foundation of Education" 1. Thought : think, cognition, recognition, reasoning, the power to imagine, conception, a developed intention, as architectural plans, sections, elevations, axonometric, etc. think: to know : to form or have in the mind. To devise by thinking. To form a mental picture. To subject to the process of logical thought. To think implies the entrance of an idea into one's mind. The forming and bringing forth a conception. To think is to form; form forms from forms. They contend that not only educational problems, but the social, economic, and political problems of today could be solved or at least abrogated by a more precise and informed use of language. It is this philosophy and theory of education which most aligns with Gelernter's (2.0)"repertoire of mental schemata" which may provide a repertoire of solutions that provides the individual with competence to act in the world", "as the language analogy innovation of new ideas grows originally out of the old". This verses the existential phenomenological experience of Husserl, Heidegger and Dewey. Where new ideas are derived from an intimate experience "with" existence and not ideas "about" existence. (1.0)In Husserl's words, "to go back to the things themselves". "Metaphor's role in learning architecture" The transition from the passive non responsible ambivalence of youth is changed to a more relevant stage in schools of Higher Education. Particularly architecture whose inherent content deals with teaching people how to learn how to learn and regurgitate, reify, and create from what they have learned to others. Architectural faculty also teach these same students how to teach. This is the new world in which these people will reclaim their historical future.

8th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'22)

The final aspect of architectural projects is nowadays illustrated by computer generated images of photographic quality (photorealistic renders), mostly replacing the old fashioned hand drawn images. Several authors feel that their realism may not convey the desired message to onlookers. We proposed a Web based questionnaire containing 3 tests to assess whether communication, recognisability and engagement were better conveyed by hand drawn images or photorealistic renders. 154 responders took the test, 74% of them were professionals in the architectural field and 26% general public. In both groups, the answers indicated that communication and recognizability were much better perceived in hand drawn images than in photorealistic renders. Engagement was aimed at assessing personal preference towards render or hand drawn images, with an even outcome. It is concluded that architect’s idea and spirit are better conveyed by hand drawn images which are a sort of “sign”. Such feature sho...

. Internatıonal Conference On Educatıon And Learnıng (DAKAM), 2021

In design-based educational programs that aim to raise individuals who can think critically and analytically, interpret all variables in a unique way in problem solving and have an aesthetic perception, education is applied both formally and informally. Activities organized to support the creativity potential of students by opening their horizons throughout the education process constitute an important part of informal education. Within the scope of the study, a workshop on an architectural representation process was held with the participation of the students of the Department of Architecture and Interior Architecture of the Avrasya University. Representation, which is the embodiment of thought, is a tool needed today in conveying thoughts. In the study, it is aimed to experience and represent the structures designed by Louis Kahn, one of the most important architects of modern architectural history, from different angles to produce a final product and thus to increase the awareness of the student. The workshop defines a process that enables students with a theoretical background to use knowledge by feeding it with practice by taking courses in architecture and art history. The workshop consists of three stages: preliminary preparation, design process and presentation. As a result of the study, it was observed that the students' awareness of these structures has been increased significantly. In this case, unlike the architectural art history classes remain only verbal expression, thinking with students in an interactive way and has revealed the results can be achieved by introducing more efficient products.

Civil Engineering and Architecture, 2024

Children’s point of view about places is different from adults’, thus there is a need to examine their preferences of place according to their activities as the foundation to reveal the architectural spatial image of their school. Unfortunately, the research on architecture spatial image as the relation between preferred places and activities children have in their mind is scarcely being done, especially in the school environment. This research aims to reveal the spatial architecture image of the students about their school environment as the place for their learning activities. Therefore, the benefit of the research is the findings that have the potential to be developed into open design criteria of each learning activities category, as a concern to all stakeholders related to primary level education, namely school administrators, school building designers, and school building standard decision makers. This research discusses using visual language to read drawings of 9-11-year-old students from two primary schools to identify significant spatial qualities. The architectural properties and compositions of the significant elements will be read to reveal their spatial quality as the base for the interpretation of participants’ architectural spatial image of the school concerning the activities. Participants respond to some instructions about preferred places by visualizing them freely through drawings, followed by semi-structured interviews as a confirmation and clarification process. The school’s teachers are also being asked for the same instructions based on their observations of students’ daily activities. The research analysis revealed that participants' preferred places based on learning activities have significant spatial qualities named insideness and centricity. Each of the learning activities types has different architectural spatial images, such as a place that has a definite space with specific arrangement, orientation, and closure; a place that has enough space to gather, and that has details as the identity of the place; a place that has the vocal point according to the activities; and a place that has a spacious area that allows one to move freely. The implications of these findings are open for the development of the standardization of primary school buildings.