Architecture students all over the world are worthy of acknowledgement for the efforts and determination they put into their training, especially the studio design course.
This course takes up the highest credit unit in the department and is quite demanding. It involves the architectural design of real-world projects.
This design exercise tests students’ performances in creativity, contextual awareness graphical and verbal presentation as well as in the synthesis of the Creative and Technical. Just yesterday, my students at the university completed and presented their studio design projects before the departmental jury. Their general performances were good, with a few exceptional works.
A couple of them made models to better understand and explain their architectural design. These students are currently in the first semester of their third year (300 level) and are on a 5-year architecture programme.
Design assessment Criteria
The assessment criteria for evaluating the studio design were based on their abilities to undertake the following:
- Conceptualize, be creative, be inventive or propose appropriate innovative solutions in design.
- Carry out investigations and design development. In the design development, they needed to demonstrate how the case studies, site analysis and design concepts truly influenced their final designs.
- Devise functional, practical, workable and technically appropriate solutions.
- Demonstrate good contextual awareness.
- Complete accurate and unambiguous sets of technical drawings.
The Design Brief.
To design a Restaurant for the University community in Site B. Which should cater to 100 diners at a time. The design must respond to the peculiarities of the site, especially its topography and climate.
Students’ works.
Below are a few sheets of the architectural drawings and also design models made and defended by some students. The mode of presentation was ink on paper. We are hopeful that in the nearest future, CAD and BIM will be incorporated into the studio designs of students.
