Reflections on Architecture Design Education: The Integrated Design Paradigm

Abstract

Studies have recently discussed the failure of traditional design in the studio to develop a rational approach based on systematic methods and objective knowledge. They agree that such an approach is incompatible with the complexity of modern design problems and recognize the need to replace it with a disciplinary approach in order to meet the challenges of modern design. Most critics attribute the failure of the traditional approach to the lack of knowledge. This study, however, argues that the problem is more precisely a problem of the inadequacy of design knowledge conception, and suggests that the development of a discipline-based approach cannot be achieved unless the entire knowledge conception is properly understood and theorized. To achieve this end the study has introduced, in a previous article, the integrated design paradigm as a theoretical framework which describes the knowledge system within the design process. In this article the study reviews the integrated design paradigm and develops a new understanding of design knowledge conception based on systems theory. In the light of this holistic perception, the study proposes the design process systems approach, a disciplinary model based on the integrated conception of design knowledge. However, both ‘the design process systems model’ and ‘the (revised)  integrated design paradigm’ upon which it is based will have to be empirically verified in a future article.

Keywords: process, knowledge, systems theory, knowledge conception, process systems