Questioning Thresholds Between Natural-Unnatural

This chapter discusses the relationship between natural and unnatural in the framework of urban design strategies for sustainability. A descriptive reading is presented through theoretical perspectives and examples of application approaches. The authors' proposals for different cities in Turkey as urban design projects which deal with different problems and potentials in scope of the relations between natural-unnatural are presented. The thresholds and balances between natural-unnatural and urban design strategies for sustainability are discussed within the content of the projects. The key points are elucidated through mentioned examples which are focusing on design approaches, relations, scenarios, and principles.

Project-Based Learning in Chemical Engineering

Solutions to global challenges need a range of engineers with diverse skills and attributes, and it is the responsibility of engineering educators to shape the engineering education landscape, using their problem-solving expertise to educate future engineers for modern technological advances. Project-based learning (PjBL) is an educational approach that can integrate such needed skills and attributes into the curriculum. However, delivering a truly effective PjBL approach can be quite difficult without considering a holistic approach encompassing three key pillars: PjBL curriculum and assessment, PjBL culture, and physical and online PjBL spaces. This chapter presents a comprehensive overview of how PjBL has been successfully deployed across the Chemical Engineering curriculum at the University of Nottingham, UK, through the lenses of those pillars, and in the form of design projects, with a progressive integration and development of diverse skills and competencies throughout the years.

Stay Gold

This chapter focuses on the experiences of participants in an intergenerational art program for LGBTQIA+ audiences, which takes place at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson (MOCA). In this chapter, the authors outline the impetus and purpose of this program. They consider the impact that it has had on LGBTQIA+ individuals and the formation of an intergenerational community. From combating loneliness to creating connections across generations, this program invites individuals into the museum space who identify as LBTQIA+ but rarely have the opportunity to connect with one another. Facilitators and participants design projects and gallery activities that promote engagement through dialogue and art-making. As such, art provides connections that give participants opportunities to share and learn from one another. Contemporary art and the museum become sites for engagement. Gallery activities and art-making allow participants to experiment with a range of materials and learn new skills through humor, play, creative inquiry, and collaboration.

Architectural theory as a tool for architectural criticism necessarily employed for the betterment of architectural education

Criticism, or "to criticize" derives from the Greek krinein meant to distinguish, which is to separate, to silt, to make a distinction. The word "theory" comes from the philosophical Latin term "theoria" meaning spectator, while in modern days means the attempt to decide architectural right and wrong on a purely intellectual base. Pedagogically architecture students participating in a review learn from whoever provides useful criticism benefiting from critiques or reviews. This research in comparison to the ones that went through focuses on Architectural Criticism and Architectural Theory and which one stems from the other, their significance in architectural education in form of crit or review and shows a road map of how reviews are to take place by their different constituents. The purpose of the paper is to see whether the architectural theory is stemming from architectural criticism and whether it’s employed in architectural education. The methodology of this paper depends on both theoretical and analytical studies through three major fields; architectural criticism, architectural theory, and the analytical study of architectural education in form of critique or review. Finally, the paper concludes by linking architectural education mostly in its architectural design projects critique or review form with architectural theory and its dependence upon architectural criticism.

The Interpretation of Graphical Features Applied to Mapping SWOT by the Architecture Students in the Design Studio

The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of how the architecture students deploy a range of graphical features to visualize SWOT, standing for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Architectural design studios provide students with a range of analytical techniques, and SWOT analysis is considered to be useful and effective, particularly at urban-scale design projects. However, it is a text-based framework and needs to be converted to thematic analysis maps across architecture and design fields. The main issue is that the determining factors affecting the way in which students choose graphical features to map the outputs of SWOT analysis is unclear at architectural design studios. The research employed qualitative methods, specifically observation, focus group, and graphical analysis, to examine SWOT maps produced by the architecture students. The findings demonstrated that the selection of graphical features in the process of producing SWOT analysis maps are dependent on scale of study (macro, meso, and micro), as well as location, spatial connection, and size of elements derived from SWOT matrix. For instance, lines and planes were most frequent features at macro level while the variety of symbols remarkably increased at micro level. In conclusion, the students personalized the process of mapping, meaning that they applied point, line, plane (shape), color, texture, and typography in several different ways. Therefore, SWOT analysis not only help architecture students to better understand the problems of their design projects, organize and consolidate information, and visualize opportunities and constraints, but could lead to the representation of realistic solutions in an innovative way.

Validity and Rigour in Soma Design-Sketching with the Soma

We report on the design processes of two ongoing soma design projects: the Pelvic Chair and the Breathing Wings. These projects take a first-person, soma design approach, grounded in a holistic perspective of the mind and body (the soma). We contribute a reflective account of our soma design processes that deepens the field’s understanding of how soma design is achieved through first-person approaches. We show how we use our somas, our first-person experiences, to stimulate a design process, to prototype through and to use as a way of critiquing emerging designs. Grounding our analysis in new materialism, we show how our designs are in essence, “performative intra-actions”. Using our own somas, our designs open up for experiences within certain constraints, allowing for a material-discursive agency of sorts. Many different somas may be intra-acted through our designs, even if it was our somas who started them.

Problems of using Ukrainian geometric ornament in the context of the national design system development at the beginning of XXI century

The purpose of the article consists in identifying the actual components of the national design system formation at the beginning of the XXI century. In particular, was been researched the study level of the influence of geometric ornaments as identifiers of national culture. Methodology. Analytical, logical, and chronological methods were being used. The scientific novelty consists in fact of first time systematically investigating the meaning of a geometric ornament as an art form that marking Ukrainian culture in the context of cultural globalization. Conclusions. As a result of generalizing the scientific views of various fields of knowledge, were marked the most significant conditions and problems of using the geometric ornament of Ukraine in visual communications at different time periods. Conditions include the «modernization» of graphic techniques and using a wide specter of intersectoral knowledge. The main problems are: unsystematic and insufficiently formed theoretical base, low professional level of designers (ignoring organizing visual-communicative elements rules, disharmony in the color solution, low graphic culture). As a result, were formed main directions for using geometric ornaments in graphic design projects. These directions are a synthesis of intersectoral knowledge, improvement of the designer's stylization and composition skills, using ornamental compositions with considering to context. Keywords: ornament, geometric ornament, graphic design, visual identification of ethnic culture.