VIRTUAL New Schools of Thought

Abstract

Early in their education process, interior design students at the undergraduate level have difficulty visualizing construction drawings as built dimensional elements in spaces. The 2-dimensional drawings used as a communication tool for builders and contractors are problematic for new designers lacking spatial conceptualization skills. As these designers progress through the program with the help of internships, they are integrated more into the construction process showing an improved grasp of these concepts. How can we improve their development in the classroom to understand these important construction concepts ultimately better preparing them for practice? Historically the construction systems class structure focuses on lectures, and student detail sketchbooks, supplemented by construction site visits to reinforce the material. Coordinating construction site visits presents issues of scheduling the trip at the optimal time to complement the in-class learning topics. In this exercise, full-scale construction mock-ups were built as teaching aids to help students better understand key details not illustrated in the design drawing phase. These aids were built on campus for students to reference during the semester not just the brief time spent on construction sites. The study is framed by the level of immersion and reinforcement of course materials by the following directions: 1. Lectures with slides
2. Hand-drawn full-scale construction details 3. Full-scale 1:1 construction mock-ups 4. Construction site visits Data from student test scores reinforcing the course objectives and material as well as data gathered from student surveys will help to better understand the impact of teaching aids used for the class.