Intuition and experimentation as teaching tools: physical and interactive computational models

Abstract

Structural design and analysis is generally not the favourite subject among architecture students, who find it hard to assimilate abstract structural concepts expressed in complex formulae, whose translation to specific structural phenomena and application are not clear to them. This paper presents a teaching innovation project that seeks to include intuition and experimentation in the learning of concepts related to the buildings’ structural behaviour. Direct experimentation allows a better understanding and assimilation of concepts and increases motivation. The idea is to “take the laboratory to the classroom” through physical models that the students can build and test. These models are specially designed for the visual, intuitive, and clear explanation of one or several structural concepts. The combination of these physical models with the development of interactive, computational structural models based on graphic statics allows the students to predict the behaviour of the proposed structure and immediately check the correction of their prediction with the physical model. The geometry-based approach to the teaching of the structures through graphic statics, together with the use of the parametric models and the experimentation with physical models result in an intuitive, interactive and easy-to-understand method for the teaching of structures. Furthermore, the experimental and visual character of these teaching activities makes them more appealing for architecture students and results in a higher motivation and participation in the classes, which, in turn, comes with higher academic performance and grades.