On the Role of Hypermedia in Architectural Design Education

Teaching architectural design is not primarily concerned with presenting a body of knowledge analytically, but rather with influencing the way students act in a design situation. Previous design cases play an important part in this process, as they provide students with sets of objectives and corresponding solution patterns. Nevertheless, one of the main problems with using precedents in the design studio is that students take them rather as models to be copied than as starting points for their own research. To overcome this problem, the representation of design cases has to be improved. Our thesis is that in architectural design the structure of a case base of design precedents relies to a large extent on the various, and often conflicting, interpretations of precedents that are provided by architectural theory and discourse. Within a theory of design where exploration is the dominant strategy, we propose a method of using design cases and design theories in an integrated way. Through the use of hypermedia as a medium for representation of design cases, the process of looking for information can be based on the same metaphor as the design process itself.