Architecture Students’ Understanding of Landscape Issues in Design Studios (A Comparison Approach in Some Tehran Architecture Schools)

Without the surrounding environment of a site, architecture loses its full meaning. In the evolutionof the design process, a site's environment should be understood as the integral factor within which a designed productor artifact is expected to perform. The environment is not of secondary priority. Every building is intertwined with itscontext; context being its physical, visual and ecological potentials. Modern day practice encourages the considerationof ecological factors in any plan to create/alter sites even for those who are not landscape architects. In the pedagogy ofTehran architecture schools today, the architectural design process barely touches upon landscape environment; this is aflawed presentation of architecture which should be remedied. In common practice of Iranian education, buildings riseto represent only themselves. The graduates of this lacking method owe their mal-education to the problematic studioeducation system. This paper presents both qualitative and quantitative evidence to support the notion that Tehranschools should change their teaching methodology to accommodate the importance of environment in the architecturaldesign process. All research participants are students of architecture. The data, which includes content analysis exportsand log-linear analysis, presents the difference between the students' point of view regarding a designed building andits relationship with the surrounding landscape.