A NEW ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STUDIO FOR MEANING-MAKING USING REPERTORY GRID TECHNIQUE (RGT)

Architectural design educators highlight the uncertainty in the content of design knowledge delivered, creativity in the design process, teaching styles and no documented theory, definite methods or tools for design delivery. Acknowledging Piaget's theory (1971) and Kelly's theory (1955)，the authors suggest that individuals construct knowledge and create meanings based on their inherent images/experiences. Integrating the theories of 'constructivism' and 'personality，，the authors postulate the applicability of Personal Construct Psychology (PCP)(Kelly, 1955). Hence, the primary purpose of this study is to develop and assess the applicability of a learning-teaching strategic design process model based on PCP to facilitate and 'make sense of the meanings of design principles in processing creative designs. For this purpose, a new design studio was developed to evaluate the design creativity achieved in the performance of a group of students from the United Arab Emirates University UAEU who joined an advanced elective course in the undergraduate architectural engineering program (ARCH530 Selected Topics in Architecture). PCP based design studio pedagogical framework was established and a comparative analysis of the students design outputs was conducted using Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) to validate the potential of PCP inimprinting a deeper understanding of the architectural image. A sample of participants from the local society and peer students from the same program were involved in construing the meaning of the work developed by students. The results showed the design outputs based on PCP enhanced and facilitated creativity enabling the students to construe concepts from their conceptions, establish relations between the concepts, inherent knowledge and generated inferences based on their reasoning. The findings of this study identify a new conceptual theory for the transformation of conventional design studios into an open constructivist environment for systematically engaging the local society,valuing the local traditions and designing for the health and wellbeing of the fiiture generations.