Learning from the Environment and Making: Using Analysis and the Senses

Abstract

This paper draws on a study which identified building, making and direct observation of the environment as key methods for learning about construction and informing design. College access to building and field experience can be limited and an understanding of how and why students learn from their surroundings and the objects that they manipulate can help lecturers and students to optimise these learning activities. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the study identifies common ingredients in the first-hand experiences of seven architects that helped them with both construction and design. The themes that emerge are then discussed from a broader range of educational perspectives. As analytical engagement, direct use of multiple senses and effective perceptual learning are identified as key to building, making and direct environmental observation, all three are discussed and related to the cyclical processes of design and learning. Finally, the paper proposes a number of ways in which sensory and analytical activities could be used to optimise environmental learning during the cycles of design and learning.

Keywords:

• construction
• design
• making
• senses
• analysis

Introduction

Cosmo (architect interviewee): “I have this terrible ability to sit in a pub and wonder …Is it too dark? Is it too light? How could it be better? I tend to be making observations constantly… I've a little notebook in my head for details.”

This paper draws on a study which employed in depth interviews to pin point the experiences, both inside and outside of college, which enhanced seven professional architects' ability to understand construction and realise it within their designs. Two crucial overarching themes emerged during these interviews:

1. all participants stressed the benefits of site experience, building and ‘making’ whilst learning about construction; and

2. (as suggested by Cosmo above), all participants emphasised the importance of direct personal experience of the physical and built environment as both an information source and a design motivator.

In both types of experience there is a direct connection between the student and the ‘real’ and tangible world of buildings, nature, people and objects. Consequently, many of the experiences that consolidated the participants' understanding of construction and design occurred outside college.

These findings pose a challenge to educators, as access to the built environment beyond the bounds of college is often limited. So how can both lecturer and student optimise their capacity to engage with and learn from field events and building/making experiences, which, although vivid and memorable, are often brief or sporadic?

Structure of paper

The next section contextualises the study and explains the methodology, which is adapted from Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). This is followed by the findings section, which discusses the two overarching themes from the perspectives of the original participants, describing how, why and when their learning and designing experiences were successful.

Finally, the discussion synthesises concepts from varied sources in an attempt to understand a little more about how we learn from our environment and from the objects that we create and manipulate. The premise of the discussion is that the more we understand about this aspect of learning, the easier it is to capitalise on this understanding in the design of field learning events and building/making projects.

Specifically, this investigation critically considers:

• the process of perceptual learning;

• the characteristics of the senses;

• the benefits of making/building during the design process;

• the benefits of analysis; and

• ways of deepening student engagement in field learning events.

The discussion also draws parallels between the cyclical nature of design and that of learning, suggesting ways of capitalising on sense, perception and analysis at key points during the process of learning and designing.

Context of Study and Methodology

This section starts with a short description of the reasons for the type of primary data. The description of the research method adopted, coding process and core related issues are then explained.

Research context and parameters

Since the inception of the BA in Interior Architecture at the Institute of Technology Sligo (ITSligo), lecturers have sought ways of making buildings more real to students and of encouraging them to use construction more creatively in their design projects. Their experiences suggested that solutions might lie outside college and that it might be beneficial to explore the issue retrospectively through the eyes of a number of experienced architects. Seven experienced practitioners were interviewed in order to uncover the factors, both within and outside their formal education, which helped them to learn about and realise construction within their designs.

The underlying intention for undertaking open and ‘in depth’ qualitative interviews was to uncover unsuspected themes from these architects' experiences. The interviews focused on the ‘as lived’ experiences of the participants and utilised a phenomenological research methodology adapted from the model of IPA proposed by Smith et al. (2009).

Phenomenological research has the ‘goal of understanding the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it’ (Schwandt in Groat & Wang 2002, p186). The phenomenon is in a sense the meeting place of concrete experience and perception. For this reason, the interviews for this study incorporated questions which related to both the participants' concrete experiences of construction and design as well as the aspirations and attitudes which accompanied these experiences.

All participants were asked the following:

• to describe experiences that helped/help them to learn about construction;

• to describe any processes/media that they find/have found useful;

• to describe their design process and the stage and manner in which their designs begin to take material, constructible form;

• to describe their aspirations as a designer, sources of inspiration, and buildings that they admire.

They were all encouraged to respond to the questions by drawing on specific design and learning experiences.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, coding and related issues

The scope and scale of the study

IPA generally centres on a small corpus of participants with a strong emphasis on individual experience. The size of this corpus precluded a full exploration of the essence of the phenomenon. As a more idiographic study, with a small corpus of participants from a similar context, this study uncovered some interesting ways of approaching the phenomenon, with some commonalities that suggest areas worthy of further study (Van Manen 1990).

Issues relating to validity and ethics

Anonymity and misinterpretation

IPA demands the use of direct quotations and a clear flavour of the individual voices behind the data, as illustrated by the use of raw quotations in this paper. Despite the use of pseudonyms, readers and peers might have been able to guess the other participants' identities from their views, gender and use of language. For this reason, and to minimise misinterpretation, a document was created for each participant. This contained all the quotations from their interview as well as all excerpts which referred to their opinions. These documents were checked and edited by each participant before inclusion in the study.

Bracketing one's experience

It was important to describe and separate or ‘bracket’ those aspects of the researcher's experience (‘fore-structures’) that might have prejudiced her ability to accept the participants' worlds on their own terms. Smith et al. (2009, p25) describe the difficulty of bracketing before an unknown situation thus: ‘When encountering a text, I don't necessarily know which part of my fore-structure is relevant. Having engaged with the text, I may be in a better position to know what my preconceptions were’.

The interviews presented a different difficulty. They touched on some of the problems, coping mechanisms and aspirations which lie at the heart of the working experiences of many architects and each new interviewee presented insightful ways of approaching such problems. It was thus necessary to listen properly to each new person, encouraging them to describe the phenomena in their own terms without allowing the intriguing discoveries of the prior interview to set the tone or agenda.

The coding process

IPA employs paper and pen during the coding process rather than software and the researcher starts by reading and rereading a transcript. This focuses the study on the participants and their stories. However, reading can be deceptive as it omits vocal emphasis and the associated meaning. This study was executed using a ‘livescribe smartpen’ which combines an audio recording with a linked paper notebook. Listening to the interviews repeatedly allowed a deeper and more accurate engagement with the content. The content of the interviews was then ‘coded’ to identify recurrent themes and connections within and across the interviews. The somewhat lengthy coding process which includes the ‘write up’ is summarised in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Thematic coding adapted from IPA.

The literature review

In IPA, the literature review should not anticipate the study as it might influence the researcher's interpretation of the data. The themes that emerge from the participants' experience should drive the search for relevant theory rather than the reverse. The search for literature was focussed on the two overarching themes described earlier in this paper and most of the books and articles referenced in the discussion were sourced during searches which focussed on the following:

1. construction, design, education, building and making;

2. perception, environment, learning and architecture.

The review does not constitute an exhaustive survey of the topics. However, the body of work consulted is broad in terms of its origins, drawing on concepts from a range of perspectives including educators from architecture, environmental science and the visual arts as well as educational theorists and psychologists, including Eleanor Gibson (1969). As such, the literature poses an interesting juxtaposition of ideas. The literature review and discussion have been merged in this paper.

Learning from the Material (the Findings)

The study explored how to learn and incorporate construction effectively within design, as viewed retrospectively through the eyes of seven practitioners. Many of the participants' effective learning experiences relating to construction and design occurred when:

• engaging with the corporeal acts of making and building;

• learning from ‘real’ buildings and building materials;

• studying their physical surroundings.

It is important to note that none of the participants had any student experience of ‘design/build studios’ within an architectural curriculum. For this reason, they could not anticipate some of the design possibilities associated with ‘building’ and ‘making’ during the design process which are suggested later in the discussion.

This paper focuses on two of the three main thematic areas or ‘overarching themes’ that emerged from the interviews:

• building and making as learning experiences;

• the senses, observation and response to place.

The written account of each theme is accompanied by a table which outlines the title of the theme as well as the relevant ‘codes’ and corresponding participant numbers.

Theme 1- Learning from building and making

When the interview content relating to this topic was mapped, a number of linked ideas were identified (see Table 1). These included:

• A connection between gender, lack of opportunity to experience summer site work and a resultant lack of engagement with construction at college.

• The relevance of the timing, type and scale of the site experience.

• The benefit of observing and experiencing buildings ‘in the flesh’ rather than via image alone. This theme emerged in relation to both incomplete and complete buildings.

• The general benefit of any type of physical construction and the related importance of practical analysis.

Table 1 Overarching theme: building sites and ‘making’ as learning experiences.

	Identifying code	Occurrence out of seven
Primary codes	Building sites as learning experience	7
Related codes	Making physical items/mock ups	6
Related codes	Self-build	5
Related codes	Real for me (as student)	4

These aspects are considered in turn in Table 1.

Building site experience

Jack: “A distinct and positive impact on study…I could literally tie the link between what I had seen on site and the drawing.”

All participants remarked on the importance of experiencing buildings on site. A correlation appeared early in the interview process between site and building experience and student/graduate confidence in relation to construction and site supervision. This pattern was reinforced across all interviews. Those interviewees who had building experience before and during college appeared to have had a more generally positive experience of construction both at college and during their early years in practice.

In contrast, those who had not experienced the building process first hand before or during college, described site experience as a crucial way of making construction ‘real’, describing their college experience of construction as unsatisfying or unreal. In this set of interviews, there appeared to be a clear link between one's gender and the opportunity to work on building sites. All the male participants had experienced site work before or during college. None of the female participants had access to site work during their college years.

Suzanne: “We were never brought out onto site to see those things. I'd say that if I'd think of a disadvantage to my education that was a major disadvantage… You can go through architectural education and you can draw details, and you can look at the materials, but you really need to see how things are put together.”

Tanya: “I really only started to really feel at home with building technology when I went into practice. I mean I actually experienced things happening on site and I got to see how things fitted together and how important it was to know about how that happened.”

Alice: “We did some site visits. They weren't that useful…No, because it was 40 or 50 students walking around a building. I suppose you hear of blokes [sic] spending their summers on site and I think that would be invaluable to do. It might be a bit more difficult for girls to get that experience.”

The timing, type and scale of the site experience.

Alice pointed out that cursory exposure to building sites did not constitute a useful learning experience. Thus, the interviews suggest that good timing, relevance and student engagement with the site experience is essential if site visits are to provide any real benefits.

The usefulness of the site experience described in the interviews appeared to correlate with connections (in scale, complexity and construction type), between the buildings ‘on site’ and the students' design projects in the years adjoining the summer site work. For example, Kelly described the limited usefulness of site work during college holidays, as the scale of the buildings that he experienced only became relevant to his student design projects in later years.

Kelly: “It wasn't until much longer after that experience, when you were detailing to that level that it made sense.”

In contrast, Jack worked on domestic timber framed buildings at a time when he was studying domestic scaled construction at college and he described being able to ‘tie the link’ between what he saw on site and his college work.

Physical construction, analysis and engagement

Three of the six participants, (Cosmo, Oscar, Jack) followed the general introduction to the interview with spontaneous descriptions of childhoods filled with construction. These descriptions of childhood experiences focused on the physical and practical acts of making and fixing. The participants with building experience claimed that it augmented their technical knowledge and understanding in a number of ways (see Table 2).

Table 2 Benefits of building experience.

Participant	Knowledge and understanding of construction through building experience
Alice	Materials, tolerances and processes and the human factor in handling materials
Kelly	Unit sizes; ways of avoiding waste
Oscar	Awareness of the range of quality in materials
Jack	Build-ability, good and bad work practices
Cosmo	Experience of the processes employed by various trades

Both Oscar and Cosmo remarked on the learning inherent in the activities of ‘making’ or ‘repairing’ a variety of items from lawn mowers to fishing rods. In Cosmo's case, this habit of ‘fixing’ things was accompanied by an interest in how things work, informed by the physical act of taking objects apart and putting them back together, or by solving a problem as he made something. For Oscar, there was both satisfaction and education in the practical act of physically improving the function of an object and in doing so in a manner that was also elegant.

Question: “What has taught you the most about how to put something together well?”

Oscar (reply): “Building myself! Just making things [sic]. It doesn't matter if it's a large scale thing or a small scale thing, a piece of furniture or a fishing rod…Something that fulfils its function, is an elegant use of materials and has durability, longevity etc.”

There was the suggestion in several of the interviews that the practice of making and building demystified the experience of construction. Participants were engaged in solving (the physics/principles) through the act of making, thus engaging them with structure and construction via a process that was both enjoyable and rewarding.

Theme 2 - Senses, observation and response to place

The themes that related to this topic include:

• the importance of learning from observing buildings and the physical environment;

• the value of experiencing buildings and materials with all the senses;

• the fundamental significance to the design process of observing and learning from the site/context/landscape.

See Table 3 for information.

Table 3 Overarching theme: senses, observation and place/context.

	Identifying code	Occurrence out of seven
Primary code	Context (designing in response to)	7
Related code	Senses/tangible/materiality	5
Related code	Context (learn from observing)	4
Related code	Real for me (as students)	4
Related code	Observing reality	2

Learning from direct sensory experience

Physical building and making experiences seem to have provided the participants with a clearer understanding of construction and ‘build-ability’. However, tangible, first hand encounters with completed buildings, the physical environment and with materials also provided a number of the participants with a deeper and more personal understanding of the nature and possibilities of buildings than those gleaned from digital images, books or magazines.

Tanya: “You have to have theory, but going; seeing; touching; using your senses…Images are hugely useful but there isn't really anything that compares with physical reality, true experience, what happens when one puts a brick next to a tile…I had to be there and see and realise.”

Jack: “Physically you can touch it, sense it, see the size of a bolt and have a connection with it…The most powerful moments came from the reality rather than my perceptions…the buildings that have had an absolute profound effect on me are ones I've literally experienced.”

The most inspirational buildings, the buildings that moved or most affected these participants were those that they visited. Both Tanya and Alice stressed the usefulness of access to physical samples rather than images of building materials. Oscar remarked on the differences between the image and the reality of a number of buildings. Suzanne commented on the ‘personal’ experience of the quality of light as it hits materials within spaces. Tanya, Kelly, Suzanne and Jack all described the importance of all the senses to design.

As noted at the start of the paper, Cosmo described observation as his primary source of inspiration. He constantly observes buildings and places, and remarked that magazines can mislead students.

Context, landscape and design

First hand, physical experience of buildings and places was reinforced in some of the participants' descriptions of their design process. Oscar and Alice started their wish lists with the desire that their buildings should be ‘very responsive to their physical environment and nature’ (Oscar). Suzanne started to design by ‘absorbing [herself] in the site’.

Suzanne (design process): “Well the first thing I'd do, I suppose is I'd absorb myself in the site. I'd look at the site in a lot of detail. [A]nd I'd look at where the site is and how it sits in the landscape…and I'd do a really good site analysis… and I'd come to it at different times of the day to see how the shadows sit on it.”

The physical context of design was the most frequently mentioned interview topic. The interviews of Oscar, Cosmo and Suzanne hinted at the importance to architects of a heightened awareness of their physical environment. This reflective responsiveness to place provided and informed both inspiration (Cosmo) and design decisions (Suzanne).

The ability to learn from and respond to their physical surroundings provided the participants with:

• a bountiful source of inspiration, precedent and construction information;

• a key starting point of all the participants' design process.

Summary

Despite a lack of clarity about the relationship of construction to the rest of their design process, two themes emerged clearly from the findings. All participants learned from observing the environment (both buildings and their relationship to their setting) and all commented on the virtue of physical engagement with materials and processes through the acts of building, making or ‘mocking up’.

Learning from Place and Object

In accordance with IPA, this section discusses the findings of the interviews in the light of relevant literature. The discussion highlights ways of enhancing our ability to learn from the environment and from the objects that we make or build.

The discussion opens with (i) a section that situates architectural education within general learning theory and practice. This is not a review of architectural education; it simply introduces some concepts which are deployed later. This leads into (ii) a discussion of how and why students learn whilst building and making; (iii) characteristics of good ‘field events’ and (iv) the relationship between these activities and the senses, perceptual learning and analysis.

Finally, the discussion proposes a number of processes or prompts, which have the potential, when applied to specific stages of the design or learning cycle, to capitalise on the characteristics of the senses, the nature of perceptual learning and the observational and analytical skills needed by designers.

Architectural education

Cunningham (2005) describes architectural education as a type of ‘learning by doing’, which incorporates both research and application. This ‘learning by doing’ takes the form of design projects which mimic those that students will undertake later as practicing architects. These design projects are also the vehicle through which students demonstrate a synthesis of knowledge and skills assimilated in all supporting modules (Royal Institute of British Architects 2003).

During a series of these design projects, the architectural student gradually builds a dynamic personal world of knowledge and skills. The process of constructing this ‘world’ affirms both constructivist and constructionist learning theory (Papert & Harel 1991). Architectural education is constructivist, in that the learning is informed by social interaction with fellow students and lecturers, but it is also constructionist as the student learns from interaction with the developing design, models and drawings. This highlights that students' learning is consolidated through both social and ‘hands on’ interactions.

Iterative and reflective cycle

The design process is both iterative and reflective (Royal Institute of British Architects 2003). Designs develop during a repeated cycle of: research; interpretation; drawing and making; reflection; discussion; correction and redrawing and remaking. During this process, the design gradually moves from diagram to detailed building drawing or model. Thus, the design process incorporates a modulation between physical experience and the attachment of meaning to that experience (Holl et al. 2006) that aligns with:

1. Kolb's (1984) reflective learning cycle;

2. Gibson's (1969) description of perceptual learning;

3. Gureckas' (1997) description of the relationship between thinking and making.

These concepts are now discussed and developed, proposing the framework presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Combining ‘thinking and making’ with Kolb's learning cycle.

Interpretation and innovation

It is held that architectural students learn to synthesise a range of divergent demands and interests within a conceptual framework or overarching design concept. Each design problem is unique and students are expected to add value to design solutions through innovation (Angelil & Hebel 2008). The discussion will now focus on how acts of building and making support individual expression and innovation whilst bridging some of the perceived gaps between the ‘virtual’ college experience and the ‘real’ experience of buildings.

Thinking and making as a reflective cycle

Kolb (1984) describes learning as a cyclical process which incorporates:

• active experimentation;

• concrete experience;

• reflective observation and

• abstract conceptualisation.

In an essay on design/build studios, Gureckas (1997, p72) describes architecture in terms of ‘two realms; the material realm and the realm of ideas’. The twin processes of thinking and making ‘leapfrog’ over each other. Gureckas (1997) describes this process as a state of continuous oscillation. When sketching and reflecting on a sketch, the oscillation is rapid. When constructing and then testing a prototype of a detail, the oscillation is relatively slow.

Figure 2 merges this description with a diagrammatic representation of Kolb's (1984) reflective learning cycle. Making is aligned with active experimentation and concrete experience. Thinking is aligned with reflective observation and abstract conceptualisation. The processes of thinking, making, experiencing and reflecting overlap and merge with each other as reflection occurs ‘in action’ (inner arrows), but there are aspects of the process where the phases are more deliberate and distinct, as reflection occurs ‘on action’ (outer arrows) (Schón in Jordan et al. 2008, p201).

Kolb's (1984) reflective cycle incorporates the process of experimentation so that there is something new to reflect upon. When design incorporates interaction with a building or prototype, the processes of conceptualisation; experimentation; concrete experience and reflective observation that are described in Kolb's reflective learning cycle, are informed by the unexpected variables discovered in the object itself. This conceptualisation of the design and learning cycle is utilised in the discussion of the interviewees' experiences of design and construction.

Learning through making and building

It is important to note that although neither had any experience of ‘design/build studios’ as students, Cosmo and Oscar describe the benefit of the act of making as a problem-solving device and as a way of learning about craft:

Cosmo: “The most useful experiences were the practical…projects…We had to build a model …a bridge out of straws that would support a brick. You had to really think about how things might stand up.”

West (2001) and Mackay-Lyons (2005) describe the pleasure and virtue of working with building materials or behaviourally analogous materials during the design process. This two-way dialogue between designer and object enables students to discover both possibilities and inherent weaknesses through grounded experimentation. A drawing will never refuse to ‘stand up’ (Cosmo), an object might. When working with the building materials themselves, students can learn about:

• structural possibilities;

• scale;

• assembly sequence;

• sculptural possibilities;

• the sensory qualities of the materials themselves (Carpenter 1997, West 2001).

Learning construction effectively by ‘thinking and making’

Albers (in Mackay-Lyons 2005, p208) endorses the value of working with live materials, questioning whether ‘being creative is perhaps not the desire to do something, but listening to that which wants to be done, the dictation of the materials’. By working with the materials themselves rather than approximations of the materials or drawings, which have few of the same qualities, it is anticipated that students should discover new possibilities through playful experimentation.

Johnson (2007) describes the importance of ‘delight’ in the creative process. Students are able to experience the ‘haptic pleasure and stimulation of manipulating various materials’ (West 2001, p151), as they move between the states of physical discovery and thoughtful reflection. Thus, function and aesthetics, analysis and intuition are merged in the reflective manipulation of the object.

Touch, making, emotion and reciprocity

Both the interviewees and the content of the literature emphasise the combination of pleasure, aesthetics and practicability present whilst making or building. The act of making constitutes a type of exploratory analysis or problem solving technique for Oscar and Cosmo. However, it also provides a way of assessing the object's sensual and sensory characteristics:

Tanya: “You have to have theory, but going; seeing; touching; using your senses… I had to be there and see and realise.”

Direct contact with the materials themselves facilitates an accurate understanding of their properties and relational character, but it also engages Tanya in a closer identification with them. This is confirmed in the literature. For example, Sennet (2008), O'Neill (2001), Johnson (2007) and Pallasmaa (2009) suggest that by manipulating an object, using movement and touch (the haptic senses) one enters into a direct and dynamic interaction that engages both intellect and emotion. In the same vein, touch, identification and emotion are implicated in both the designer's and the user's experience of a building and its materials. Therefore, students cannot clearly understand the emotional impact of a design on the user without access to physical contact with buildings and building materials.

Sennet (2008, p120) specifically suggests that ‘we become particularly interested in the things we can change’, suggesting that ‘the conscious intent guiding the fingertip…is pro-active as well as reactive’ (p152). These characteristics of the sense of touch could account, in part, for the sense of connectedness with which it is associated. Its proximity also suggests a more intense and immediate emotional connection than that created by sight or sound. ‘If you touch a hot stove, your whole body goes into sudden trauma whereas a painful sight can be instantly diminished by shutting your eyes’ (Sennet 2008, p152). The inherent reciprocity of touch affirms both the effectiveness of manipulation and ‘making’ as a way of testing ideas and receiving feedback, but also the impact touch has on our emotional response to our surroundings.

In a related fashion, Stern's (1985) work on infant development identifies the emotional associations of gesture. As a baby reaches out to grasp an object, or attempts to roll over, they feel a growing tension which is accompanied by a rush of adrenaline which signals pleasure or some other emotion. This early association between movement and emotion impacts on the way in which we relate to all our sensory experience. Whilst listening to music, for example, we enter into its rhythm and motion, experiencing its tension in our ‘tactile-kinaesthetic bodies’, as it ‘moves, swells, hops, rushes, floats, trips along, drags, soars and falls' (Johnson 2007, p95). So, the haptic experiences of making models and experiencing buildings first hand provide students with emotionally engaging opportunities to test the qualities of their designs and of the environment. Without these experiences, students cannot engage fully in the ‘active experimentation’ and ‘concrete experience’ which Kolb (1984) claims are important to learning. Furthermore, touch is an important way of testing the emotional and sensory timbre that places and materials might hold for the user.

Types and benefits of design/build studios

One of the most intense ways of engaging students in making is through design/build studios (design projects which incorporate the act of building). Full scale design/build studios, such as those described by Carpenter (1997) supply students with social as well as construction related benefits. Design/build studios can provide:

• collaboration with craftspeople and engineers;

• experience and confidence on building sites;

• understanding of the characteristics of ‘real’ building materials;

• understanding of the sequence of assembly;

• direct exploratory experience of materials, detailing and building processes;

• opportunities for inventiveness that are informed by financial constraints and the materials themselves.

However, making and building are not limited to full scale design/build studios. West (2001), Viscardi (2004), Erdman & Weddle (2002), Carpenter (1997) describe innovative design projects which integrate similar experiences on a smaller scale within the design studio and workshop environment. Projects such as these can provide students with more frequent and affordable experiences of some of the benefits of building and/or making. These examples include:

• design experimentation using model making materials which are behaviourally analogous to the building material;

• exploration of details at life size using the final building material with a focus on the relationship between detail and design, part and whole;

• design and construction of objects which explore the properties of particular materials.

The essential ingredients of these examples could be practically reinvented and applied to a diverse range of student design projects.

Senses, observation and response to place

Merleau Ponty (1962) asserts that our experience of the world of people, ideas and actions is directed through the sensory meeting of our bodies with the physical environment. He suggests that our sensory capabilities are implicated in our ability to make sense of the physical, inhabitable world around us. This perceptual process facilitates both a rational understanding of, and an instinctual affinity with, that which is perceived. If perceptual skills are essential to designers, then an exploration of the way in which these skills are learned and reinforced should prove useful to teachers and students of design.

Moreover, O'Neill (2001), Pallasmaa (2005, 2009) suggest that architects should be able to design for the fact that users experience buildings with all their senses. The varied qualities of the senses described in this discussion suggest learning modes which acknowledge sensory interconnectedness whilst varying the focus between senses. Such learning modes could potentially develop the student's sensory acuity. Educational experiences, such as site visits, field trips, site analysis (for design) as well as events in the classroom, could be designed to maximise students' ability and desire to use their senses and perceive their surroundings.

Characteristics of the senses

Critically, Auer (2008), Pallasmaa (2005) and Merleau Ponty (1962) claim that the use of the five senses in concert connect the observer to the stimulus. The observer becomes part of the stimulus's world and it stirs them at an instinctual level (Merleau Ponty 1962). During site visits, Auer (2008) encourages environmental science students to smell plants, listen to bird song and feel the texture of a leaf. The use of all of their five senses enables the students to identify with their surroundings on an emotional level as well as on a rational level, to feel that they are part of the natural environment, thus correcting a ‘subject/object way of understanding the environment’ (Auer 2008, p11).

The literature reviewed suggests that the experience of the observer has characteristic qualities when specific senses are emphasised. Notably then:

• hearing, smell and peripheral vision imply being part of the stimulus and receiving information from it. They are reactive (Pallasmaa 2005).

• touch and movement are directly engaged, both proactively and reactively (Sennet 2008).

• frontal vision implies separateness, conscious awareness and choice regarding engagement. It is proactive, analytical and distancing in tendency (Pallasmaa 2005).

Figure 3 summarises these points, suggesting the changing relationship which may occur between the student designer and the object or place that they experience when employing specific senses.

Figure 3 Sense and sensor's relationship to stimuli.

Reinforcing the perceptual learning process

During site visits, students tend to be inundated with sensory information. Some of the qualities and functions of perceptual learning as described by Gibson (1969), could potentially inform the way in which site events and assignments might be structured to optimise students' understanding.

Naming and re-producing

Gibson (1969) describes the order in which our senses perceive, differentiate and then define new objects thus:

1. We pick out or differentiate relevant clues (patterns and objects) from a plethora of sensory input.

2. We recognise and formulate an understanding of the distinguishing features of the phenomena or object.

3. This initial conceptual recognition can be reinforced by the parallel processes of naming and producing.

4. Naming: As we name and describe this object, we reinforce and clarify our perception of its most essential features.

5. [Re] producing: As we attempt to [re]produce the object whilst drawing or making, we are forced to examine and reinforce our understanding of its essential structural relationships.

This description of the body's recognition processes reinforces the importance of the activities of both ‘naming’ and ‘reproducing’ during field events.

‘Naming’ clarifies and defines our experiences at a number of levels. Wright (2005) describes the powerful role of language (and naming) as a vehicle for making sense of, and therefore acquiring some measure of useful control of, our experiences and surroundings. ‘The identification of this experience in this and other pieces of writing helped me, at the time, to ‘name’ and ‘feel’ the depth of the impact of these events' (Wright 2005, p86).

The process of naming reinforces the depth and meaning of our experience, augmenting and defining our response to our surroundings. ‘Naming’ can also be used as a way of sharpening our conscious connection to our senses. For example, Augusto Boal trains performers to ‘feel what they touch’, ‘listen to what they hear’ and ‘see what they look at’, ‘bringing heightened consciousness to these actions’ (Boal 1992 in Wright 2005, p90).

Sketching (re-producing) to support understanding and analysis

One of the simplest and quickest ways of ‘reproducing’ an object or place is to sketch it. Accented drawings such as quick ‘conceptual’ or ‘thumbnail’ sketches, emphasise the essential features and relationships in an object. Surprisingly, experiments have found that an accented drawing, such as a caricature or sketch, is more immediately recognisable than the real object or photograph (Gibson 1969).

The act of sketching or drawing exploits frontal vision and (to a more limited extent) touch. Frontal vision suggests an emotional distance (Pallasmaa 2005) between the original stimulus and the designer which can provide some impartiality, thus facilitating clarity and definition

In summary, when encountering an element or place for the first time, students' perceptual learning can be facilitated by (re) producing its structural relationships; by ‘naming’/describing both the object/place and the sensory process used by the student and by using representation types that ease recognition such as sketches and physical objects.

Observing place (combining sense and analysis)

Salama (2006) suggests that architects should not merely appreciate their environment; they should also question and understand the contexts into which they will design. Cosmo uses observation and analysis as a way of learning about buildings. Sarah uses both sensory appreciation and analytical engagement with place to inform her designs:

Sarah (design process): “Well the first thing I'd do, I suppose is I'd absorb myself in the site…and I'd do a really good site analysis.”

Critical analysis of the natural and built environment has been present within formal architectural education since its inception in the eighteenth century (Cunningham 2005). Mather Auer (2008) circumnavigates a surface approach to ‘field’ learning experiences by encouraging students to engage in analysis through a search for evidence of causal relationships in the locations that they visit: ‘In the field, deep learning occurs when students ask, after each encounter with nature, “How did this state of nature come to be?” and “On what basis can I rule out other explanations for what I am observing”’ (2008, p10).

Moreover, Salama (2006, p79) argues that many architectural programmes expect students to accept ‘readymade interpretations about buildings and built environments’. He suggests that students who have conducted first hand evaluation research of the built environment, are more likely to think critically in practice before making decisions which change that environment.

The findings of this study advocate analysis both whilst learning from one's environment, but also in order to be able to apply underlying principles to the construction within one's design. Alice and Kelly suggest that in order to resolve a design or construction related problem, the designer must understand it in terms of the fundamental principles that govern it:

Alice: “Architecture is so broad that I don't think that it is possible to absorb it all…We were taught standard details without any thinking about why these details are there…The really simple concepts…like follow a drop of water. Where does it go? Follow it when there's a horizontal wind.”

Kelly: “The analysis [sic] skills…like, look and see what you are looking for, understand the principles behind the detail and see what you can take from that.”

Taken together, the primary data and literature confirm that both the observation of the environment and the design process can be augmented by an active analysis of both present and potential causal relationships (Salama 2006, Auer 2008) and that design and construction require understanding and application of fundamental principles (Alice, Kelly). The importance of this critical engagement with the environment outside the college grounds invites consideration as to how analysis and ‘the senses’ might be exploited within student field events and design projects.

Common properties of positive learning experiences

This section amalgamates some of the key concepts and beneficial practices which emerged in the primary data, the literature and the discussion.

Utilising analysis and the senses

Design synthesises the divergent demands of physics, function and human wellbeing (Worthington 2006). The literature suggests that the five senses can increase students' emotional engagement with their surroundings and that analysis can deepen that engagement. It is not surprising then that the positive experiences described by the participants should incorporate both sensory and analytical engagement. Both aspects are utilised iteratively whilst learning from objects and environment and applying construction to their individual designs (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 Utilising sense and analysis.

Tailoring sense to learning activity

An awareness of the characteristics of the senses and the way in which they each influence our relationship to design, object and place can potentially help students to choose activities which will enhance the needs of the moment.

1. Activities that exploit all five senses in concert can bring the designer into a stronger relationship with the object or place, both emotionally and analytically.

2. Activities which exploit kinaesthetic and tactile experience in the act of making and manipulating forge a direct, exploratory connection between object and designer. The object has a louder voice than that of a drawing, as its substance can reveal rather than simply represent possibilities. Again, the exchange incorporates elements of both emotional connection and analytical investigation.

3. Activities, such as sketching which exploit frontal vision, clarify and define. There is distance between the object and the designer which facilitates analysis.

Tailoring activity to the design cycle

There are stages that occur whilst designing, drawing, making or conducting a site analysis that might benefit from conscious exploitation of the senses and analysis. If the process of these activities is viewed as cyclical, moving between experience, reflective observation, conceptualisation and experimentation, it is possible to link helpful actions to specific parts of this cycle.

An awareness of the notion that some senses align more naturally with emotion or intellect, subjective or objective response, can enable the student to exploit specific types of sensory response, whilst testing a place or design. The functions of ‘naming’ and ‘reproducing’ can strengthen students' observations whilst honing their designs or analysing the environment. In a similar vein, the findings and discussion identified two useful analytical processes. One is naturally linked to observation (the analysis of causal relationships in an object or environment). The other occurs at the point of action (the application of fundamental principles).

Figure 5 proposes points in the design or learning cycle that it might be useful for students to heighten their sensory awareness and question their responses to an object or place under observation. Further, in accentuating a constructive interplay between making and thinking, Figure 5 provides some non-prescriptive suggestions for alignments between certain analytical and sensory activities. These were identified during the study and can be mapped against specific phases of the learning/design cycle.

Figure 5 Matching sensory and analytical activities to the design/learning cycle.

Conclusion

This study sought to address the perceived gap between learning inside and outside of college. In particular, it sought to address the challenge of making construction ‘more real’ to students of the built environment. The architects interviewed in this study identified building, making and direct observation of the environment as the most effective and engaging methods of learning about construction. Those participants without this direct experience of building struggled to engage with construction at college. The study findings suggest that direct physical experience of objects and places can provide students with a closer emotional connection to the built environment as well as an accurate and exploratory understanding of material qualities, light, scale and construction sequence. The primary data confirms the work of Carpenter (1997), Mackay-Lyons (2005) and West (2001) for example, who suggest that the act of making or prototyping with building materials or behavioural analogues can provide feedback during the design process which facilitates experimentation and innovation.

The findings suggest that the ‘site’ and the built environment are the richest and most reliable source of physical information for students, highlighting the need for students to hone their sensory and perceptual skills as well as their analytical skills in order to exploit this resource more effectively. Thus, an understanding of humans' relationship with their senses and the mechanisms of perceptual learning should enhance the students' approach to both design and learning activities.

Building on the work of Gureckas (1997) and Kolb (1984), this paper develops the argument that learning and designing are cyclical, oscillating between varied states. The framework proposed in Figure 5 is limited to the concepts which emerged during this study, suggesting a need for further testing and input. However, it does propose that a deliberate engagement with sense, perception and analysis can enhance all stages of this learning/design cycle.

Finally, in terms of educational practice, the findings suggest that a closer conscious connection between the virtual world of the student and the real world of objects, buildings and places can improve the confidence, creativity and enjoyment with which students engage with their surroundings, construction and design.