Understanding the Verbal Concepts Appropriated by the Students in the Architectural Design Studio

The main aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the role of verbal concepts in the architectural design processes of the students in a studio context. To serve this purpose, we carried out a 15-week studio in an urban architectural masters design studio at KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture. We observed the use of verbal concepts in time during this studio and analyzed the design processes of the students based on their self-report logs on the studio web platform. Based on these, we conducted a statistic analysis and a network mapping study. We found that early concepts provide a starting point for developing fully-fledged specialized design ideas. Furthermore, a higher number of links between concepts indicated their importance during the process. In addition, the data collection and research methods proved to be reliable for mapping the design process of the students as well as revealing the evolution of the ideas in the studio.