Connotations in Architectural Design Education

Aye Zeynep Aydemir, Research Assistant, Istanbul Technical University

Abstract
The paper lean on one broad question: how, in the paradigm of relational
networks and emergence, the domain of architecture alters its content and
production with the situations constructed by 'connotations'? Then it focuses its
inquiry on the use of connotations during design operations in order to discover
the emergence of new ideas in the studio. Opposing the scarcity of ideas during
the design act as well as the reductive and generic approaches during the
process, the paper investigates new ways of looking at architectural education
through a series of studio experiments of a first year undergraduate
Architectural Design studio called 'Otherminds'. The studio experiments are
parts of separate design tasks that are assigned in different times. In particular,
the initial aim will be to discover the realm of significance through relationality
of material and immaterial tools what could be termed 'connotations' which
have tacit impact within the complex and unpredictable occurrence of design as
a part of architectural education.
Keywords: Connotations, Situation Design, Flow, Architectural Education,
Experimental Design
Introduction
The design studio and the studio culture is the heart of architecture school.
As Ockman stated, architecture school is the place where the future field of
architecture, in all its disciplinary and professionally cognates, is collectively
constituted (Ockman, 2012). This constitution will be held in situ by
experiments of connotations with specific situations for the future of
architecture. At this point, the collectivity should be considered as one of the
key terms for the experiments, and there are many others. Themes,
instruments, interfaces, participants, scale, medium, working space, narrations,
spontaneous interventions and unexpected inputs/outputs are some of them,
and they represent the connotations that will trigger the specific situations of
design operations during the experiments. These key terms may lead a design
of a structure for rethinking the experiments and their cognates.
There are many approaches examined on rethinking architectural design
education up to date. Within a non-linear history, Bauhaus was one of the
pioneers of new configurations in architectural education. The Bauhaus marked
its image with an utopian definition of 'building the future' under the motto of
'art and technology - the new unity'(url-1). Later on, Feigenberg stated that
architectural education should not focus on students' retention of facts and
formulas, but rather on the enhancement of their ability to think critically and
to learn how to learn (Feigenberg, 1991). He also indicated the mutual
understanding and respect are primary conditions for any kind of relationship.
In addition to this, trust is one of the basic conditions in architectural education.
Likewise, Mark Wigley refers to trust in his dean statement of Columbia GSAPP

with his words, 'by trusting the student to see, think, and do things that we
cannot, the growth of something that cannot be seen yet is supported with an
emergent sensibility' (url-2). It is clear that new ideas lead the field to multiple,
critical, student-oriented and open-ended level. At this point, the notion of
connotation act as a key point for a cognitive design operation within the
participants of the studio. Within this research, the notion of connotation will
be used as a tool for investigating prospective understanding in architectural
design education.
Connotations
Today, architecture is perceived as a totality of very complex sequences of
actions and performances.
The architect, or any other architectural producer, creates material
conditions in which the decision of whether architecture is immaterial, can be
made (Hill, 2006). The immaterial condition of architecture necessitates
elaborate attitudes. Over the course of this creation, new attitudes emerge
during the acts and performances from the fragments to the whole, within a
very complex network of relations, rather than the limited interaction and
materiality of the built product of architecture and user habits. One of the
significant approach that is now being considered is 'chance' as a new focus in
approaching to immateriality of architecture. Design is a live event, an
experienced reality, an embodied activity happening in the present, not
separate from living and is therefore implicated in the realm of chance
(Manolopoulou, 2013). Moreover, associative and imaginative characteristics of
living state, therefore performative design activity, would also relate with the
concept of 'connotation' which is included in the realm of chance.
The activities in the design studio, the design problem, objects, people,
moving and stable images, texts, ideas, emotions, memories, phases, moments
and many others trigger relevantly or irrelevantly the thinking, meaning and
making based on connotations and stimulate the design action. The design
process is multidimensional; it bears energy and is fed by intellectual curiosity.
It is not a 'black box' as defined in the seventies but a 'black hole' where all
kinds of information and energy is sucked in and unpredictable designs are
created (Yurekli, 2004). Connotations are the flow of information and energy,
the flow of thinking within 'a black hole' in the broadest sense. The human body
is capable of hundreds of separate functions and to each of these there
correspond flow experiences; the body does not produce flow merely by its
movements, the mind is always involved as well (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
Annotations or denotations may interrupt this flow, so they can be avoided or
limited to a certain degree. Thus, connotations relate with architecture as
creators of intensities and uncertainties that come up with situations and
events and are fulfilled by the environment of relationships.
The design operations developed within connotations in the studio is
neither related to formal curriculum of orthodox pedagogies nor to a hidden
curriculum. The orthodox pedagogies employed in the studio is marked by
serious flaws, such as the legitimation of hierarchical social relations, the

choking of dialogue, and the sanctioning of the individual consumption of

'acceptable' knowledge in a competitive milieu (Dutton, 1991). On the other
hand, the hidden curriculum suggested by Thomas A. Dutton, allows the
instructors of the studio to interpret the relationship between knowledge and
power (Dutton, 1991). Yet, the design situations emerging within the relations
of connotations do not narrow its focus on the relevance of knowledge of
power, but seek for new operations and strategies in order to discover the
unknown and unintended.
According to Schn, designer makes things, his making process is complex
and there are more variables that can be represented in a finite model. Because
of this complexity, the designer's moves tend to produce consequences other
than those intended. He shapes the situation, the situation 'talks back', and he
responds to the situation's back-talk (Schn, 1983). Connotations trigger these
reflective actions from the beginning of the design process. The unintended
consequences of connotational way of thinking and being unaware of
prospective relations of variables during the design performance allow new
reflections and series of actions which open new doors of creation.
Architects' conception for their role in architectural production is revealed in
the role they ascribe to the user (Hill, 2003). The user might be passive, reactive
or creative during their encounters with the architectural product. Similarly, in
the design studio, participants have subjectivity stages during their design
operations. They might get involved in design situations in lieu of someone or
something else. How the participants of the design act interact with the design
question depends on these subjectivity stages during the encounters with the
connotational situations. However the subjectivity stages are also unstable
within the emergence of shifting distances. Lacan defined the mirror stage of
the subject position that the transformation takes place in the subject when he
assumes an image (Lacan, 2006). From this perspective, the subjectivity stages
of the participants transform during the encounters with connotations in the
studio whether they perform on behalf of themselves or any other role they act
a part. Actually, the participants of the studio are not separated from the flow
of connotations, but they are one or many of them instead.
The evoking of the design situation is a matter of surprise. As it is indicated
by Ernst Bloch, something is uncanny, that how it begins. But at the same time,
one must search for that remoter 'something', which is already close at hand
(Bloch, 1980). Although Bloch refers to a detective novel, the design operation
also proceeds in search for a mystery. It evolves in between the uncanny and
the familiar within unexpected relation of connotations. He also underlines that
a hidden 'who' is in demand, but when it is told as a story it is not highly
regarded (Bloch, 1980). In that case, a told story which might refer to
denotations and annotations, or a clear definition of a design operation, would
remove the mystery, therefore, the surprise; but instead an uncanny ground of
connotations would evoke the undiscovered.
Connotations are neither a part of a lexicon, nor can be fully indexed.
Because they are infinite. In this respect, every material and immaterial
situation may contribute to the studio as connotations. Connotations are not

about trends or uncritically accepted received ideas, but about everything that
can be stimulated. That is why the design studio should be inclusive and active.
The structure of the design studio that is fed by multiplicities of
connotations is the ideal setting for discovering the performative dynamics of
architecture. Today, many components that triggers the material and
immaterial conditions of architecture, are instrumentalised, however, the
necessity of feeding the flow by these components and more, without an
interruption, indicates an open-ended field of experiment. The paper will be
constructed on this field of experiment through a series of design experiments
within different tasks of 'Otherminds' which is an undergraduate first year
architectural design studio.
Studio experiments
In order to understand the connotational way of thinking profoundly,
presenting studio experiments would be explanatory. Three cases of
experiments within three different studio tasks will be discussed within the
frame of connotations. The studio tasks are realised within 'Otherminds' studio
in Spring semester of 2013. The studio tasks are The Gaze, Places of Curiosity
and Wetlands respectively. They are unlinked major design tasks assigned for
separate objectives within the Spring term, however 'Otherminds' planned and
discussed all the design tasks through broader contexts of 'otherness' and
'parallax view'. For giving an idea about the studio setup of 'Otherminds', it
should be indicated that it aimed to introduce students to the Field of
Otherness, in which they would design by continual as ifs and oscillations and
meet the other, precisely the unfamiliar, unexpected, unknown and
inexperienced (Alma, 2013). Thus, the studio of 'Otherminds' generated with
an intention of alternatively designed situations for as many encounters
possible.
1. The Gaze
The subject of the gaze was confronted both in the beginning and the
middle of the term. The opening design task was 'The Gaze', in which students
were assigned to gaze and to represent the topography, the scene, the wind,
the light, the sound in order to discover the things that transforms the gaze. It
was a one day task of discovery and perception. They were asked to gaze the
same place until the place changes. The representations, namely 'Diagrams of
Gaze', was for triggering new ideas as well as expressing how the gaze was
situated.
'The Gaze Machines of Field' was a three-week period design, production
and representation task of the semester which was also linked to the former
task of 'The Gaze'. The main concern of the design task was to explore the
potentiality of the view, the focus and the tool of intervention and produce new
scapes and scopes among them in collaboration with other studio participants
(Aydemir, Alma, 2014). The first step of the task was the field, which was a
physical, topological, existential, intuitional and instrumental investigation of
the study area. The second step was the gaze, which was building the context

and all the necessary and possible interconnections and interpenetrations

between the subject, the design object and the field. The third step was the
machine, which was requiring and involving the design and the production of
the one-to-one scale gazing machines. Machines were placed in the field and
exhibited for several weeks. After all these steps, students were asked to
prepare a section of the project including the view, the viewer, the machine,
the field and the transformation of the viewer and the view during their
interrelation with the machine. The content of the sections were related four
main focus of the assignment: positioning the body, functioning the
mechanism, dealing with the place and transforming the gaze (Figure 1).
The former task, 'The Gaze', was an inception of the idea of transforming
the view, approaching the familiar in an unfamiliar way. Within the
connotations of The Gaze task, students designed and produced their new
assignment in an unfamiliar and unpredictable way of their own.

Figure 1. Section of a Gaze Machine

2. Places of Curiosity
The first major design task of the semester was Places of Curiosity. It was a
three weeks task and the main motivation of it was for students to encounter
with many possibilities and probabilities of places and to comprehend the close
relationship with topography and architecture (Alma, Aydemir, 2014). Within
three different narrations -namely End, Passages and Core- of the same place
but different experiences, students imagined their connotational topographies
and created them with their places of curiosities.
In this architectural design task the experiences, feelings and embodiment
of place were more important than a building program. The task needed

students to design both the topographical context and architectural concept

within (Alma, Aydemir, 2014). The only brief of the assignment was the written
depictions of 'End', 'Passages' and 'Core' experiences of different authors. These
narrations triggered the imagination and mental background of the students
and created a flow experience for design. Within all the feelings and
experiences they worked on possibilities of topographies and places of curiosity
that would blend with the topography (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Places of Curiosity

Source: Altuner, 2013.
3. Wetlands
Wetlands was the final design task including a field trip for reconciling the
gap between laboratory-like studio setting and the everyday life. Six week long
Wetlands project, which aimed to get into the natures mind by merging
topophilic manners with the designing act while facing real problems, was
the last and final leg of discovering the others mind (Kknar et al. , 2013). The
assignment was a multitask. There were many objectives within the assignment
like, confronting real problems in an unfamiliar setting, working as a team with
different scales, collecting information, transferring and representing
knowledge, realizing the tacit and the codified, approaching a land responsively,
developing strategies and proposals for an ecology etc. Basically, the students
were discovering the nature's mind. Besides being nature, many inputs were
integrated to research phase, such as, a seminar about local ecology,

collaboration with local university students, spending time for exploring the
sites, collecting samples, sketching with observation and memories and so on.
For accomplishing the objectives, triggers were designed as minor
assignments. Micro studies was one of those triggers. Students were asked to
collect smallest things that are characteristically connected to the site; such as
seed, leaves, flakes like a botanist; eggs, bugs, small animals lie a zoologist;
pieces of rocks, sand grains, soil samples like a geologist (Kknar et al., 2013).
The assignment to collect small things shifted their attention from the human
scale to micro scale, coercing them to realize and observe realms beyond
human scale. The shift connects you to the place on a different level opening
the possibility to understand extended consequences of human intervention to
the ecosystem, repositioning human body on larger context (Kknar, 2013).

Figure 3. Enlarged micro samples.

Source: Kknar, 2013.
Enlarged micro samples within diapositive frames was inspiring (Figure 3).
The abstracted images of real samples belonging to the land triggered many
ideas with unpredictable connotations. Some of the students used these images
directly to connect their ideas and the land (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Sketches from micro samples.

Source: Kknar, 2013.
Conclusion
Architectural studio experiments of 'Otherminds' presented in this paper are
exemplary cases for alternatively designed situations which are assigned as
studio tasks. These alternations are generated by intensities, uncertainties,
reflective actions, transforming subjectivity stages , inclusiveness, dynamism,
the flow of ideas, in other words, the connotations. In this context, it is
observed that material and immaterial inputs, without any notations, trigger
and stimulate the design operations and the flow of ideas with connotations.
These inputs should be improved and altered by varieties of initiators,
motivators or stimulators like narrations, depictions, scenes, sounds, frames,
micro samples, macro knowledge, living things, objects and many other things
seem relevant or irrelevant.
Different situations causes different subjectivities and motivations; they
increase the design activity. Besides alternative design tasks, micro
assignments, during the design activities, are also triggering unpredictable
outputs. Inceptions of pre-works enlarges the perception of the design tasks
and work as connotations afterwards. Narrations that does not describe any
way of making but depict experiences as design briefs, inspire the students and
allow them to split from their own subjectivities and engage in design activities.
These investigations associate with several matters to be explored profoundly
in future. Performing experiments with the notion of connotation through new
production tools of design operations and develop new understandings and
approaches on design and design education; understanding how connotations
trigger the emergence of design operations within the immanence of fragments
and moments; and lastly exploring how these operations and knowledge will
relate the domain of architecture are some of these matters. As is seen, for the
future of architectural design, open-ended studio experiments are vital and
should be altered.

Acknowledgement
This paper is based on the PhD proposal of 'Connotations in Architectural
Design Education' supervised by Prof. Dr. Arzu Erdem. The design cases were
carried out by Other Minds, a team of the lecturers of the first year
undergraduate architectural design studio in Istanbul Technical University. The
Other Minds studio program designed and tutored by Assist.Prof.Dr. Sait Ali
Kknar, Dr. Burin Krtnc, Res. Assit. Bihter Alma and Res. Assist. A. Zeynep
Aydemir during 2012-2013 academic year. The author would like to thank
Prof.Dr. Arzu Erdem, Other Minds and students.
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