Teaching Design by Coding in Architecture
Undergraduate Education

Asli Agirbas
Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University, Istanbul
[email protected]

Computer-aided design has found its role in the undergraduate education of architects, and presently design by coding is also gradually finding further prominence in accord with the increasing demand by students who wish to learn more about this topic. This subject is included in an integrated manner in some studio courses on architecture design in some schools, or it is taught separately in elsewhere.

In terms of the separate course on coding, the principal difficulty is that actual applications of the method can rarely be included due to time limitations and the fact that it is conducted separately from the studio course on architecture. However, within the framework of the architectural education, in order to learn about the coding it is necessary to consider it along with the design process, and this versatile thinking can only be achieved by the application of the design.

In this study by Asli Agirbas an elective undergraduate course is considered in the context of design and to yield a versatile thinking strategy while learning the language of visual programming. The course progressed under the theoretical framework of shape grammar from the design stage through to the digital fabrication process, and the experimental studies were carried out on the selected topic of Islamic pattern. A method was proposed to improve the productivity of such courses, and an evaluation of the results is presented.