A proposal for a computational design and ecology based approach to architectural design studio

Using computational design methods, this study aims to analyze the effects of an integrated design process model on the ecological awareness of architectural students, and on their ability to incorporate ecological issues in their design work. To this end, two studies have been carried out. The first one involves a survey about how ecology-related and computational design courses complement the architectural design studio at different universities in Turkey. The second one, which is the main study of this paper, presents the results of an ecology-based computational design workshop. According to the results of the first study, computer-based design courses in Turkey usually lack the dimension of “computational thinking”, focusing only on computer-aided design tools. Moreover, we have also found out that ecology courses in Turkish architectural education are mostly elective, and hence, have only very indirect connection to the architectural design studio. In the second study, we have demonstrated how incorporating computational thinking into the design process increase students’ awareness of the ecological dimension and their ability to make this dimension an integral part of their projects. The paper concludes by elaborating on the importance of computational methods in architectural education.