Design Studio Learning Environment Research

November 14, 2014 9:00 AM

Studio-based design education is changing to include multidisciplinary design teams, geographically distributed teams, information technology, and new work styles. In this research, we describe the graduate design studio redesign in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. The old graduate studio went from a single room design studio to four interconnected spaces: an area with individual workspaces, collaborative spaces, a kitchen and social cafe area, and a classroom with distance learning technology.

  • Study 1 indicates student satisfaction significantly improved. However, open-ended survey comments suggest that functional needs were met, but some pleasure-related and emotional needs linked to habitation were problematic.
  • Study 2 explores ownership, personalization, aesthetics, function, acoustics, upkeep, and agency in the four connected studio spaces (i.e., individual workspaces, collaborative spaces kitchen and social cafe area, the distance learning classroom). Research methods included an online survey and desk interviews.
  • Study 3 determines student occupancy levels in the design studio spaces via a time-lapse study. One picture is taken every minute to determine where students work in the four interconnected spaces.

Key findings include: (a) users evaluated studio spaces holistically based on functionality, emotional response, and pleasure; (b) owned spaces differed significantly from shared spaces; (c) individual work and collaboration work occurred throughout the studio (e.g., collaboration in quiet individual workspaces, and individual work in loud collaboration spaces). The research approach above informs the study of IDEATE studio-learning spaces.

Principal Contact

Peter Scupelli, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in IxD
School of Design
scupelli@cmu.edu

Research Team

Bruce Hanington
Associate Professor & Head of Graduate Studies
School of Design

Andrea Fineman
Graduate Research Assistant
School of Design

Xiaowei Jiang
Graduate Research Assistant
School of Design

Frances Yin Wang
Graduate Research Assistant
School of Design

Last updated: 9:00 am