Comprehending the Psychosocial Characteristics of Space through an Elective Course: The Experience of the Body and Cognitive Mapping in Design Education

Abstract

Architectural studio courses are structured for students to comprehend an existing urban fabric with its physical and social components for the purpose of solving a specific design. In this context, as students develop their conceptual ideas, they are also expected to assume probable interactions that are supposed to occur between users and space. However, students often face with difficulties in embracing the space with its psychological, social and sensual dimensions and occasionally ignore these unseen parameters of space such as spatial perception, user needs, privacy, user satisfaction, and etc. In this regard, elective courses become essential in supporting the student's interdisciplinary comprehension of space. An elective course titled Spatial Perception and Cognition is structured with this intention to support the student’s interdisciplinary understanding of space both in theoretical and kinesthetic means. Thus, in the context of the course, the concept of space is not only introduced through theoretical seminars, but also through an experiential participation of the students themselves where they can actively perform daily activities by the guidance of a blind guide, in Dialog in the Dark which is a thematic dark environment where students experience various urban nodes through scent, sound, wind and texture. Upon completion of the experience, students are invited to a cognitive mapping session through which they reflected their spatial experiences grasped via their senses. In conclusion, cognitive maps show that when eyesight is eliminated, other senses also play a very important role in comprehending the sensual and psychological characteristics of space.