Sustainability of Distance Education in Applied Courses: The Case Study of Architecture Departments, Turkey

Abstract

Since the 1990s, some studies have been carried out to ensure that distance architectural education can be maintained. However, these studies mostly remained for the design studio and the theoretical part of the education. In practical courses, there is a tendency to continue on the face-to-face education model in architectural education in the worldwide. In the critiques of the design courses, the students present their project drafts to the instructor, and the critique of the student is completed at the end of a critical process in which the instructor makes revision proposals. In technical courses, the course instructors give students information in certain ways, and it is aimed to reinforce the technique by asking students to do the drawing by themselves. Due to the COVID-19, architectural education had to move all courses online. The practical courses have started to take place through various meeting applications synchronically. As the conditions return to normal, the continuation of the distance education system partially or completely is related to the sustainability of distance education in the practical courses of the architectural education. This issue will closely affect the next process of architectural education. In this context, it is important to determine the advantages, disadvantages, threats and opportunities of distance education in architectural education, its deficiencies or aspects that can be improved, and to examine various infrastructure competencies. Under these conditions, in this study, architecture students and the instructors have been asked with semi-structured questionnaires, in architectural education at universities in Turkey to investigate the viability of distance education in practical courses.

Keywords

• covid-19
• sustainability in education
• distance education in architecture
• practical courses