SOURCES OF DESIGN INSPIRATION IN ARCHITECTURAL STUDIOS AT AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, NIGERIA
Abstract
The study was aimed at uncovering the trend in which undergraduate students of architecture at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria acquire design inspiration. A quantitative approach was adopted for the study, where data was collected from a total of 205 questionnaires and analysed using descriptive statistics in SPSS v.23. The study deduced that a significant ratio of the students often find it difficult to acquire design inspiration for their projects in the studio; however, it was also established that the frequency of such difficulty reduces significantly as they progress into the higher levels. The study gathered that influences of nature (69.3%) and functionality (53.7 %) are the most dominant sources of design inspiration for architecture students in ABU. Similarly, inspiration sources like arts (25%), culture (36.60%), and symbolism (41.80%) are gathered to cast more influence on the lower levels, while themes like sustainable design (44.43%) and technological innovations (37.33%) exert more influence on the higher levels. The study also revealed that social media (84.67%) and mainstream media have an overwhelming influence on architecture students within context, with affirmed traces of waning influences of books and magazines (27.07%) as secondary sources of design information. Although a review of the studio pedagogy in ABU has shown a substantial attempt to expose students to various sources of design inspiration within the curriculum, the paper nonetheless recommends that the students should be exposed to all the outlined avenues of expressing themselves without ambiguity or restrictions. Studies on ethical incorporation of the influences of the media must also be considered within the studio pedagogy to form part of the learning process in architecture education.
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