Enriching Learning Experience Through Multidisciplinary Design Education: Structure Proposal for a Landscape Design Course

Abstract

Design related fields are quite intricate and it is hard to define strict boundaries in between thesedisciplines which cause the necessity of collaboration. Especially during professional careers, designerswork in multidisciplinary environments where they need to develop responses collaboratively. However,undergraduate design education is being criticized for missing to fulfill this need. The aim of this paperis to discuss the role and benefits of multidisciplinary design education with the example of the coursenamed “An Introduction to Contemporary Architectural Landscaping”. As the methodology of thepaper, through deconstruction of the 3 parted course structure and analysis of student works, this paperanalyses the role of a multidisciplinary education on students’ learning experiences. First two parts ofthe course focus on technical aspects of landscape architecture discipline, and cultural, physiologicaland psychological effects of landscape projects for users. Last part of the course focus on creating aplatform for students to work in collaboration with other students to gain practical experience in designfield where they develop a landscape architecture project on sites from their near environments. Thereare three main findings of the study. Firstly, inclusion of students from different disciplines in the samecourse increases the success rate via cross-learning experiences. Secondly, during design education,having the chance of participation to courses from different disciplines help to broaden students’perspectives on problem solving during design phase. Finally, projects in environments that studentsexperience in their everyday life increase their success rates. Results of the study that is based on theoutcomes of the course that is conducted with the students of two different design departments indicatethat this course structure and projects that are designed can be a guide for other design courses to developa multidisciplinary course structure to include students from different disciplines, enrich their learningexperiences and success after graduation.