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The Graphics Instruction Methods Are Quite Instrumental
Browne, Mazzuca
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DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2025.12.005
Kennesaw State University, United States
This paper discusses the integration of graphic learning strategies and motivational issues for undergraduate architecture students learning of basic and introductory structures. Rethinking the topic’s instructional design addresses the need for improved appeal, relevance, and engagement in the technical course, integrating graphic methods (precisely scaled drawing) in the scaffolded learning of complex tasks, and summary application in a problem-based final design project. Students are tasked to manually employ scaled drawing skills to represent the attributes of forces: magnitude, orientation, and action lines. These are indispensable in establishing graphic proofs to construct cognitive linkages to the accompanying computations accurately. Precisely drawing a multi-force loop leads to a math literacy where equations are not disconnected cognitively, but are generated consequentially from the graphics. This complex skill allows a better learning of truss design and through the use of layered force-loops, aka Maxwell’s diagram. The problem-based final design project is initiated through analyses of selected case studies, constructing links between the graphic learning methods of structures exercises to recognized, built projects by well-known designers. Most importantly, through discussion, the case studies serve as learning bridges between the technical procedures in basic structures to the design and refinement of the projects’ formal shapes. The final project (a spanning structure, such as a bridge) is then design and analyzed by student teams, applying the learned skills in a critical-thinking setting. The graphics instruction methods are quite instrumental in the guided learning of complex tasks while the problem-based approach helps in motivating the students’ critical learning of structures, encouraging a deeper appreciation between form and forces. Pedagogically, while these instructional methods show some marginal improvements in learning performance, initial student responses point to better attitudes towards the subject matter. Further studies are recommended to verify the merit of the instructional strategies, and desired knowledge transfers to the design studio.
Architecture education, structures, graphics, learning strategies
Browne, Mazzuca. (2025). The Graphics Instruction Methods Are Quite Instrumental. Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, December 2025, Vol. 19, No. 12, 607-619.
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