Abstract

Collective housing design is a challenging theme in architecture design education, particularly for undergraduate students. Knowing and considering all interwoven layers of housing in design as well as addressing large-scale problems of a collective housing project simultaneously with small-scale issues are among the challenges of collective housing design education. This study focuses on house typology as an educational method to address those challenges. Through the experience of the third-year undergraduate students in architecture, the present study discusses in what way formal house typology is applied to a collective housing design studio pedagogy. To achieve the required results, the study deliberates the house typology-based assignments, their interactions, and outcomes. The outcomes show how the applied educational method in this experience influenced 1) the studio’s content via providing substantial knowledge and skills for each part of the design, as well as 2) the studio’s process in which moving back-and-forth through different scales gave students a coherent approach to design. This study indicates that this house typology-based pedagogy could, to a great extent, successfully lead undergraduate students through an enlightening and informative collective housing design process.