Experiential Learning

Definition

Experiential learning, in Smith's formulation, is "the physical experience of making and doing which translates thought into action" — the reassertion of physicality in teaching and learning through "embodying design concepts in physical, project-based work." Its mode combines "active experimentation, risk-taking, and reflective observation combined with abstract and conceptual thought and research"; phenomenology supplies the philosophical theory that "encapsulate[s] conceptual studio design," but "it is the experiential 'making by doing' which reinforces the practice of architecture." The preferred studio is "an intimate and experiential design studio which encourages the holistic engagement of body and mind as the integration of a psychosomatic partnership." Its condition is student initiative: "Experiential learning is most effective for students who are strongly motivated to learn. Students must take the initiative to generate their own learning through active engagement with teachers, the environment, and the opportunities and facilities available to them."

The concept names the studio's operative exercises: "Paper Play Things" (first-year pairs make "an attachment for the body using only paper," learning "the qualities of the material itself" under "a simple conceptual or developmental reason" — "a way to start the semester with a few hours of fun and play"); the detail-photography exercise on the foci "Body" and "interior" (which teaches that "we do not always see what we are looking at"); and "Blind drawing" (see blind-drawing). "These exercises can be applied at any year level as they establish the orientation of the studio early in the semester."

The concept carries the chapter's anti-digital pole: against "the headlong rush into formalizing and rationalizing human experiences through the strict linearity of computer programs and their seductive operational values" and the "addictive fascination with what happens on a screen to the neglect and detriment of hand drawing, model making, and other physical forms of material experimentation (exploration, the happy accident, and wonderment of the diverse influences)" — "A reemergence of a phenomenological and experiential approach to learning, therefore, shifts students to focus on acts of the body existing in reality."

Carley's chapter adds a practice-based-enquiry complement: the studio where "students are encouraged to test new ideas, explore new modes of design representation, and develop critical thinking skills through practice-based research" — learning by constraint-testing rather than by perception-refinement. Her twenty-five-model iterative exercise is the register's concrete form: "a series of twenty-five models as part of an iterative model-making exercise used to construct a series of hybrid forms," all generated from three initial concept models (research question, site/context position, design detail from research) — "This exercise brought together disparate aspects of their design research to create conceptual and formal connections between them." Where Smith's experiential learning refines the body's perception, Carley's iterates the system's combinations (voluntary-constraints) — the same learning-by-making, driven by procedure.

Key Thinkers

• Ross T. Smith — the concept's studio form: "making by doing"; the psychosomatic partnership; the three named exercises; the risk-taking and "happy accident" as method; the anti-screen pole.
• Juhani Pallasmaa — the quoted warrant: "The duty of education is to cultivate and support the human abilities of imagination and empathy… The main object of artistic education is not the principles of making art, but the personality of the students and their image of themselves and the world" ("Lived Space," 2002).
• Botond Bognar — the disciplinary frame (see log): architecture "guides and creates the person-environment relationship" ("A Phenomenological Approach to Architecture and Its Teaching in the Design Studio," 1985) — the design studio as where that relationship is shaped.
• (Unnamed genealogical kin — see log: the learning-by-doing tradition, constructivist learning theory in the education sense.)

Related Concepts

• Design Studio Pedagogy — the institutional frame: experiential learning as the studio's method, design-studio pedagogy as its structure and aims.
• Phenomenography — the recording side: "the outcomes of learning by doing as things which materialized and can be seen, discussed, and reflected upon."
• Praxis — the concept's practice-theory cousin: experiential learning "translates thought into action," the same thought-to-action bridge praxis theorizes critically.
• Blind Drawing — the concept's emblematic exercise and "significant turning point in the studio."
• Embodiment — the philosophical ground: the body as knowing entity; "acts of the body existing in reality."

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Design studio through the subtle revelations of phenomenology (Smith 2018) — the concept's source: the definition ("the physical experience of making and doing which translates thought into action"); the mode combination (active experimentation, risk-taking, reflective observation); the psychosomatic partnership; the three exercises; the anti-digital pole; "Life is a messy business; we do not live in a world of perfections and absolutes – it is one of errors and humorous mistakes."

• Puzzle (Carley 2018) — the practice-based-enquiry complement: "students are encouraged to test new ideas, explore new modes of design representation, and develop critical thinking skills through practice-based research"; the twenty-five-model iterative exercise generating hybrid forms from three concept models. See voluntary-constraints, design-studio-pedagogy.

Open Questions

• Smith's mode list ("active experimentation, risk-taking, and reflective observation") closely parallels Kolb's experiential-learning cycle without naming it. Is the chapter's genealogy deliberately unspoken, and what would the studio gain (or lose) by making the constructivist/empiricist pedagogy literature explicit?
• The exercises train perception and material judgement on small problems ("Paper Play Things," a body attachment in paper). Smith's Bachelard warrant — "By solving small problems, we teach ourselves to solve large ones" — asserts the transfer. Is the transfer from body-attachment to interior architecture demonstrable, or does it rest on the psychosomatic partnership remaining unanalyzed?
• If "students must take the initiative to generate their own learning," how does the studio handle the unmotivated? The chapter presupposes motivation ("most effective for students who are strongly motivated") — is experiential learning a filter that selects for the already-attuned, and what happens to the students for whom the newly revealed world is "panic and insecurity" (see subtle-revelation)?