Adapting to Change: Emphasizing Holistic Architectural Design in Online Structure Courses through a Term-Long Assignment

ABSTRACT There is a dissociation of students towards structure courses which causes challenges in teaching these courses. Different teaching methods were proposed to highlight the holistic approach of architectural design and that structure was part of this process. But this challenging situation became a problem due to the global pandemic situation forcing schools and universities to leave traditional learning environment for an online-learning one. Structure courses which relied on a hands-on teaching method had to adapt to this new environment. This article proposes a term-long assignment given within the context of an online structure course that emphasizes the holistic approach of architectural design. The course content and details of the assignment are presented alongside students’ final works followed by an evaluation of the assignment with the results of an anonymous survey conducted with volunteering students. Finally, the outcome and further possible work are discussed allowing a view of the assignment that can be developed to further solidify the understanding of holistic architectural design within the context of a structure course.