An Approach to Effectively Teaching Structures to Architecture Students (with Emphasis on Content)

Structures effectively serve the art of architecture and architects must be able to create their works in ways that benefit from structure. In recent decades architecture moves with increasing acceleration towards a closer relationship with the structures and movements based on High Tech developed in this area. The main goal of these movements is the convergence of engineering and architecture. The architects such as Santiago Calatrava, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Frank Gehry in recent years, with the ability to use structural systems were able to design and implement structural buildings. In addition to these developments, architectural education has also changed a lot. The most important changes include the revision of the syllabi structural and qualitative and quantitative improvements in the Faculties of Architecture. Through these revisions, the modern theories of teaching and learning are used. New ideas about architectural education in recent years, in this case refers to an architectural structure which has changed significantly; therefore, the improvements in its education is required. This question raises here: what kind of knowledge is required, how it can be gained, and through which method it can be transferred to new professionals. In this context, and to change the course of studies, sustained efforts have been made for reshaping the structure of the educational process, examining accepted ideas, and seeking the views of the future. Necessary structure training for students of architecture, schools of architecture and major challenges faced with the process of preparing students for professional activity. Higher education system in Iran is now in a new phase after its long experience in the world. Bachelor and Master Courses have their own definitions at this system. Although the period of training professionals to learn a profession such as architecture is short, but with proper planning, the students after completing the course are the architects that after gaining experience in the labor market they will cause improving architecture but while many critics believe that architecture schools are educating students who are powerless in terms of technical architecture to do a lot of activities, including structural issues. Various methods which are in the field of education in many schools of architecture are structures used, for most students they seem inadequate and the students just looking to earn a passing grade in this course. Now the structure of educational structures, in particular for students of architecture seems inadequate. Training is done for traditional engineering methods based on this approach increasingly inefficient. The teaching of structures in architecture classes programs faces another vital problem. Understanding structures is fundamental in teaching to architecture, but the “content” that is now using are highly unsuitable for lots of architecture students. Many architecture teachers to effectively teach structures, using extremely quantitative and abstract teaching methods and materials copied completely from engineering programs that is highly inappropriate for the lots of architecture students. Architectural educational programs has been examined extensively over the last decade, with almost universal understanding that the nation’s universities are producing graduates who are technically not prepared for the professional architecture. Poor technical preparation is the result of some basic problems. First, the structures curriculum, teaching methods, and instructional tools are borrowed completely from engineering programs with some modification. The next, in most architecture programs the structures curriculum is taught separately from the remainder of the architecture courses. Structures instruction is rarely, if ever, fully integrated into the broader architecture curriculum. In particular, creative structural design and application is omitted from most architecture design studio courses. Improving the technical abilities of architecture graduates has several important ramifications for the practice of architecture and society as a whole. However, this research is concerning to the content of structure programs (theory and pedagogy) to better meet the architecture student’s needs and improve the understanding and application of basic structural engineering and technology principles. In this research we emphasis on transferring of learning because point of school learning is to be able to transfer what is learned in courses to professional architecture. To achieve these goals, the study is a survey research method (Delphi) and content analysis was used according to the study population. The results show that in formulating advanced architectural education, if you start teaching structures from the early architectural education and correcting the course in structures carried out, using teaching methods based on the principle of convergence of structures and architecture and with an emphasis on teaching non-abstract concepts to understand the structures, can improve structural architecture students.