Since the recent COVID-19 quarantine restrictions were enforced, social media has been filled with images of employees working from home, students transitioning to home-school learning, and friends and family socializing via Skype calls and Zoom meetings. With the outpouring of tips for how to work from home, and how to keep a regular routine during these certain times, many people are questioning how to create a long term plan for online studio design instruction.
This article aims to provide some practical tips to schools and students around the globe based on our experience with online design studio teaching in our Master program at Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture since February.
Our studio is a 16-week long design studio that is broken up in two parts, an 8-week urban design component, and a 8-week green-building design task based on the output of the first 8 weeks. Consisting of a group of 17 students based in 15 countries on 6 continents, and 4 tutors based in Beijing, our studio set out to investigate the spatial impact of technology and a changing lifestyles in the modern city in the heart of Beijing.
