Post occupancy evaluation of a transformed design studio

Abstract

The decision-makers choices regarding the design and construction of educational spaces have a direct impact on the academic culture. With regard to the design studios, the physical conditions of the studio spaces specifically act as the main element that creates the studio culture. The present study aims at understanding the relationship between the spatial transformation and the expectations of the students. Following a post occupancy approach, we asked, “What can we learn from collection of individual evaluations of students’ on transformed studio environment?” and “Where does this knowledge fit in the readily available literature on built environment and learning spaces?” Twenty-five students are asked to write texts on their expectations related to a transformed studio in which they were receiving education at the time of the study. The texts are first examined for the frequency of the words used via cloud analysis. Following that analysis, two independent evaluators identified the phenomena in the texts and conducted a content analysis. The student expectations are classified into two main groups: Learning Experiences and Spatial Experiences. Learning experience involves three subgroups namely variation in work practices, creativity and social interactions and spatial experience is made up of physical comfort and furniture subgroups. Although during the spatial transformation, some improvement have been made, they did not completely fulfill the students’ expectations. The present study proposes that in such spatial transformations, it would be possible to attain user satisfaction when decision-makers follow participatory processes in which all groups that would be effected can participate.