The creative design process supported by the restrictions imposed by bioclimaticand school architecture: a teaching experience

This paper presents a design education experience, where the concepts of bioclimatic architecture were applied in a studio environment of the Architecture Course of UNICAMPin Campinas, Brazil. At the first PALENC 2005 Conference the authors of this paper presented a teaching experience with results that indicated the need for new ways of bringing the feelings of comfort close to the studiodesign discussions. In this paper, a new teaching experienceshows that associating thermal comfort theory and design practice creates a series of restrictions for the design process and that these restrictions are assets to creativity, as attested by the literature. The design of a school building was the theme of a bioclimatic design class given in 2006. Two groups of pupils were formed, one working with the impositions of the school buildingdepartment of the State of So Paulo, Brazil (FDE - Fundao para o Desenvolvimento Escolar), and the othergroup with the concepts of organic architecture. This group developed a series of artistic activities to stimulate their creative organic design process. Both groups carriedout visits to schools and their environmental comfort conditions were evaluated with technical measurements. Theoretical classes, on thermal comfort and school architecturewere interspersed with design studio activities. The results showed that the imposed restrictions of FDE stimulated the development of creative student projects, with bioclimatic quality. The designs based on organic architecture were to some extend less creative, with similarityof formal conceptual approach. These designs also lacked detailed bioclimatic considerations, mostly due to the adoption of curvilinear forms with large variations of solar orientation of facades. Thus restrictions are shown to be important in the creative process in architecture, stimulating search for quality solutions and should be used as design teaching methods.