The benefits of digital multimedia as a teaching and learning aid in architectural design studios

We live in a world characterized by the use of media and in the near future everything will be based on multimedia, and architectural pedagogy will not be an exception. Multimedia has a huge role to play in Architectural Education. Education is the knowledge and skill obtained or developed by a learning process; nothing is taught, unless it is learnt. It can be argued that architectural design process is driven by a method of communication between an instructor and students, which is part of are petitive process where feedback, interventions, and reflections occur. This process is formed around the intentions to achieve multiple tasks or challenges: the communication and interaction between these tasks has not been adequately maximized over time. Projected texts are mainly used in design studios during lecture sessions. However, the ability to adopt the full packages of digital multimedia as a teaching and learning aid will create rich potential for students towards increasing their cognitive and perceptive capabilities in the learning and creative process. Therefore, this research seeks an understanding as to what year in the undergraduate program and the stage in the design process that would be most suitable for adopting digital multimedia as a teaching and learning aid in architectural education; with the pedagogic objectives of bringing to the fore the benefits of digital multimedia in the design process. The results of this study reveals that, introducing digital multimedia in architecture design studios would help instructors in giving a better understanding of their courses. Furthermore, the use of multimedia approach enhances teaching and learning experience in architecture design studios. This in turn has significant impact on the learning process, as instructors and students exchange ideas and information; as well as among fellow students.