Can basic design be the base of urban planning education?: A case-oriented quantitative measurement model

Abstract

The study of design is considered as a scientific activity; however, the integration of urbanism with design thought has remained limited, which can easily be observed in the contemporary urban areas, especially in the developing countries. Thus, increasing design thinking ability and the integration of spatial planning should be a priori within urban planning and design education, and thus be practiced preventing the emergence of chaotic urban spaces. The widespread view is that basic design education increases the planning and design skills of students; therefore, it is offered during the first stage of planning education. Within the scope of the basic design courses, students experience using and transferring the formatting tools such as line, stain, texture, color, volume, light-shadow, abstraction, and perspective effectively. They learn design principles such as suitability, unity, sovereignty, contrast balance, repetition, direction, measure, range, value, motion, and hierarchy. Gestalt visual perception principles adopted by the Bauhaus school of design are often applied in basic design education. The process is completed by providing technical drawing lessons on principles and abstraction parameters. Teaching is a planned process, and objectives are determined through the cognitive-affective and psychomotor learning areas known as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. So, is the current education paradigm accurate and measurable? Is it possible to utilize it to improve planning and design education? For this purpose, this study researches the contribution of basic design learning outcomes to the urban planning studios and the relationship between achievement levels of students in relevant courses through knowledge and attitude tests. The research model is a case study, based on the relational analysis of quantitative data, which quantitatively propounded that the relationship between two different teaching processes is linear and positive.