Innovations in the teaching of Architectural Studio: The Covenant Experience.

Architectural design is the process through which the architect attempts to capture his thoughts and present it in a form that others can see. There are basically two methods of architectural design, namely the black box and the glass box methods. While the black box method is mainly intuitive, the glass box employs logically derived data for design. Various schools of architecture adopt either of these methods in training their students. This paper reports on the outcome of a home-grown combination of both methods adopted in the teaching of architectural design to second year architectural students in a private university in Nigeria. Data has been collected over a period of four years from the students involved through questionnaires and interviews. This has been complimented by discussions with the tutors involved. Results indicate that this innovative method provides a strong theoretical and analytical background for the students design projects while opening them opportunities to explore their creative potentials. The major challenges, however, are that the process is more demanding on the part of both the students and tutors and requires more contact hours between both groups