Architectural Design Studio: the systematics of design processes – creativity and innovation within settled and emergent methods and strategies

From the founding of the Ecole de Beaux Arts, with a history of more than 350 years, considered the very first school of formal education in architecture, and with a history of more than 100 years of the Bauhaus, the Design Studio has drifted and shifted (slowly) its role to reflect paradigm shifts in education and practice. This paper examines and reveals the role of systematics of design processes of our own Design Studio, run almost for a decade at the Faculty of Architecture, within the local and global constraints in the architectural education and practice. A constant, on the way assessment, asks and pushes students for a systematic work flow in the process of creative thinking, making and braking, but in the same time asks for knowledge creation through innovation both in the process(es) and the project. The methods used in this paper are quantitative and qualitative examination and assessment of data collected during the Studio processes through years, within different themes, methods and strategies. Finally, this paper reflects also in the environment shift of running and assessing the studio during the covid-19 pandemics – the online environment – as well as the implementation of xR platform and tools (augmented and virtual reality) in the studio processes