Analogue and digital access to architectural information

Abstract

Access to architectural information has undergone great changes due to the global use of the internet. In the digital environment, the quantity of information and its "free" availability create advantages compared to the high costs of editing and publishing books and magazines. This fact has resulted in a tendency to simplify the content with striking images and avoid information from texts that emphasise the philosophy of the project. Previous research indicates that both digital and analogical sources are complementary, but there is no examination of whether the search behaviours or the types of architectural information influence students’ results. This research aims to observe the digital and analogue access habits of architecture students and to delve into the reasons for these behaviours. A questionnaire on access to architectural information has been designed and validated, in which 170 undergraduate students from the School of Architecture of the Universidade da Coruña have participated. The results show that younger students focus on image-based social networks as a source of information, despite acknowledging that higher-quality information can be found in analogue sources such as books and magazines. Furthermore, it has been detected that information search habits influence student results, depending on the nature of the subject.