Effectiveness of precedent based design pedagogy— A case for sustainability precedents

Abstract

Precedents are used by instructors as well as students to illustrate a point; or as justification for the design decisions made. In spite of its effectiveness, reliable methods to retrieve and access precedents, has not been laid down. This paper demonstrates how the precedents can be retrieved, categorized and mapped into a usable form. Once precedents appear in usable form, it becomes apparent how precedent based technique can lead to making effective design decisions. The argument therefore is that, the effectiveness of this technique can be leveraged for sustainability precedents as well. A discussion amongst a group of design students has been recorded and transcribed to extract precedents. These precedents have been analyzed and categorized to show the linkages with design decisions and problem interpretation. Precedents thus extracted are retrospective in nature. This study will restrict itself to extraction of retrospective precedents only. However, a model has been proposed for turning retrospective precedents into usable prospective sustainability precedents. This is part of an ongoing research, the purpose of which is to map a structure of prospective sustainability precedents, to a student project.