Teaching Ergonomics in the Online Studio

Abstract

Human factors and ergonomics are very important considerations for the built environment. Usually, such issues are taught in the design studio courses in architecture education. Traditional design studio in architecture program follows the ideology of learning by doing. Design studio is more than a physical space, it is a culture with particular focus on one-to-one interaction and lateral learning. This learning program had to be suddenly switched to distant learning mode during the COVID-19 outbreak. Teaching human factors in design studio usually takes thorough exercise for both the instructors and learners, unsurprisingly in the online studio this exercise gets even more challenging. This article portrays the experience of such a challenging task and responses to the emergency situation of online learning. This article is based on participant observation and qualitative analysis of the observation protocols. The experiences can be useful for both designing human factors and distance learning in studio-based programs.