Sound-Object-Space: A Case Study on Utilizing Musical Composition for an Interdisciplinary Basic Design Education

Abstract

The basic design education, which is implemented as a freshmen year studio training at schools of art, design and architecture, has a particular importance in developing students' mindsets. In spite of its practical and contextual differences among the institutions worldwide, the basic design studio commonly aims to constitute a particular design language and designerly skills to be internalized and used by the designer lifelong. Today, the curricular and procedural distinctions of most basic design studios are set as bare adaptations of Bauhaus origin in which various fields of art and design were associated in an interdisciplinary manner. In this paper, referring to the analogies between two major fields; music and architecture, the concept of basic design is re-defined as a domain including various mental and sensual skills. In this respect, the basic design studio is considered as a venue for self-exploration of the design student while transforming a non-visual composition into a design project. It is investigations into the relationships between music and architecture that is important in the search for a collateral form of thinking in design process. It is only through such a collateral view that various forms of art and design may once again come together to create a symbiosis. Establishing interactions between visual and non-visual, and by doing so enriching the content of basic design studio, a design student is inevitably provided with a system of thought and a perspective that can enable him/her to perceive and analyze the designed environment in a multi-dimensional manner.