This page showcases two activities–an ethnographic design project (an individual assignment) and a post-occupancy evaluation (a group project)–that were part of an undergraduate architecture course I taught as a graduate student instructor at UC Berkeley.
The ethnographic design project engages students in identifying user needs through a variety of research methods–observation, interview, and literature/precedent review–as the inspiration for a proposed redesign that supports and celebrates user needs.
This project is conducted by individual students over the course of a semester, in 6 parts as follows:
Part 1: site selection and research proposal
Part 2: selecting and interviewing an informant
Part 3: analyzing interview and creating taxonomies
Part 4: literature and precedent review
Part 5: redesign proposal
Part 6: presentation and final paper
The post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of a campus (or local) building conducted by all members of a course, divided into small groups to focus on a specific research question and method (see matrix below). The methodology for this project is described in detail in this article published by myself and Professor Galen Cranz (2014).
