How to organize design studios eligible for multidisciplinary: a case study of clustered design studios

Eindhoven University focuses on multidisciplinary design incorporating four major disciplines: Architecture, Technology, Management, and Urbanism. Learning how to design is a key ingredient in all and is taught in studios (12-15 students supervised by 1 tutor). With over twenty studios and tutors it has always been problematic to reach uniformity in approaches. A new model of organizing studios is developed since 2001. Still groups of 12-15 students, but now four groups are clustered in a special way. A cluster is housed in a large classroom, where anyone (of 50-60 students) is able to seek feedback from each one of the four tutors. So there is always a tutor with a discipline close to a student’s individual interest. Clustering studios also facilitates mutual observations and discussions of weak students. All students are individually marked by four tutors resulting in a more objective evaluation. Further uniformity within studios is improved by interchange of tutors in time.