Knowledge Retention Techniques for Architectural Education

Learning and retention of knowledge are important processes in a students’ as well as teachers’ life and are two sides of the same coin. Both have equal importance and one cannot think of only one side without the other. In architectural education, built form has a unique importance and plays a vital role in architecture student’s life. As the information related to built form has an important attribute in architectural education, the examples of eminent built form are always used by teachers as well as students. There are many factors that are attached to built form (structure) such as geographical, social, environmental etc. This important information is needed to be retained by students as well as teachers. It is necessary to have strategic, comprehensive and holistic techniques for retaining the information so that it can be used over a long period. Academic institutions as well as teachers constantly try to evolve new methods to achieve this. This paper describes and analyses the use of ‘Creative Exercises’ and ‘Concept Map’ techniques for students of architectural studies to retain a particular aspect of information about built form as well as retain the overall information about built form. Keywords - Education, Architecture, Knowledge retention, Creative Exercises, Concept Map, India