Abstract
Interior design education has traditionally been grounded in studio-based pedagogy,
where learning emerges through doing, making, iterative processes, critique, dialogue
and a shared studio culture. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education has
increasingly been required to adapt programmes to online learning environments.
However, fully online design programmes, such as Interior Design, remain limited,
partly because studio pedagogy is often seen as dependent on face-to-face interaction
and informal learning environments that are difficult to replicate online. As institutions
increasingly translate existing studio practices into online formats and merely digitise
design programmes for online provision, a significant gap persists. There are currently
no clear guiding principles for translating interior design studio pedagogy into
meaningful online learning environments, particularly in the South African higher
education context.
Positioned within a postdigital perspective, this study reimagines the online interior
design studio not as a replacement for the traditional face-to-face studio environment,
but as an entangled learning ecology in which learning emerges through the dynamic
interplay of human interactions, digital tools, technologies and material environments.
Postdigital theory, therefore, provides the theoretical lens for challenging the binary
distinction between online and face-to-face learning and for embracing the messiness
and uncertainties that are integral to the interior design studio.
Using an educational design-based research (DBR) approach, this minor dissertation
focuses specifically on Phases 1 and 2 of the DBR process, namely analysis and
exploration, and the design and construction of draft design principles. The study
began with a literature review that synthesised postdigital principles with
characteristics of interior design studio pedagogy. Semi-structured interviews with five
South African interior design curricula and learning designers provided practical
insights into the characteristics of studio pedagogy and the opportunities and
challenges associated with interior design studio environments. Interview data were
analysed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis. To increase analytical
depth, the themes were reframed as analytical dimensions and interpreted through a...