From Knowing to Interpreting: A Qualitative Case Study of Multidisciplinary and Experiential Pedagogy in Teaching Islamic Architecture
##semicolon##
https://doi.org/10.68024/wdggjb35##semicolon##
architectural education##common.commaListSeparator## Islamic architecture##common.commaListSeparator## architectural history##common.commaListSeparator## experiential learning##common.commaListSeparator## learner-centred pedagogy##article.abstract##
This article presents a multidisciplinary and experiential approach to teaching Islamic art and architecture in an undergraduate architecture course. It elaborates a retrospective qualitative case study of ARC 371, History of Philosophy of Arts and Architecture, taught in Semester 5 at COMSATS University Islamabad. The course combined historical and architectural lectures with student research, presentations, debate, and hands-on engagement with pottery painting, illumination and miniature-making. The study uses the course's end-of-semester review, its documented pedagogical activities and learning outcomes, student-feedback summaries, and related course documentation as an archival qualitative corpus. A hybrid deductive-inductive thematic analysis was used to identify patterns across the documented evidence. Seven themes were developed: engagement through active participation; movement towards independent inquiry; critical thinking through argument and comparison; interdisciplinary learning; experiential learning through making; movement from historical description towards architectural interpretation; and pedagogical tensions and implementation constraints. The findings do not claim measured gains or causal superiority over conventional teaching. Rather, the case demonstrates how a sequence of learning activities can reposition architectural history from a largely transmissive subject towards a space for inquiry, dialogue, making and interpretation. The multidisciplinary teaching team expanded the range of learning modes available to students, while the course review also revealed the need for stronger curricular integration, better workload calibration, greater opportunities for site-based learning, and more explicit scaffolding for academic research and writing. The article proposes a pedagogical sequence comprising of knowledge acquisition, investigation, argumentation, crafting and interpretation, as a transferable framework for rethinking history and theory courses in architecture education.
##plugins.themes.default.displayStats.downloads##
##submission.citations##
Abouelmagd, D., & Ahmed, H. M. A. (2021). An experimental educational approach through teaching the history of architecture and heritage for a better practice in architectural design. Journal of Architecture, Arts and Humanities, 6(30), 91–109. https://doi.org/10.21608/mjaf.2021.52865.2109
Blessing, P. (2020). Teaching Islamic architecture. Journal of Medieval Worlds, 2(3–4), 124–133. https://doi.org/10.1525/jmw.2020.2.3-4.124
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Chang, C.-C., Wegerif, R., & Hennessy, S. (2023). Exploring dialogic education used to teach historical thinking within the cultural context of East Asia: A multiple-case study in Taiwanese classrooms. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 41, Article 100729. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2023.100729
Dave, D., Parikh, S., & Baghel, A. (2018). Searching new pedagogy: Teaching history of architecture in architecture institutes. SCOPE-2018, School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada.
Elgawad, I. O. A. (2014). Setting a path for creativity in teaching history of architecture classes: A strategic view of sparking students’ interaction. In Proceedings of the Conference on Teaching Arts and Architecture Between Academic Rules and Liberty of Creativity (pp. 1–11). Helwan University.
Hasnan, L., Utaberta, N., & Ismail, S. (2020). Pedagogical strategies of Islamic architecture within higher education: Paper review. Journal of Architecture, Planning and Construction Management, 10(2), 55–65. https://doi.org/10.31436/japcm.v10i2.442
Hasnan, L., Abidin, N. Z., Hassan, L. S., & Lim, N. H. H. (2024). Islamic architecture framework towards critical learning. Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education, 39(2), 117–135. https://doi.org/10.21315/apjee2024.39.2.7
Hein, C., & van Dooren, E. (2019). Teaching history for design at TU Delft: Exploring types of student learning and perceived relevance of history for the architecture profession. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 30(5), 849–865. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-019-09533-5
Perrotta, K. A., & Bohan, C. H. (2013). “I hate history”: A study of student engagement in community college undergraduate history courses. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 24(4), 49–75.
Phillipson, N. (2020). A teacher’s guide to dialogic pedagogy. 21st Century Learners.
Pohaničová, J., Vaňová, V., & Baxa, P. (2021). An innovative model of education in architectural history. Global Journal of Engineering Education, 23(1), 31–36.
Salama, A. M., & Holgate, P. (2025). Where critical inquiry, empirical making, and experiential learning shape architectural pedagogy. Encyclopedia, 5(3), Article 129. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia5030129
Stewart, M. (2008). The relationship between architectural history and the studio: A survey of staff opinion in the six Scottish schools of architecture. Architectural Heritage, 17, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3366/E1350752408000058
Xiong, X., Yang, H., & Zhang, Y. (2017). Innovative thinking on the education of contemporary Chinese architectural history. In Proceedings of the 2017 2nd International Seminar on Education Innovation and Economic Management (Vol. 156, pp. 1–4). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/seiem-17.2018.47
Young, S. M. (2018). Flipping time and space: Three methods of contextualizing architecture history in the classroom. National Conference on the Beginning Design Student, 34(1).
##submission.downloads##
##submissions.published##
##issue.issue##
##section.section##
##submission.license##
##submission.copyrightStatement##
##submission.license.cc.by4.footer##Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights of their work. All articles published in Scholar Insight Journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Under this license, readers are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to the full texts, and reuse the published articles for any lawful purpose, including adaptation and commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), the source of publication, and the license terms are properly acknowledged.
The journal retains the right of first publication while authors maintain ownership of their intellectual property rights without restrictions.
