Design Intelligences: A Case for Multiple Intelligences in Architectural Design

The complexity of design tasks today requires individuals with a wide array of skill sets - for example, spatial visualization, problem solving, verbal skills, communication skills, interpersonal skills and so on. Yet design education today seems to limit skills to form manipulation and graphical skills. These latter skill sets, although essential to design, predict only a part of a designer’s application in the real-world contexts. Identifying and recognizing multiple intelligences then becomes important for architects and researchers to value and nurture diversity in architecture, empathize with the variations of individual cognitive strengths, and implement diverse tools to evaluate different areas of design thinking. In essence, the paper proposes a multiple intelligence approach to architecture design in the studio environment using educationist and cognitive psychologist Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory.

D'Souza, Newton. "Design Intelligences: A Case for Multiple Intelligences in Architectural Design," in ArchNet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 1, issue 2 (2007).

Newton D'Souza