Improving Communication and Changing Attitudes in Architectural Practices: Digital Architectural Education Tools for Non-Experts

The persistence of difficulties related to communication of the stakeholders in the architectural and urban design process is mainly due to the diversity of interests, different perspectives, representation problems and the abilities of visual communication. The paper delves extensively into communication abilities and divides between experts and non-experts, exploring their epistemological origins and possible solutions. One of them, education about spatial issues for general public, is argued for and supported by in the form of a digital education tool. It builds on the idea that non-expert public should be approached with both: adaptation to its abilities and with additional teaching to improve these abilities. The experiment puts the prototypical architectural educational interface to the test in primary schools and observes the effect the level of interactivity has on learning outcomes. The results show possible ways of enhancing the efficiency of such tools and help developers and designers evaluate and fine-tune them for the process of non-professional architectural learning. The communication and attitude-changing topics are discussed from the specific architectural and from broader social science point of view.