ABSTRACT VIEW
UNDERSTANDING CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE IN A PLAYFUL WAY: EXPERIMENTS OF THE FIRST-YEAR FORM STUDY STUDIO
L. Vartic, L. Patachi
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (ROMANIA)
The first of the six-year architecture program offered by the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning in Cluj-Napoca is focused on building a solid base of knowledge for the future architects. Introductions in architecture history and theory are accompanied by technical subjects such as mathematics and descriptive geometry, while more practical work is done in the Architectural Design Studio and Form Study Studio. While the two studios are conceived as complementary in teaching design and representation, a recent exercise has tried to further develop the theoretical knowledge, by imagining a playful way of understanding history of architecture. Ancient classical architecture examples were studied and represented in form of a game dedicated to the large public. Documentation on product development was an important issue, but the focus went to researching, selecting and presenting suitable examples of ancient classical architecture to best demonstrate their characteristic traits. The paper presents the development of the project and the didactic process in managing the acquirement of fundamental knowledge while also encouraging students` creativity.

Keywords: Architecture, experiment, game, classical, history, creativity, student.