CREATIVITY IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: an exploratory study in Final Graduation Works at CAU-UFRN
Creativity; Architectural project; Final undergraduate works; Environmental Perception.
The contemporary understanding of creativity as a skill that can be learned, trained and refined through practice has contributed to a growing interest in the topic among researchers from diverse interdisciplinary fields, and for the dissemination of their discussion from varied contexts. In the field of Architecture and Urbanism (AU), although the literature on creativity also follows this trend, studies still explore little the students' perceptions of the creative process in architectural design. This is especially apparent among those who are making the Final Graduation Work (acronym, in Portuguese: TFG) - individual activity with specific regulation for the Brazilian Architecture and Urbanism Courses (acronym, in Portuguese: CAU), characterized by requiring: development of a theme consistent with the AU area; individual monitoring by advisor; passing through moments of partial and final evaluation. Therefore, the object of this research relates the creative process and the architectural design TFGs in the perception of final year students and their advisors, based on the following questions: how does creativity relate to the architectural design process during the elaboration of the TFG? How do TFG regulations influence creative activity and discussion of ideas? What aspects of the macro and microenvironment affect students' creativity? Understanding, based on the literature, that the social, physical, temporal and cultural aspects of the environment influence the creative process (in its various modalities), the main objective of the dissertation is to understand how creativity is inserted in the TFGs elaboration process of the architectural design, based on the perception of final year students and their graduation advisors of CAU-UFRN. Considering the complexity and flexibility of the purposive activity in the architectural project field, the research assumed an exploratory character, corresponding to a case study that adopted a mixed-methods approach, integrating instruments that captured the participants' point of view (questionnaire and interviews) and investigated notions of environmental perception (observation, photographic registers and mind map). Twenty students and fifteen teachers participated in the research. Results indicate their understanding of creativity, their opinions on the evaluations of the TFG and their perceptions of socio-physical aspects of the macro and micro creative environment. The findings point to a convergence between the participants' understanding and the current literature, which validates the methodological path adopted and provides the basis for further studies in the area.