Architectural design to construction: a pedagogical bridge in contemporary education

This article analyses a low-tech pedagogical exercise conceived as a preparatory bridge between academic architectural education and professional practice. Designed as a foundational learning stage, the exercise foregrounds embodied cognition, phenomenological experience, collaboration, and reflective judgement as core competencies in architectural formation. Implemented with first-year architecture students, the exercise simulates the complete design-construction cycle within a protected academic environment, guiding students from abstract ideation to collective construction and direct spatial experience. By temporarily suspending digital and algorithmic mediation, the exercise promotes direct engagement with materiality, scale, error, and teamwork, reinforcing the relationship between design intentions and constructed reality. The pedagogical impact of the exercise was evaluated through a qualitative-dominant mixed-methods approach, combining structured observation with post-exercise questionnaires using Likert-scale items and open-ended reflections. Findings indicate an enhanced understanding of the design-construction relationship, strengthened collaborative dynamics, and increased phenomenological awareness of space. Situated within contemporary debates on architectural education, the study argues that reinforcing embodied and collective learning constitutes a crucial preparatory step before students engage with technologically mediated and automated design environments.