COLLABORATIVE CONSTRUCTION AS AN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING STRATEGY IN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

The gap between theoretical instruction and real construction practice represents one of the most persistent challenges in architecture programs, where students rarely encounter the organizational and technical demands of an actual building process. This study examines how a deliberate open-ended construction exercise shapes student learning and self-organization in a fifth-semester construction course at PUCE-Ibarra in Ecuador. Using an action research design with qualitative predominance, data were collected through audiovisual documentation, a teacher-researcher field journal, and a mixed-methods survey administered upon completion of the activity to 81 participants across three groups, with a response rate of 79% (n=64). Rather than building from scratch, each group was tasked with intervening on a preexisting small-scale wooden structure on campus, introducing the added complexity of working with existing conditions. Findings reveal that withholding methodological instruction activated emergent leadership, peer negotiation, and self-organization dynamics absent from conventional studio teaching. A total of 96.9% of respondents reported meaningful learning, and over 70% independently identified poor planning as the group's main failure precisely the insight the exercise sought to provoke. These results suggest that intentionally unstructured tasks generate situated awareness of construction management principles more effectively than direct instruction. The most significant implication of this work is that pedagogical value in construction courses need not depend on a completed product: an incomplete outcome, when critically reflected upon, can be a more powerful learning event than a successful one.