Investigating a new teaching pedagogy in an online design studio

Design Studio helps students to enhance their critical thinking and explore the surrounding from the perspective of an architect. Due to covid-19 being spread all over Bangladesh, the method of learning in-studio classes became a challenge in this country and brought up limitations for teachers and students. Adjusting to the situation and adopting new ways of learning could only assist in the continuation of the study while fulfilling the objective of the design studio. Urban design studio framework works at different scales involving the sociocultural and economic aspects from a small public space to a city level. The physical survey is an essential way of learning to get an overall perception of multi-layered spatial arrangements, the movement pattern of people, and overall, the function of a city. With limited resources and restrictions in the physical survey due to the pandemic situations, the circumstances demanded a hybrid method of learning which incorporated the strength of virtual knowledge and the skills of visual comprehension. The purpose of this paper is to explore alternative ways of conducting the urban studio class in the locked-down period and analyze the scopes of virtual platforms leading to a blended method in the field of urban design. Based on the researchers' six months of teaching and learning in online platforms the paper focused on the process of collaborative learning involving ways of delivering teaching in online platforms, ensuring student engagement as well as limited/ assisted physical surveys, even redesigning and redefining design studio problems as per need. The outcome of the paper may establish a dialogue among the researchers and create opportunities for the teachers to explore their educational boundaries in search of new teaching pedagogy in online learning.