Curating Visual Thinking: Virtual Exhibitions in Foundation Architecture Design Education

The early design courses engage and hone students’ visual, spatial, and communicative skills so that first-year design students begin to understand composition, abstraction, hierarchy, development of process, and representation through experimental, process-driven exercises. Exhibitions have traditionally presented the students’ final work; however, virtual exhibitions allow one to push past the physical studio and present student work as a sustained pedagogical experience. A case study was presented of the development and curation of a speculative gallery-style virtual exhibition for process work by first-year students undertaking Basic Design and a Design Communication course. Rather than falling into the pitfall of functioning as a “digital stand-in for the gallery” approaches were considered where virtual curation becomes an educative space for being literate in the visual, mindful learning, and observer witnessing peer students enculturating themselves into identity. Using a practice-based reflective approach, to examine curatorial decisions (visual sequencing, categorisation, representation, and navigational design), exploring how exhibition design frames beginner work and communicates thinking and process rather than simply “polished” outcomes. It is argued that virtual exhibition, by allowing for prolonged engagement with works, scaling access, and encouraging a visual dialogue among peers, may extend the foundation of design learning. The study contributes to discourse on design pedagogy, digital curation, and the shifting educational place of exhibitions in foundation-level design education.