Linking Innovative Design to the Education for Structural Engineers

Many engineering students by this time have been directed to focus more on technical enhancement in depth while not paying much attention to other factors such as structural art. However, such traditional education paradigm is now facing to be restructured due to the change of surrounding circumstances such as high level of expectation for design, strong power of new digital technology flowing over design. The authors have conducted a series of educational design programs to develop a new education paradigm that meets the demanding design requirements. Considering conceptual design as a positive opportunity for collaboration work, conceptual design competitions and academy have been provided to multi-disciplinary students. To link the way of innovative design to education, the birth of previous innovative design cases has been first overviewed specifically focusing on what sources were the motivations and how they are acclaimed. Then, the study on education paradigm toward innovative design was done to establish a basis of an education program. Focusing on a group generation of ideas or solutions to a problem, a phase-oriented approach for creativity and brainstorming with the participants from different perspectives have been applied for the design of education program for innovative structural design. The education program was further refined by addressing major aspects: (1) depth of conceptual design; (2) perspectives for curriculum; (3) visual communication tool among multi-disciplinary participants;

(4) the way of collaboration work; and (5) feedback from professionals.