Serendipity and collective creativity in times of remote teaching: toward a multiple teaching mode within and without digital screen

Based on author’s experience using Miro board in 2nd year architectural design studio during 2020-2021, this paper compares working within a physical studio and a virtual studio as an attempt to underline some useful practices toward a hybrid studio as a useful model for the future.

The use of Miro virtual board where students work simultaneously within a fixed digital space enabled us to keep the sense of working together, “feeling” the presence of others and opened up serendipity opportunities for unexpected interactions and a collective creativity process.

Virtual studio work requires and develops a different set of skills compared to physical studio and cannot replace it completely as it prevents the use of all senses and hinders the development of sense of scale and materiality.

A hybrid teaching mode, combining work in both physical and digital space could use the advantages of the newly discovered serendipity patterns within a multi-dimensional digital screen, the possibility for a collective creativity encompassing a larger number of participants and the digital provision of a legible snapshot of the working process opening up both synchronous and diachronous levels of interpretation.