An Education of Intuition and Process: Learning Architectural Design at Hong Kong Design Institute

This paper is a positioning statement and expository article describing design and fabrication projects built by students and faculty of the Hong Kong Design Institute’s (HKDI’s) Architecture programme. Through a series of experimental design-build projects, HKDI faculty teaches students the knowledge and experience to be gained through personal fabrication work, whether wholly manual or digitally assisted. The author stages the work against a series of excerpts from notable architects’ writings, describing a field of study relating tacit knowledge, architectural education, and fabrication specifics students explore through projects in Hong Kong and South China. Lessons and summary bodies of knowledge drawn from these preliminary projects define the path forward for HKDI’s spatial design pedagogy and research.