Conceptual Model of Design Creativity: Fostering creative cognition in architecture and design pedagogy

Creativity in architecture and design disciplines is highly commended, considered essential in design processes, and regarded as invaluable to the prosperity and survival of design organizations. Creativity is also considered a vital learning outcome in architecture and design pedagogy. Many teachers strive to cultivate creativity in their students and consider it as essential for shaping successful architects and designers. This research proposes a Conceptual Model of Design Creativity. The purpose of the model is to articulate the constituents necessary for conceptualizing design creativity and creative design processes. The model also provides the means for understanding how creativity emerges and what is involved in fostering creative cognition in the context of design pedagogy for architecture and other design disciplines. The research also proposes a Design Creativity Cards tool. The purpose of the tool is to help design students stimulate cognitive mechanisms and styles associated with the production of creative results.;This research adopts a mixed-methods qualitative research approach for a cross-disciplinary synthesis of creativity research between the literature on creativity from cognitive psychology and neurocognitive science and the literature on architecture and design pedagogy and practice. The development of the Conceptual Model of Design Creativity was informed by an extensive and critically framed literature review. The model was also informed by insights from Grounded Theory analysis of published interviews and reflective writings of twenty creative individuals and organizations that identified influential elements of creativity in art, architecture, and design creative practice. The model informed the development of the Design Creativity Cards tool deployed in the empirical research. The cards were informed by creativity methods from cognitive psychology. The research employed both the tool and the model to frame the development of a design experimental study and the data analysis and findings.;The purpose of the design experimental study is to investigate the role of the Design Creativity Cards in stimulating creative cognition. The experiment was conducted with thirty-one undergraduate and master-graduate students from three architecture and design schools. Participants from each school were divided into control and experimental groups and were engaged in a simple design task. The experimental groups were introduced to the Design Creativity Cards in a preliminary workshop and were then asked to use the cards during the design task. The data collected were analyzed in relation to seven divergent thinking abilities; the seventh ability of "creative leap" emerged through analysis as a contribution from and of this research. The data were also analyzed in relation to the Conceptual Model of Design Creativity. The findings provide a proof of concept for the Conceptual Model of Design Creativity and the Design Creativity Cards tool that suggests support for their role in enhancing creative cognition.