Thinking about architectural education based on different cultural background

In the definition proposed by author, design thinking is a hybrid of analytical thinking that aims at gaining knowledge, like that used in scientific method, and synthetical thinking that is used to create new objects. Analytical thinking is well known, but synthetical thinking has not been examined as carefully. Author distinguishes several elements of this form of thought, like transformation, translation, and creative misunderstanding that can be used in design. He demonstrates these elements and the concepts on which they are based in the examination of a little-known, nineteenth-century masterpiece of iron architecture, the Sayn Foundry in Bendorf, Germany. He shows how these concepts are integrated into the teaching of architecture in the studio at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and what that means for staffing problems and the development of the curriculum.