GENERAL EDUCATION COURSES OF DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN COGNITION IN ARCHITECTURE UNIVERSITIES BASED ON KNOWLEDGE GRAPHS

Abstract

The rapid transformation of architectural practice by digital modeling, urban data, artificial intelligence, geographic information systems, building information modeling, and spatial cognition research has created a new educational challenge for architecture universities: how to cultivate digitally literate, spatially sensitive, and critically reflective students beyond the boundaries of specialized design studios. This paper proposes a knowledge-graph-based framework for the construction of a general education course titled “Digital Architecture and Urban Cognition.” Unlike conventional tool-oriented digital courses, the proposed course treats digital architecture as an interdisciplinary knowledge system connecting architectural form, urban perception, data structures, environmental behavior, cultural context, and ethical judgment. Drawing on learning science, knowledge graph theory, architectural pedagogy, BIM standards, semantic city modeling, and urban cognition studies, the paper develops a curriculum model composed of three interrelated graphs: a domain knowledge graph, a learning-path graph, and an assessment-evidence graph. The study argues that knowledge graphs can help general education courses overcome three persistent problems: fragmented knowledge organization, separation between technical skills and humanistic understanding, and weak visibility of students’ cognitive development. The proposed framework includes curriculum objectives, ontology construction, teaching modules, learning activities, assessment indicators, and implementation strategies. It concludes that knowledge-graph-based general education can support architecture universities in forming a new pedagogical ecology in which students learn not only to use digital tools, but also to understand cities as complex, perceivable, computable, and culturally meaningful environments.