Aesthetic Evaluation Differences between two Interrelated Disciplines: A Comparative Study on Architecture and Civil Engineering Students

The study presented in this paper aims to discuss the need and value of interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture and civil engineering students while executing the differences and similarities between their aesthetic evaluations and visual preferences. A research was conducted to evaluate and compare the aesthetic evaluations of architecture and civil engineering students through selected architectural buildings. It is hypothesised that there would be a difference between the two groups’ evaluations and descriptions of the visual attributes. Photographs of 6 different buildings were chosen which had different characteristics related with their structure, form and context; and a questionnaire was designed. 35 architecture and 30 civil engineering students were asked to describe the selected buildings. A “Visual Evaluation Test”, which included photographs of the selected buildings was used within the questionnaire. Additionally, the participants were asked to rank 6 buildings due to their aesthetic preferences. Data was statistically analysed through semantic differential scales, and “Mann Whitney U Test”. Results from the two groups of respondents had some similarities and differences. Despite the two different groups described the settings with similar adjectives, they gave different responses on choosing the buildings as “like” or “dislike”. Besides, the two groups’ responses to the questions which they ranked the buildings due to their aesthetic preferences differed substantially. In relation with the findings, the educational processes of two disciplines were discussed and some suggestions were given.