Assimilating architectural cognitive mappings: A survey of students and architects

The aim of this article is to show a sample of elicited linguistic responses in order to identify cognitive links between academic knowledge and professional practice in architecture. We also study the composition of the identified mappings. To this end, we have analysed and compared a survey conducted among Technical University of Madrid undergraduate architecture students on the one hand and a group of architects on the other. This study is part of a major research work carried out by the research group DISCYT. The surveys presented here propose the idea of working with cognitive mappings that display understanding of important competencies in architectural practice. As a theoretical framework, we draw on cognitive linguistics theory, particularly on conceptual and linguistic metaphor theory. Since text and images are often fused in the different stages of architectural work, we have added images in the survey so as to better determine conceptual correspondences in cognitive visual input (Forceville 2010; Kress 2010; Cuadrado et al. 2016; Roldán-Riejos 2016). The method consisted of examining and comparing the results obtained in the survey from the groups of students and architects in order to infer implications for educators.