One of the most important issues facing architectural design education at the basic levels is the inability of beginning students to transform mental ideas into visual expression and shape initial design solutions. Sketching can play an effective role in solving this problem as a tool for design thinking, capturing ideas, and cultivating spatial understanding. However, a significant portion of previous research has only addressed the general importance of sketching and has paid less attention to the empirical study of combining sketching education with systematic analysis of the works and design processes of prominent architects.
The main aim of this article is to use sketching not only as a drawing skill, but also as an active pedagogical approach alongside the analysis of prominent design precedents. This approach is in line with recent findings on the place of sketching in architectural education. The research method of the present article is quasi-experimental type with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group. The statistical population included beginning architecture students at the Islamic Azad University, Susangerd Branch, from whom 24 people were randomly selected and divided into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received 12 sessions of sketching instruction along with analysis of the works of four prominent architects, including Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Alvar Aalto, and Alvaro Siza, while the control group received the usual instruction.





Data were collected using a design performance test and evaluated by three expert judges and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test. The results showed that the experimental group's performance in the post-test was significantly better than the control group. The findings indicate that combining sketching instruction with the analysis of prominent design precedents can help improve the design skills of beginning students and be an effective approach for basic education in architecture.