The document discusses critical thinking in architectural education. It argues that architectural education has been weighed down by traditions of practice and design/technology. It advocates redefining students as knowledge producers through critical inquiry. Teachers should recognize their own biases and create a ludic learning process built on discussion, questioning assumptions, and examining deeper structures. Architecture education needs to both contextualize ideas in their cultural origins but also decontextualize accepted meanings through alternative interpretations.
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“Architectural Education and Its Manifestation in the Classroom”
The document discusses critical thinking in architectural education. It argues that architectural education has been weighed down by traditions of practice and design/technology. It advocates redefining students as knowledge producers through critical inquiry. Teachers should recognize their own biases and create a ludic learning process built on discussion, questioning assumptions, and examining deeper structures. Architecture education needs to both contextualize ideas in their cultural origins but also decontextualize accepted meanings through alternative interpretations.
The document discusses critical thinking in architectural education. It argues that architectural education has been weighed down by traditions of practice and design/technology. It advocates redefining students as knowledge producers through critical inquiry. Teachers should recognize their own biases and create a ludic learning process built on discussion, questioning assumptions, and examining deeper structures. Architecture education needs to both contextualize ideas in their cultural origins but also decontextualize accepted meanings through alternative interpretations.
Architectural education and its manifestation in the classroom
Critical Thinking in the Design Classroom
Mustansir Dalvi Professor of Architecture
Teachers Workshop, NIASA, June 2006
Architectural Education in India Architectural Education in India has been weighed down by the traditions of Architectural Practice that labour under the twin hegemonies of design and technology.
Institutions governing architectural education All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) Council of Architecture (COA) University of Mumbai Design & Technology Reactions to historical change, to immediately preceding narratives, especially in the twentieth century, whether in its symbolic iconoclasm, its stress on functionalism in its so-called Post Modern avatar of unbridled eclecticism.
The Industrial Revolution Beaux Arts Classicism The Arts & Crafts Movement Bauhaus Functionalism Modernism The International Style Post Modern Eclecticism Critical Regionalism Architecture today is more and more being informed by disciplines out of/other than architecture 70 Fast knowledge, critical theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, culture studies, gender studies, post-colonial studies, identity, memory, freedom, compassion, societal constructs, body, sustainability, ecology (charters), passive/active systems, bioclimatic design, recycling, computers, programming/customization, information technology, knowledge management, virtual design, movement, structural systems, tensegrity, hi-tech, new materials, transportation, heritage (charters), conservation, documentation, Indian aesthetics, urban design, urban planning, rural studies, product design, anthropology, 9/11, 1992/93, historiography, ethnography, social studies, psychology, behavioral sciences, management, site supervision, human resource management, social and civic engagement, network techniques/scheduling, statistics, accountancy, communication, critical reading, English, journalism, art criticism, Indian languages, foreign languages, economic theory, GATT, globalization, post-industrial societies, cartography, boundary conditions/ domains, new vernaculars, adapted reuse, affordable housing, new recreations, social justice, democracy, equality, emancipation Redefining the Student A student of architecture is not only a learner, but also a producer of knowledge
What are the tools? Critical, evaluative, conceptual enquiry Interconnect concepts/ facts Use theory and argument Ask for a higher level of explanation
The initial challenges Understanding Objective versus Accepted reality Understanding architecture as a cultural process Understanding change as a series of discontinuities, more than cause/effect transitions in the past PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM society characterized by relatively long periods of equilibrium, punctuated by relatively brief periods of radical change and upheaval
the current digital age PUNCTUATED CHAOS society characterized by relatively long periods of dramatic change, punctuated by relatively brief periods of constancy
Business @ the speed of thought Bill Gates, with Colling Hemingway, (NY, Warner Books, 1999) What are the Questions? What is a WORK of ARCHITECTURE?
How is ARCHITECTURE different from NATURE?
How useful is our methodology for evaluation? (meta-questioning)
ARCHITECTURE is a 2 nd Order Discipline A meta discipline, A critical attitude Not merely an empirical discipline like engineering that needs/seeks/works with data
Architecture deals with Fundamental issues Questions what is presupposed 2 nd Order Questioning Does this design accept the world we live in?
How does the design reconcile itself to our imperfect times?
Does my design reflect through application the technological state-of-the-art of the world today?
Does it give a direction or hope for the future? A methodology for architectural education Teachers must recognize ones own insidiousness in the teaching process
Real learning will not emerge merely out of the Didactic (which itself emerges out of biases, prejudices and ad-hoc choices)
a LUDIC process Built out of the free-flow of discussions, arguments, questioning of stereotypes, reexamining (but first recognizing) holy cows CONTEXTUALISE Looking at architecture as rooted in the man-made
Recognizing the canons as privileged ideas/persons, predetermined choices built by accretion, not reason
Examining the deeper structures in which architecture is embedded (after Donald Schon 1995) DECONTEXTUALISE Deconstruct/ destabilize accepted meanings and notions Make deeper readings of texts themselves to look for traces of the alternate Make alternate takes on the canons Discover myths masquerading as history
The only way to advance in a discipline is to displace knowledge. And the only discourses that remain healthy are those that are displacing discourses. The ones that cling to their theory and their tradition and their rationality, die. Peter Eisenmann RECONTEXTUALISE Context changes meaning. (Wittgenstein) Make choices, but without naivety
NO TABULA RASA No architect/thinker exists in a vacuum, but instead emerges from a broader intellectual, cultural and social history
It is time that (we) remembered that schools were set up to challenge the wisdom of the world and its corruption, rather than to reinforce it. Daniel Liebskind Elective: Semantics of Objects A Brief Introduction to Ideas relating to: Philosophy Platos Theory of Forms , Platos Cave; Descartes; Hegel; Immanuel Kant Structuralism: Ferdinand de Saussure, Theory of Signs, Langue & Parole, Barthes Objects, Levi-Strauss Deep Structures Semantics: Semantic, Syntactic & Pragmatic Symbols Postmodernism and Architecture, Ecos definition Deconstruction and Architecture Derrida, logo-centrism, text, chains of absences and references, trace, supplement Jacques Derrida & Bernard Tschumis Parc de la Vilette Peter Eisenmanns House VI Affirmative architecture Baudrillard, Hyper reality and simulacara Architecture must Burn- Coop Himmelblau Final Year Design Dissertation
Tradition v/s Tenet - a Jain Community Space by Varun Ajani In any religion there is always an important split between tenets and traditions: the epistemological and ontological basis of the religion (tenet), and the myth and ritual (tradition) of the day to day.
The traditions are necessary elements for the sustaining of the community, the tenets provide the ideology and philosophical precepts. Jain Tenets Anekantvada (anek-multiple, ant-ends, vada-way): Jainism is a non-absolutist philosophy- all reality is a matter of perception. An object can be perceived from infinite points of view. Each and every view in itself is valid or equal. Thus it talks of non-privileging of one perspective over any other. Jain Ritual Jain ritual is more or less centered around the Tirthankara image. Although important, the Jina is but a representation and not a reality. A Jain doesnt ask for any favors and does not offer anything in return. Rituals are internalized, based on meditation of ones self and ones deeds The ultimate goal for the layperson, as for the monk - the elimination of all Karma, or liberation. The Chaumukha CONTEXTUALISED the generic temple tradition Reflecting its ideologies, and a space for ritual practices- the improvement of the self through restraint. The externalized rituals developed with constant interaction with Hinduism. Palitana Hill Adinath, Ranakpur DECONTEXTUALISED Intricacy Intricacy: the fusion of disparate elements into continuity, the becoming whole of components that retain their status as pieces in a larger composition. An architecture that represents Non-absolutism can only do so by being Intricate. Unlike simple hierarchy, subdivision, compartmentalization or modularity, intricacy involves a variation of the parts that is not reducible to the structure of the whole, Non privileging one element over any other.
The approach is to arrive at an intricate architecture, free from fostered beliefs and their representation, and a environment for continued practices important to Jainism today. Intricacy Architectural Intricacy looks not only at the compositional elements, but at space itself.
Representing the idea in a 2-dimensional field becomes the starting point.
This entry point into architecture is translatable into the physical by dynamic transformations Disruptive Transformations the destruction of a particular state is necessary in order to discreetly proceed to the next level 3D Modelling or a different form of manifestation. (Robert & Robert, 2006) Intricacy Transformations interplay over time to several levels of intricacy.
The irregular mesh becomes the distributive field for itself and other elements. A plane distributes itself on the field: intricacy appears.
These planes no longer retain their self similarity, as their positions vary a-synchroniucally. Intricate Spaces Spaces are another layer of distributed fields. The experience of space becomes possible through its function as a public space. Indeterminate Structure Fields of Enclosure Response to Climate Functional Spaces A Jain Community Space RECONTEXTUALISED The temple retains its identity as the point area of the ideal that each Jain aspirant yearns for, through the indeterminate space/form, allaying borrowed iconography and built tradition. A Jain Community Space A Jain Community Space A Jain Community Space You can go with this, Or you can go with that, You can go with this, Or you can go with that, You can go with this, Or you can go with that.