Architecture as Pedagogy: Alive and Kicking

This workshop draws on an emerging collaborative body of research by Lovett, Morrow and McClean that aims to understand architecture and its processes as a form of pedagogical practice: a civic pedagogy.

Architectural education can be valued not only as a process that delivers architecture-specific skills and knowledges, but also as a process that transforms people into critically active contributors to society. We are keen to examine how and where those skills are developed in architectural education and trace their existence and/or application within practice. We intend to examine whether some architectural and spatial practices are intrinsically pedagogical in their nature and how the level of involvement of clients, users and communities can mimic the project-based learning of architectural education – in particularly in the context of ‘live project learning’

1. This workshop begins with a brief discussion paper from Morrow that sets out the arguments behind why and how architecture can be understood as pedagogy. It will do so by presenting firstly the relationship between architectural practice and pedagogy, drawing out both contemporary and historical examples of architecture and architects acting pedagogically. It will also consider some other forms of creative practice that explicitly frame themselves pedagogically, and focus on participatory approaches in architectural practice that overlap with inclusive and live pedagogies, concluding with a draft and tentative abstracted pedagogical framework for architectural practice.

2. Lovett will examine practices of architectural operation that have a pedagogical approach, or which recognise within themselves an educational subtext/current. He is most interested in a 'liveness' beyond the 'Architectural Education' of university institutions. The presentation will question the scope for both spatial empowerment / agency and a greater understanding and awareness of the value of good design when operating as architects with participant-clients younger than 18, older than 25 or across varied parts of society. Positing that the learning might be greatest when there are no prescribed 'Learning Outcomes' and that such work might depend on risk-taking and playfulness, the presentation will be a curated showcase drawing on his own ongoing work.

Both brief presentations will inform the basis of the workshop’s discussion which hopes to draw on participants views and expereinces to enrich the research process. The intention is that the overall workshop will lead to a call for contributors and respondents to a forthcoming publication on ‘Architecture as Pedagogy’.

The U.N. convention on the rights of the child: Relevance and application to pediatric clinical bioethics

This article provides an overview of the relevance and import of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to child health practice and pediatric bioethics. We discuss the four general principles of the CRC that apply to the implementation of all rights contained in the document, the right to health articulated in Article 24, and the important position ascribed to parents in fulfilling the rights of their children. We then examine how the CRC is implemented and monitored in law and practice. The CRC and associated principles of child rights provide strategies for rights-based approaches to clinical practice and health systems, as well as to policy design, professional training, and health services research. In light of the relevance of the CRC and principles of child rights to children’s health and child health practice, it follows that there is an intersection between child rights and pediatric bioethics. Pediatric bioethicists and child rights advocates should work together to define this intersection in all domains of pediatric practice.

Architecture and health care: a place for sociology.

Sociologists of health and illness have tended to overlook the architecture and buildings used in health care. This contrasts with medical geographers who have yielded a body of work on the significance of places and spaces in the experience of health and illness. A review of sociological studies of the role of the built environment in the performance of medical practice uncovers an important vein of work, worthy of further study. Through the historically situated example of hospital architecture, this article seeks to tease out substantive and methodological issues that can inform a distinctive sociology of healthcare architecture. Contemporary healthcare buildings manifest design models developed for hotels, shopping malls and homes. These design features are congruent with neoliberal forms of subjectivity in which patients are constituted as consumers and responsibilised citizens. We conclude that an adequate sociology of healthcare architecture necessitates an appreciation of both the construction and experience of buildings, exploring the briefs and plans of their designers, and observing their everyday uses. Combining approaches and methods from the sociology of health and illness and science and technology studies offers potential for a novel research agenda that takes healthcare buildings as its substantive focus.

New Ways of Looking at the State Apparatus and the State Archive in Nineteenth Century Ireland: Curiosities from that Phonetic Museum - Royal Irish Constabulary Reports and their Political Uses, 1879-91

This essay seeks to contextualise the intelligence work of the Royal Irish Constabulary, particularly in the 1880s, in terms of the wider British and imperial practice and, as a corollary, to reflect upon aspects of the structure of the state apparatus and the state archive in Ireland since the Union. The author contrasts Irish and British police and bureaucratic work and suggests parallels between Ireland and other imperial locations, especially India. This paper also defines the narrowly political, indeed partisan, uses to which this intelligence was put, particularly during the Special Commission of 1888 on 'Parnellism and crime', when governmentheld police records were made available to counsel for The Times. By reflecting on the structure of the state apparatus and its use in this instance, the author aims to further the debate on the governance of nineteenth-century Ireland and to explore issues of colonial identity and practice. The line of argument proposed in this essay is prefigured in Margaret O'Callaghan, British high politics and a nationalist Ireland: criminality, land and the law under Forster and Balfour (Cork, 199

Legitimising Quality Principles through Critical Incidents in Organisational Development

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to analyse how critical incidents or organisational crises can be used to check and legitimise quality management change efforts in relation to the fundamental principles of quality. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple case studies analyse critical incidents that demonstrate the importance of legitimisation, normative evaluation and conflict constructs in this process. A theoretical framework composed of these constructs is used to guide the analysis. Findings – The cases show that the critical incidents leading to the legitimisation of continuous improvement (CI) were diverse. However all resulted in the need for significant ongoing cost reduction to achieve or retain competitiveness. In addition, attempts at legitimising CI were coupled with attempts at destabilising the existing normative practice. This destabilisation process, in some cases, advocated supplementing the existing approaches and in others replacing them. In all cases, significant conflict arose in these legitimising and normative evaluation processes. Research limitations/implications – It is suggested that further research could involve a critical analysis of existing quality models, tools and techniques in relation to how they incorporate, and are built upon, fundamental quality management principles. Furthermore, such studies could probe the dangers of quality curriculum becoming divorced from business and market reality and thus creating a parallel existence. Practical implications – As demonstrated by the case studies, models, tools and techniques are not valued for their intrinsic value but rather for what they will contribute to addressing the business needs. Thus, in addition to being an opportunity for quality management, critical incidents present a challenge to the field. Quality management must be shown to make a contribution in these circumstances. Originality/value – This paper is of value to both academics and practitioners.

Integrating Land-use Planning and Transportation in Belfast: A New Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development

Much of the interest in promoting sustainable development in planning for the city-region focuses on the apparently inexorable rise in the demand for car travel and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption. Within this context, policy prescription has increasingly favoured a compact city approach with increasing urban residential densities to address the physical separation of daily activities and the resultant dependency on the private car. This paper aims to outline and evaluate recent efforts to integrate land use and transport policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area in Northern Ireland. Although considerable progress has been made, this paper underlines the extent of existing car dependency in the metropolitan area and prevailing negative attitudes to public transport, and argues that although there is a rhetorical support for the principles of sustainability and the practice of land-use/transportation integration, this is combined with a selective reluctance to embrace local changes in residential environment or in lifestyle preferences which might facilitate such principles.