Beyond the gap: great liberation through architectural design teaching in the bardo?

Tibetan Buddhists articulate the bardo as the gap that exists between one fundamental stage of existence and another. Its most common usage is to describe the interval between death and reincarnation, but more literally, bar means 'in-between' and do 'island' or 'mark'. The 'bardo experience' is thus any one in which the 'past situation has just occurred and the future situation has not yet manifested itself. Instruction in architectural design attempts to provide guidance in the process of guiding students across the bardo from intention, analysis, and theorisation, to the creation of architectural representations and products. As such the architectural academy operates within a history of methods and codifications which try to quantify and bring a level of certainty to this process.
Recently however, there has been a questioning of traditionally accepted ways of ‘knowing’ the world, which has manifested in challenges to received ‘truths’ and increasing interest in other, previously marginalised histories and knowledges. The critiques that flow from this questioning contend that objective cultural ‘truths’ are simply the discursive result of the dominance of particular ways of perceiving the world. The practice of architecture has not been immune from this. The field has become a subject, for instance, of sociological, feminist and postcolonial critiques. However, their bearing on the pedagogy of composing architecture remains fragmentary and contested. My interest in this subject is derived from a desire to use the opportunities presented by contemporary cultural shifts to develop design-based architectural research that will assist future architects to operate in the uncertainties of an irreducibly plural global community. This paper will explore some ways in which academic research might bear upon the design studio’s negotiation of architectural bardos.

Children and university architecture students working together : a pedagogical model of children’s participation in architectural design

Increasing efforts have been made to engage children in the design of the built environment, and several participatory models have been developed. The aim of this paper is to propose a pedagogical model for children's genuine participation in architectural design, developed in an architectural education context. According to this pedagogical model, children (primary school students) and youth (university architecture students) work in teams to develop the architectural design proposals. This model was developed through a joint educational project between Deakin University and Wales Street Primary School (both institutions are based in Victoria, Australia). In the four-week duration of the project, first year architecture students worked with Grade 3 and 4 primary school children to design a school playground. The final product of the project was a 1:20 scale model of a playground, which was installed and presented at the end of the fourth week. The project received positive feedback from all the participants, including children, architecture students, university lecturers, primary school teachers and architects. In addition, it achieved a high level of children's genuine participation. This model can be refined and applied in new situations, and potentially with other primary schools working with Deakin University.

Nuclear Architecture: Perceptions of Architectural Technology

In this paper we explore the implications of pluralist curricula for architectural technology. This includes the potential effects on strengthening the identity of the architectural technology profession and the academic development of the discipline. This latter relies, arguably, on research being explicit in CIAT’s eight mandatory threshold standards. This work concentrates on one of the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologist’s (CIATS’s) key subjects; 'design', defined as detail design for the architectural technologist. In postulating a philosophy of architectural technology epistemology with a focus on detail design, the pedagogy of architectural detailing in practice and academia is investigated: the associated roles of creativity and conditioning are explored. The interrelationship between conceptual design and construction processes in practice is outlined, identifying the role of the detail design specialist (architectural technologist) in the management of design and production information. Thus is identified the future architectural technologists’ specialisation of nuclear architecture: the total quality construction created by quality of thinking which permeates from and to detail design for assembly/disassembly and production within a collaboratively mechanised AEC team. A theory of nuclear architecture and an associated approach to detail design pedagogy are postulated, aiming to promote a revised perception of the definition of design for the architectural technologist. How this theory can be applied to the creation of a paradigmatic student project, themed on designing for disassembly as a key future focus of ‘Healthy Building’ design is introduced for future exploration. This future research into detail design, the authors propose, should be predicated on the appropriate methodology related to the epistemology of a design-based area of the architectural technology discipline. The roles of Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies (PSRB) in the evaluation and subsequent dissemination of this detail design pedagogy, with the aim of strengthening the architectural technology discipline are emphasised.

Lady Nugent and Tom Cringle on the veranda : early nineteenth century observations on a Caribbean architectural feature

This study of the veranda as seen through the eyes of Lady Maria Nugent and Michael Scott, alias Tom Cringle, clearly demonstrates the important role that the piazza, as it was then more commonly known, played in the life of early nineteenth century Caribbean colonial society. The popularity of the veranda throughout the region, in places influenced by different European as well as African cultures, and among all classes of people, suggests that the appeal of this typical feature was based on something more than architectural fashion. A place of relative comfort in hot weather, the veranda is also a space at the interface of indoors and outdoors which allows for a wide variety of uses, for solitary or small or large group activities, many of which were noted by Nugent and Scott. Quintessentially, the veranda is a place in which to relax and take pleasure, not least of which is the enjoyment of the prospect, be it a panoramic view, a peaceful garden or a lively street scene. Despite the great changes in the nature of society, in the Caribbean and in many other parts of the world, the veranda and related structures such as the balcony continue to play at least as important a role in daily life as they did two centuries ago. The veranda of today’s Californian or Australian bungalow, and the balcony of the apartment block in the residential area of the modern city are among the contemporary equivalents of the lower and upper piazzas of Lady Nugent’s and Tom Cringle’s day.

Digital scholarship and pedagogy, the next step : cultural science.

There are two aspects to the problem of digital scholarship and pedagogy. One is to do with scholarship; the other with pedagogy. In scholarship, the association of knowledge with its printed form remains dominant. In pedagogy, the desire to abandon print for ‘new’ media is urgent, at least in some parts of the academy. Film and media studies are thus at the intersection of opposing forces – pulling the field ‘back’ to print and ‘forward’ to digital media. These tensions may be especially painful in a field whose own object of study is another form of communication, neither print nor digital but broadcast. Although print has been overtaken in the popular marketplace by audio-visual forms, this was never achieved in the domain of scholarship. Even when it is digitally distributed, the output of research is still a ‘paper.’ But meanwhile, in the realm of teaching, production- and practice-based pedagogy has become firmly established. Nevertheless a disjunction remains, between high-end scholarship in research universities and vocational training in teaching institutions; but neither is well equipped to deal with the digital challenge.

Technological barriers to learning : designing hybrid pedagogy to minimise cognitive load and maximise understanding

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) provide great promise for the future of education. In the Asia-Pacific region, many nations have started working towards the comprehensive development of infrastructure to enable the development of strong networked educational systems. In Queensland there have been significant initiatives in the past decade to support the integration of technology in classrooms and to set the conditions for the enhancement of teaching and learning with technology. One of the great challenges is to develop our classrooms to make the most of these technologies for the benefit of student learning. Recent research and theory into cognitive load, suggests that complex information environments may well impose a barrier on student learning. Further, it suggests that teachers have the capacity to mitigate against cognitive load through the way they prepare and support students engaging with complex information environments. This chapter compares student learning at different levels of cognitive load to show that learning is enhanced when integrating pedagogies are employed to mitigate against high-load information environments. This suggests that a mature policy framework for ICTs in education needs to consider carefully the development of professional capacities to effectively design and integrate technologies for learning.

Taking a 'reality' check : expanding pre-service teachers' views on pedagogy and diversity

The outcomes of a two-pronged 'real-world' learning project, which aimed to expand the views of pre-service teachers about learning, pedagogy and diversity, will be discussed in this paper. Seventy-two fourth-year and 22 first-year students, enrolled in a Bachelor of Education degree in Queensland, Australia, were engaged in community sites outside of university lectures, and separate from their practicum. Using Butin's conceptual framework for service learning, we show evidence that this approach can enable pre-service teachers to see new realities about the dilemmas and ambiguities of performing as learners and as teachers. We contend that when such 'real-world' experiences have different foci at different times in their four-year degree, pre-service teachers have more opportunities to develop sophisticated understandings of pedagogy in diverse contexts for diverse learners.

Australia : The Challenges of Poverty, Pedagogy, and Pathways

A discussion of 2008/2009 developments in Australian educational policy, with specific reference to the adoption of US and UK trends in accountability, testing and school reform.

Does pedagogy still rule?

Theories on teaching and learning for adult learners are constantly being reviewed and discussed in the higher educational environment. Theories are not static and appear to be in a constant developmental process. This paper discusses three of these theories: pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy. It is argued that although educators engage in many of the principles of either student-centered (andragogy) and self-determined (heutagogy) learning, it is not possible to fully implement either theory. The two main limitations are the requirements of both internal and external stakeholders, such as accrediting bodies and requirements to assess all student learning. A reversion to teacher-centered learning (pedagogy) ensues. In summary, we engage in many action-oriented learning activities but revert to teacher-centered approaches in terms of content and assessment.