STOÀ Journal n. 11, year IV, 3/3, Autumn 2024

[Schools]

ciudad abierta – inauguración 1971

analysis

Architectural design pedagogies define a complex field of inquiry: its tools are diverse and multifaceted. The aim of the call is to explore how the physical space of learning, namely university buildings as pedagogical devices, bears specific intentions linked to particular aims, educational programmes and learning objectives.

The analysis of the physical space where the teaching of architecture defines a field of investigation that intersects with multiple discussions.

As cultural institutions, these buildings determine ways of understanding education, its conditions, methods, and objectives: these buildings are tangible entities that grapple with the possible relationships between pedagogical theories and spatial configurations. It is precisely within the school that architecture tests criticalities and potentialities of becoming a significant pedagogical tool, demonstrating in virtuous cases a significant expressive potential in the form of spatial experience, managing to accommodate or even suggest multiple and novel forms of space use.

As physical structures, schools of architecture beget original relations with cities and landscapes. They are never neutral in their relationship to the context in which they are located, sometimes even becoming a means of theorising, and researching.

Finally, as places for teaching architectural design, they reveal a wide range of possibilities to what a project might be. From a more practical to more experimental ones, from entirely digital explorations to involving hands and bodies, schools of architecture express multiple orientations on what it means to do (and teach) design.

The purpose of this call is to gather contributions that articulate the notion of the non-neutrality of schools of architecture, exploring their specific and unique relationships between spaces and programmes. This involves critically selecting a number of exemplary cases to reflect on how buildings constitute powerful educational tools that shape not only the thinking, but also the attitudes and ideals of aspiring architects.

We are interested in contributions that specifically engage with:

→ recognizing common traits in contemporary international pedagogical experiences;

→ exemplifying, through their conceptualization, specific didactic experiences, through reports, dialogues and interviews with internationally renowned professors, capable of becoming synthetic and effective expressions of a teaching know-how;

→ tracing a limit that can be shared by the scientific community, within which to critically and tendentiously “position” ideas and (didactic) projects, in order to build a recognizable system by substantiating the reasons.

structure

architectural design pedagogies

aim

• university buildings as pedagogical devices
  • explore how a physical space of learning bears specific intentions linked to particular aims, educational programmes and learning objectives.
• cultural institutions
  • buildings determine ways of understanding education, its conditions, methods, and objectives
  • buildings are tangible entities that grapple with the possible relationships between pedagogical theories and spatial configurations
• physical structures
  • relations with cities and landscapes
  • becoming a means of theorising and researching.
• places for teaching architectural design
  • wide range of possibilities to what a project might be

purpose

• gather contributions that articulate the notion of the non-neutrality of schools of architecture
  • exploring their specific and unique relationships between spaces and programmes

example/case

• reflect on how buildings constitute powerful educational tools
  • shape the thinking
  • shape the attitudes
  • shape the ideals

… of aspiring architects.

engage

• common traits in contemporary international pedagogical experiences
• specific didactic experiences with internationally renowned professors as synthetic and effective expressions of a teaching know-how
  • reports
  • dialogues
  • interviews
• a limit to critically and tendentiously “position” ideas and (didactic) projects
  • in order to build a recognizable system by substantiating the reasons

lexicon

field and practice

• position
• pedagogy
• power
• resistance
• obedience
• conformity
• divergence
• radical
• intention
• building
• non building
• political
• ethical
• educational
• programs
• learning
• cultural
• institutions
• system
• framework
• device
• heuristic
• physical
• space
• place
• program
• configurations
• education
• conditions
• methods
• objectives
• relations
• tools
• shape thinking
• shape attitude
• shape ideal
• aspiring
• architects
• international
• pedagogical
• experiences
• example
• conceptualization
• didactic
• dialogue
• report
• interview
• synthetic and effective expressions
• teaching know-how
• trace
• limit
• critically
• tendentiously
• position ideas
• didactic projects
• recognisable system

cases

buildings

architectural pedagogical devices

• 1912 AVERY HALL – McKim, Mead and White Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), William Rutherford Mead (1846–1928), and Stanford White (1853–1906)
  • GSAPP – Graduate School Architecture, Planning and Preservation
    • Columbia University – New York, New York, USA
• 1969 CIUDAD ABIERTA – Alberto Cruz (1917 – 2013)
  • EAD – Ciudad Abierta – Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño
    • Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso – Valparaíso, Chile
• 1969 EDIFÍCIO VILANOVA ARTIGAS – Vilanova Artigas (1915-1985)
  • FAUUSP – Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo
    • Universidade de São Paulo – Butantã, São Paulo, Brasil
• 1972 GUND HALL – John Andrews (1933-2022)
  • GSD – Graduate School of Design
    • Harvard University – Cambridge, Boston, USA
• 1994 FACULDADE DE ARQUITECTURA – Álvaro Siza Vieira (1933)
  • FAUP – Faculdade de Arquitectura
    • Universidade do Porto – Porto, Porto, Portugal
• 2009 ECOLE D’ARCHITECTURE – Lacaton (1955) & Vassal (1954)
  • ENSA NANTES – ÉCOLE NATIONALE SUPÉRIEURE D’ARCHITECTURE
    • Nantes Université, Nantes, France

discourse

interviews

dean/director/professor

• 1964 GSD Sarah Whiting
• 1970 EAD Iván Ivelic Yanes
• 1971 GSAPP Andrés Jaque
• 1972 FAUP Joaquim Moreno
• 1978 MARCH Markus Miessen

dialogues

students

• 2019 WIEN CLAIMING SPACES TUW
• 2020 LAUSANNE RIOT EPFL ENAC
• 2022 MUNICH SCHOOL OF TRANSFORMATION TUM
• 2022 ZURICH UNMASKING SPACE ETH
• 2022 PORTO COLETIVO PARTE FAUP

reports

editorial/cultural projects

• https://www.safespacecollective.com/
• https://culturesofassembly.org/
• https://luca.lu/
• https://lina.community/
• https://failedarchitecture.com/
• https://www.daidalos.org/

workplan

geographies

map: buildings-references discourse-dialogues

buildings

architectural design pedagogies

#buildings #nonbuilding #metabuildings #tools #systems #public #frameworks

buildings

references

typological and morphological context

The selected examples represent a typological context for each geography and chronology. Additionally, they are considered beyond their known morphology (spatial and physical materiality) and are considered for their potential for transformation (or not) and geo-socio-cultural redefinition in terms of use and appropriation. This can be seen as a political typological framework and serves as a opposing field for the revalidation or obsoletion of these contemporary “buildings” as architectural pedagogical devices. Each case is positioned from the perspective of how the physical space of learning acting on buildings as pedagogical devices can stimulate the notion of bearing specific intentions linked to particular aims, educational programmes and learning objectives.

1912 AVERY HALL > LEARNING WITHOUT THE BUILDING #metabuildings

• the autonomy of a political agenda is a concept that arises from the consistent discourse of its dean, the GSAPP´s LETTER FROM THE DEAN^[1] is a tool that may create a sense of detachment towards the building where the pedagogical apparatus is developed; from a typological perspective, the agenda (“transcalent”^[2] from the individual to the collective) presents an innovative approach to constructing a new type of building that effectively facilitates the teaching of architecture; incidentally the first building takes part of this research as a consequence rather than a choice
• “GSAPP develops new forms of pedagogy, research, and practice to engage the crucial issues of our time across all scales of the built environment.” ; “GSAPP alumni across the globe are pioneering new models of practice that engage with emerging political, technological, intellectual, and environmental issues. Learn more about the innovative and imaginative ways that GSAPP’s network is reshaping the design professions.”^[3]
• the physical space, despite its historical significance, is contaminated by an autonomous pedagogical device; this device is not only made up of the curriculum but also the intentional approach to an intellectual practice; the practice does not reside in the building itself but in the political agenda of the faculty

1969 CIUDAD ABIERTA > AN ABSENT BUILDING IS STILL A TOOL #nonbuilding #frameworks

• an experience that embodied a school in a practice of practical repercussions, demonstrating additionally a particular school of thought with again, practical implications
• a canonical departure from the institutional view of the place of scientific knowledge production; a step towards a connected practice between institutional, academic and scientific research and the ability to experiment, connect and interact with the built environment; an exercise in responsibility, causality and the individual positions of its actors
• an intangible yet concrete space for learning; an intensely collective pedagogical tool which diverges from the traditional approach to architecture and faces the natural context as a blank canvas, intentionally relating the built and the responsibility for the unbuilt environment to create a framework for learning through practice and experimentation; open to the community/society to experiment and to visit
• “This transgressive agenda was also translated into the pedagogies of the school, with students working outside the classroom to combine Cruz’s earlier interest in exploring the formal qualities of architecture with a developing concern with the so-called “lived” experience of the city.5 The city was analyzed as a set of formal relations discovered through subjective observation, with the resulting analysis informing the creation of a “spatial field” of interventions designed to enhance formal relations between different elements of the city and the territory. Projects were also increasingly influenced by concrete art, whose methods and aesthetics Girola had brought to the school. Concrete art provided a conceptual framework for the students’ formal explorations, which were characterizes by a pursuit of architecture’s autonomy as a language” in Radical Pedagogies

1969 EDIFÍCIO VILANOVA ARTIGAS > THE POLITICS OF BUILDINGS #buildings #tools

• the building as a design manifest, specifically for the conveyance of political, social and cultural messages; an ample disciplinary in modernist architectural ideology that breaks from institutional architectural buildings dogma while being rooted in a conservative communist ideology; a tool for architect school education and for a specific political movement
• it embodies the notion of public space and self-organising bodies in new ideals of democracy; it expresses cultural identity and designs discussions from materials, forms and dimensions creating its own identity; representing a set of institutional values specific to a new “school”; creating a social impact on not only the immediate community but also as an exported global image; architectural choices as a cultural expression of the political context of the building design and time of construction lubricated by events that led to the French May of 68
• although the space is designed specifically as an architecture school, it is important to note that it is not only a technical space, but also a space of political and disciplinary ideology; the proportions and dimensions of the space demonstrate how architectural devices can be used to influence social dynamics between teachers, students, and their inherent power structures; it is a tool for experimentation and learning about the relationships between human bodies and intellectual constraints in physical spaces

1972 GUND HALL > LEARNING FROM (BUILDING) FORMAL MISTAKES #buildings #systems

• the building is not just a physical structure, but also a complex systematic issue; it was designed between 1965 and 1972, a period of turmoil not only for the school but also for the architecture profession and the world; these events caused radical unrest on and off campus, which surely affected the design of the building; the reappraisal and restructuring of the profession and educational aims had a significant impact on this prestigious building in a prestigious university; the design of the school is almost dictatorial and imposes certain pedagogical conditions rather than allowing for individual appropriation; despite an adequate architectural solution, the ideological and political context gives the complex mostly negative connotations due to the hierarchical relations implied by the design choices of the space; the complex consists of a stepped, multilevel studio (known as “the trays”) with a single roof structure that wraps around an office and a seminar wing; the building features a front façade that resembles a glasshouse, allowing natural light to permeate the interior space and relates teaching/learning activities with the surrounding exterior public areas; this shared open space intended to foster a sense of community and encourage conversation and chance encounters; the design is based on an innovative pedagogy, but the stepped open plan design resulted in a poorly executed building; the building design is unsustainable and irresponsible, representing impractical fantasies and illusions that reflect the decadent practices of the 50s and 60s; these practices have contributed to the climate dangers we face today, including issues with energy performance, consumption, and maintenance; the ongoing renovation, ending in the summer of 2024, may not provide enough opportunity to desacralize icons and learn from the initial proposition, which is now known to be erroneous
• school buildings are designed to cultivate culture and provide access to the core ethos of the curriculum; the relation between the organics and the dynamics of a spatial configuration of a building influences the habits, routines, and interactions of students and the community, creating a clear identity and pedagogical personality;
• the institution, the architect and the political context define the brief for an interesting approach on how a multilevel system could simplify hierarchical relations result however, instead of simplifying hierarchical relations, it resulted in the discrimination, separation, and isolation of the community; this serves as proof that a good idea on paper requires special sensitivity for successful implementation in the material world, and even then, it is not guaranteed

1994 FACULDADE DE ARQUITECTURA > BUILDING A PEDAGOCIAL MONUMENT #buildings #public

• a demonstration of the architect’s personal and rigorous vision, passion, and technical competence; the complex is perhaps, the biggest architectural device of the selected examples, summing in a peculiar plot a western programme for a school (logistic and administrative building including auditorium, library and gallery; classrooms and professor offices are organised sequentially in a class/year based individual “towers”); the language used is clear, objective, with a formal register and a precise use of lexicon but admittedly everything is solved; there’s a lack of collective spaces despite the available built and unbuilt, unused exterior area
• I struggle to depart from the visible lack of a necessary conversation between learning and teaching, as each architectural choice seems to exclude it; the discourse of the master prevails, and there is always a silenced question in each detail; the building acts as an asymmetrical pedagogical device where the relationship between master and student never extends beyond the classroom and is unable to appropriate any other time/space than the institutional one; the building acts as an airtight institutional environment representing the power dynamics within the community, where students are placed on individual towers to be taught (there’s a metaphoric tension in this apparatus as the towers grow smaller over the duration of the course symbolically representing how only a selected few will arrive at the elite group in the end); an almost grotesque representation of an idea of disciplinary competence by a master over the possibility of appropriation, potential and procedural social and informal relations necessary to erect a school as a pedagogical device
• one could argue that there is limited potential for learning from this building, given the master’s demonstration of competence; however, it is possible to retrospectively consider the possibility that the intention was always to provide a result within a methodology with a steep learning curve requiring from the learner a careful analysis of each aspect of the building and concurrently delve into the teacher’s thought process; therefore, the physical space embodies a constant presence, almost like a ghost that uncomfortably observes each learner from every corner; it represents a system of architectural production that has yielded impressive results in creating capable ambassadors of the school’s methodology and application of a project-based practice, acting almost as if was designed as a monument to a man and his own masters; the space represents an antiquated, decaying and oppressive power structure, struggling to keep up with contemporary educational programs and future capable learning objectives

2009 ECOLE D’ARCHITECTURE > UNLEARNING FROM BUILDINGS, SPACE AND PUBLIC

• an enclosed open space for and to permeable practices of appropriation and undifferentiated programs and dynamics; design from frugality, designing on contemplative ideas about matter, materials, space, ecology, and efficiency; the eternal question on how to accomplish more with less, more efficient and responsibly sustainable; a demonstration of a highly adaptable framework for construction, education and collectiveness; a robust structure in contrast with an elegant and visual lightness impact; Steel, concrete, and translucent polycarbonate sheets work together in a composition inspired by ubiquitous industrial greenhouses; aching from the growing student community the building factors education in a coping process that deals with real needs with ease; there’s a closeness to the image of a factory, given by geometry, materials and rough design choices elegantly designed in a composition of intentional demonstration of the elementary connections between classical beauty, canonical beaty and formal interpretation of beauty; justifiably cost based, a few methodological decisions inflict a deep rationality to some technical constraints, positioning ethical arguments like the need for extractive activities in the architecture, engineering and construction sector; surprisingly, the method-logical approach allows for unusual results, such as an increase in available space through the redirection of project objectives towards a most profitable outcome: spatial diversity and flexibility; the architect’s intention takes us to a pathological disciplinary level of rationality by employing an inconspicuous pedagogy that avoids any superfluous decorative elements and yet, paradoxically, opening this approach to the notion that transforms itself into a language that is close to embellishment and ornamentation
• air and flowers is a definitive manifesto, a testament to a practice dedicated to the unusual and intangible questions of materiality and divergent typologies; it recognises all types of morphologies and materials as adequate for practicing true architecture; there is always a reference to a disciplinary agenda, which not only demonstrates a certain autonomy of practice but also assumes a pedagogical role for/from architects in the field of architecture; despite the potential for representation of a closed circle, this system of interaction and rapport to the contemporary context is based on a historical domination of the built environment by the architect, in which S/HE erects a theoretical framework at the core of the building for the occupant to recognize their personal (in)vocation and unlock the building’s full potential; studying the school as an object presents unforeseen educational, operational, and social opportunities where the roof serves as a blank canvas (making direct reference to Ciudad Abierta in Valparaíso, Chile), while the ramp acts as an operator that blurs the boundaries between the interior with exterior spaces, private and public spaces, their temporal states and broadening the range of programmatic conditions
• a semantical mobius strip, the ramp flows around the perimeter of three double-height, raw concrete pavements intersected by intermediate floors, mezzanines and creating a spatial composition from basic geometric elements into a volumetric promenade that contrast from large auditoriums and workshops to one story room look alike and continuous libraries and open/free spaces; the primary architectural tool is intangible – a concept of program, dominance, and control that is absent, suggested for use and potential abuse; this deviates from the expected norms of conformist architectural spaces; the architect takes architecture to a state of absence that challenges conservative practices with a notion of spectrality and heuristic combination of factors that can be overwhelming to even the most experienced observer; the functional program is severed from the technical program; the spaces have a stem and undifferentiation dominance resulting in a a very clear program from perhaps an open brief; this is an pragmatic answer to the an always desired flexibility and adaptability of matter in a flux of time; a framework for unexpected flexibility and almost infinite adjustability; an unquestionable pedagogical tool, taking part in questioning the field of conformism, programme briefs and disciplinary unresolved actuality of architectural tools; a prosaic, pragmatic, misuse driven, economically efficient and yet, poetic, controversially healthy reversionistic and powerful proposition to the discipline of architecture
  • https://www.lacatonvassal.com/index.php?idp=55#

ensa nantes 2009 Lacaton & Vassal – credits: Phillipe Ruault

references

non-architectural pedagogical devices

schools, architects, and divergent buildings for context and background

• 1930 Openluchtschool voor het gezonde kind Amsterdam Jan Duiker (1890-1935)
• 1957 Primary Schools Nagele Aldo van Eyck (1918-1999)
• 1960 Orphanage Amsterdam Aldo van Eyck (1918-1999)
• 1958 Teatro Oficina São Paulo Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992)
• 1960 Conservatório Regional de Música Aveiro Noemia Coutinho (1937-2017)
• 2001 Gando Primary School Gando Francis Kéré (1965)
• 2022 Colegio Reggio Madrid Andrés Jaque (1971)

openluchtschool 1930 – Open air school for the healthy child

discourse

contemporary international pedagogical experiences as synthetic and effective expressions of a teaching know-how

interviews

dialogues_devices

interviews

internationally renowned professors

a public assembly to discuss school as a radical transformation

2014-2020 DIRECTOR_EAD Iván Ivelic Yanes

• Ha desempeñado cargos como jefe de extensión – difusión, jefe de investigación y entre los años 2014 y 2020 desempeñó el cargo de Director. Miembro y habitante de la Ciudad Abierta de Amereida … hasta la actualidad desde donde ha contribuido a la disciplina en la exploración de nuevas formas para pensar y desarrollar la arquitectura de forma colectiva y bajo una concepción artística
• Área de Investigación: Extensión, Ciudad y Habitabilidad Desde los años 90 en nuestro país, el reconocimiento del patrimonio natural y cultural como un factor de desarrollo humano y económico, abre un campo amplio de investigaciones, políticas, leyes, normas, programas y proyectos, entre los cuales la arquitectura cumple un rol fundamental; el de generar las condiciones de habitabilidad en: Áreas Naturales Protegidas a través de equipamientos de interpretación, educación y servicios; Relación artificio y naturaleza; desarrollada en proyectos de título y obras de travesía. Áreas Urbanas a través de equipamientos culturales de formación, creación y difusión; Distribución, cuantificación y cualificación del equipamiento cultural, desarrollado en Doctorado, investigaciones DI y proyectos de título.
  • https://wiki.ead.pucv.cl/Iv%C3%A1n_Ivelic
• 1988- PROFESSOR_EADAndrés Garcés,
  • Ha desarrollado su línea de investigación con la propuesta “La ciudad-teatro”, desde la perspectiva del lugar de la escena en la historia del teatro y la idea de “otro lugar” en la ciudad y la arquitectura desde los procesos de apropiación del espacio público como acto escénico. “
  • Área de Investigación: Extensión, Ciudad y Habitabilidad Cultura, ciudad, fenómenos sociales informales, espacio y forma arquitectónica, con la propuesta, “La Ciudad-Teatro”, desde la perspectiva del lugar de la escena, en la historia del teatro, con la idea del “otro lugar” en la ciudad y la arquitectura. Procesos de apropiación del espacio público en cuanto acto escénico y donde el espacio arquitectónico y urbano adquiere una doble función que se adapta a estos actos
  • https://wiki.ead.pucv.cl/Andr%C3%A9s_Garc%C3%A9s

2019 DEAN_GSD Sarah Whiting

• Whiting’s research is broadly interdisciplinary, with the built environment at its core.  An expert in architectural theory and urbanism, she has particular interests in architecture’s relationship with politics, economics, and society and how the built environment shapes the nature of public life.
  • https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/person/sarah-m-whiting/

2021 CHAIR_MARCH Markus Miessen

• … an architect (www.studiomiessen.com), writer, and Professor of Urban Regeneration at the University of Luxembourg, where he holds the chair of the City of Esch, associated with the master programme “Architecture, European Urbanisation, Globalisation” (www.masterarchitecture.lu). He received his PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, London, supervised by Eyal Weizman. The initiator of the Participation tetralogy, his work revolves around questions of critical spatial practice, institution building, and spatial politics. Miessen has previously taught at the Architectural Association (London, UK), and has been a Harvard Fellow. Most recently, he has held a Stiftungsprofessur for Critical Spatial Practice at the Städelschule (Frankfurt, DE), and was Distinguished Professor of Practice at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, US). Amongst many other books and writings, Miessen is the author of “The Nightmare of Participation” and “Crossbenching: Towards Participation as Critical Spatial Practice”, (both Sternberg Press and Merve Verlag, Berlin).
  • http://masterarchitecture.lu/Markus-Miessen_102_0.html

2022 DEAN_GSAPP Andrés Jaque

• Andrés Jaque’s practice explores architecture as an entanglement of bodies, technologies, and environments. As an architect, researcher, and curator, his work approaches materiality as relational, trans-scalar, and intrinsically political.
  • https://www.arch.columbia.edu/faculty/164-andres-jaque

2023 DIRECTOR_FAUP Joaquim Moreno

• Director de Curso de Mestrado Integrado
• Presidente da Comissão Científica
• Presidente da Comissão de Acompanhamento de Curso
  • https://sigarra.up.pt/faup/pt/func_geral.formview?p_codigo=240880

moderator

Inês Lobo

• Graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Lisbon in 1989, since has been a teacher of design studio. Currently, she is a Guest Professor in Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa and Universidade de Lisboa. The started her professional career in 1989, and founded her own office – Inês Lobo, Arquitectos – in 2002. She is frequently invited to lectures, seminars and conferences, in Portugal and abroad. She was a invited participant of the Venice Biennale in 2016, “Reporting from the front”, and 2018, “Freespace”. She is also a curator and commissioner of exhibitions of architecture, such as the Portuguese representation in the Venice Biennale, in 2012, or the VIII Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism Biennale. Regularly invited as member of juries in national and international prizes of architecture, like the Secil prize in 2006 or the FAD, in 2012. In 1999 she was honoured with title of Oficial da Ordem do Mérito by the President of the Republic of Portugal; in 2013, granted the prize “Mulheres criadoras da cultura” by the Portuguese Government; in 2014, The ArcVision – Women in Architectura prize; and in 2017, The AICA prize, granted by the Portuguese Section of the International Association of art critics.

dialogues

student led network

alternative frameworks and (political) devices

2019 CLAIMING SPACES https://www.instagram.com/claimingspaces/

• How can mechanisms of exclusion be uncovered and deconstructed? How can feminist architecture/ planning/ research be brought into the main discourse as a productive implicitness? How can discriminating forms of knowledge production and historiography be questioned, newly phrased and done differently? How can feminist vocational practices induce much needed changes in planning and building? The CLAIMING*SPACES Collective is a bottom-up group of students, graduates, teachers and researchers at TU Wien which seeks to foster intersectional_feminist perspectives in architecture and spatial planning. It was founded in 2019 on the initiative of Inge Manka to curate and organise the first CLAIMING*SPACES Conference in November 2019. We, the collective of CLAIMING*SPACES, invite students, teachers, architects/urban planners and researchers to participate in the discourse and to design intersectional_feminist positions and tools together, to create different forms of doing architectural and spatial planning.

2020 RIOT https://www.instagram.com/riot_epfl/

• Through construction and use, the built environment is a major driver of global warming and of relentless environmental and social damage. Complicit to resources, wealth, labor, value, and cultural extraction, the necessity to turn to a less destructive, ‘non-extractive’ and benevolent architecture is undisputed. Believing that design disciplines must pivot and wholeheartedly face the current social and climatic urgencies by rewiring themselves towards mitigating and repairing the harm, RIOT utilizes tactics and strategies to radicalize the field—by design. To paraphrase Fred Moten, decolonizing, depatriarchalizing, and decarbonizing the university may not be possible; still, these decolonial, emancipatory, and non-extractive works are to be conducted within the institution.

2022 SCHOOL OF TRANSFORMATION https://www.instagram.com/soft_schooloftransformation/

• SOFT – School of Transformation – is a self-organized initiative of students and people working in the architecture field in Munich. SOFT discusses space through discrimination-sensitive, intersectional-feminist, anti-classist, decolonial, and anti-racist lenses. SOFT’s goal is to evoke and foreground power-critical alternatives in teaching, workplaces, and self-organization. SOFT was created by merging the Chair of Unlearning with the Chair of Gossip, both initiatives at TUM.
  • https://www.chairofunlearning.com/ Chair of Unlearning is a student-led chair at TUM, proposed by Elena Spatz, Marie Gnesda and Lisa André in their bachelor thesis. They held their first student-led seminar “Empowering student positions. What could teaching for all look like?” in the winter semester 22/23 and will present the results in their final exhibition “Architecture discriminates” at TUM.

2022 UNMASKING SPACE https://www.instagram.com/unmaskingspace/

• Unmasking Space is a student-led course in the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. It aims to reflect critically on the current knowledge production in architecture education and bring attention to learning forms, voices, and methods that are currently under-acknowledged in the institution. Through multidirectional knowledge exchange and immersive activities, it experiments with other forms of learning, offering a critical lens on current pedagogies.

2022 COLETIVO PARTE https://www.instagram.com/coletivoparte/

• A arquitetura é palco de ação pública que se altera e transforma de acordo com os contextos em que se insere. A escola tem de reagir a esses contextos. Deve fomentar a produção de ideias e criar atividade: Consolidar o estudante consciente, ativo e inconformado. É necessário perceber que, neste momento, o agente que forma é, também, o que conforma o estudante, o que o restringe. Constrói-se o “estudante arquiteto” do zero, à medida do que vemos e recebemos, e sem grande intenção, montamos um atlas “individual”. Crescemos voltados para dentro, viramos costas à cidade e, de frente para o rio, cresce a ilusão, o pátio é encerrado e protegido da transformação da cidade, o ensino é teimoso e persistente, a urgência e a novidade não atravessam as torres de betão.
  

  Os conteúdos pedagógicos, bem como o próprio estudante, estão desfasados de qualquer iniciativa extracurricular da disciplina. Enquanto as matérias permanecem estáticas, o desinteresse é grande e a disciplina abstrata. Assistimos a um desadequado esquematismo do papel político da arquitetura. O enunciado e a sua pertinência devem ser questionados, analisados e investigados antes de iniciar uma busca cega por uma solução que respeite os alinhamentos e as diagonais de um terreno anónimo que nos foi (a)criteriosamente atribuído, que descubra os equilíbrios e a proporção ideal. O programa é pertinente? Não descartando a importância das referidas questões de composição e desenho, acreditamos que há espaço para a articulação de matérias e temas emergentes numa resposta ao exercício da disciplina.

  
  

  A comunidade e a produção académica não estão ligadas à cidade e às suas necessidades, o estudante deve estar presente na cultura e nos movimentos emergentes, na multidisciplinaridade que fundamenta e complementa uma formação íntegra na abrangência da disciplina. Idealizamos um ambiente saudável de inclusão e empatia, de produção e criatividade e promovemos uma comunidade acordada, aberta a diferentes métodos e a novas estratégias coletivas de organização pelo meio de uma leitura contemporânea do panorama atual da arquitetura e, portanto, do território e da sociedade.

  
  

Conciliando ideias e ativando mecanismos que a plataforma da AEFAUP nos viabiliza, queremos chegar mais longe numa proposta de revisão do plano de estudos. Queremos intensificar e promover a vontade coletiva de uma urgente inovação curricular. É este o ponto central desta candidatura à direção da AEFAUP, no ano letivo 2023/2024.

network moderator

Mio Kojima

• German-Japanese designer, researcher, and educator focused on collaborative, intersectional, feminist, and decolonial approaches to creating and sharing knowledge. From education to publishing and curating, she understands her work as a space-making practice centering community and exchange.
  • https://www.instagram.com/mio__kojima/
  • https://futuress.org/community/mio/

reports

cultural support network

exhibition and editorial projects

• https://www.safespacecollective.com/
• https://luca.lu/
• https://lina.community/
• https://failedarchitecture.com/
• https://www.daidalos.org/

open call

title

Radical Obedience: notes on pedagogy from design.

• radical as something fundamental and extreme, embedded from the root or origin; obedience as compliance to the existing rules or orders
  • in this context, “radical obedience” could imply a deep or profound commitment to following certain principles, rules, or instructions, possibly in an unconventional or transformative way
• notes as an indication of an observation process, including shared reflections and individual commentaries on the topic; they can be used as a starting point for more comprehensive study and analysis at a later time, possibly within a collective setting rather than an individual one
• subliminal as the search for an unspoken narrative, a demonstration of complacency from the material and immaterial conditions of a building
• pedagogical, referencing the theory and practice of education, from the perspective of teaching and learning, while studying; divergence, as departure, as deviation, or separation from an ongoing path
  • a departure from traditional/conventional frameworks of education, building design and education social system dynamics
  • an exploration of alternative and unconventional approaches, perhaps from a multimodality landscape of opportunistic analyses and critics; how embracing radical obedience in building design and also in education contexts can propose an innovative or transformative teaching practices that comply with the real needs of contemporaneity
• an exploration on non-traditional and divergent approaches to architectural design pedagogies by examining example buildings in light of present-day needs and the responsibility that agents in the discipline have towards the built environment
• radical obedience involves a strong dedication to particular principles or methods: in the context of this discussion, it pertains to how following specific pedagogical theories, even unconventional ones, can impact the physical structures of educational institutions
  • these pedagogical devices can influence the relationships between spaces, programs, and occupants within schools of architecture
• a note as a focus on the conceptualization of
  • specific didactic experiences
  • non-traditional teaching methods within the context of architecture education
  • how radical obedience in pedagogy translates into tangible teaching methods within schools of architecture

cadence

1. elementary/prosaic conditions for learning
   1. the classic view around the shelter as a primary place for human presence from protection, education, and participation in a larger community
   2. the concept of sheltered assemblies that undifferentiated both teacher and learner as a single body of study/students
   3. perhaps we don’t need buildings as pedagogical devices and could be fully satisfied from having instead shelters in a somehow classic image of the classical assemblies of though and discussion as a process of questioning the obsolescence of architecture school buildings, institutions and social dynamics
   4. ESNA Nantes acts a shelter, almost an urban cave, an elementary building that deviates from traditional approaches by putting a project’s programmatic functional units into an unexpected field of procedural, random and efficient process of true public collectivity through the opportunity of interaction and knowledge discussion
2. architecture as/in an educational context
   1. camp, the necessary sensitivity to approach from alternative perspectives to the project-based view from the discipline
   2. to learn from all students (teachers/learners) to critically question design education and examine the conditions under which they learn – under what temporal circumstances, where, what, how and whose voices are present
   3. together we need to discuss how educational spaces manifest capitalist, neoliberal, extractivist and exclusive structures, and what forms of learning, research and collaboration they would prefer instead
   4. how can/must critical practice influence political learning in and from a school? looking first at the concept of practice in the context of professional and also academic practice, we need to confront both teachers and learners with the state of autonomy of the discipline. Can this be interpreted as a social practice?
   5. certain forms of political practice, such as activism, are entirely developed and expressed through prosaic things and comparable to architecture, such as language, the grammar, the output that directly affects people’s lives. After 40 years of critical practice school there probably has to be room to try and change the curriculum, the actual tools to change this field is construction, an idea that the actual tools you use to engage in this work can be literal construction, space and architecture. And it is not architecture as an autonomous discipline or as a social practice.
3. building typologies confronting the concept of autonomy, responsibility, and potentiality
   1. schools and not only university buildings, never merging the examples with references but instead maintaining each specific case in perspective as referentials (chronologies and geographies of thought)
   2. Two main typologies?
      1. a social enabled building
         1. the social space within a school activates occupants, particularly learners, to engage in cross-inter-intra relations with other material bodies, including teachers, fellow learners, and even the building itself; another possible interaction occurs within the immaterial context of the school, where knowledge is treated as capital and organics become dynamics in an open system of exchange and intellectual stimulation
      2. a production enabled building
         1. seen as a workplace, the school becomes a representation of some of the arguments that enact the question of the politics of production from tension, anxiety and endurance; a place characterized by a constant stream of tasks and efforts, organised according to a strict schedule that aims to preserve a production system based on hierarchical values; this system reinforces the traditional knowledge production model, which relies on a relationship of submissive dominance; the system also produces agents of the discipline, who are created through a permissive state of exhaustion on the part of the learner; these agents will become the future prosecutors of the discipline of architecture; the system of endemic grandeur and succession uses quality as a disciplinary pretext to prevail; a proven system with observable results, although it is based on old values that can be appropriately updated to address contemporary questions arising from the need for care, empathy, and solidarity; some sort of exchange and inter-influence of ideas can occur without mediation instead of demanding individuality from the authors, denying a multitude of possibilities that could be interpreted, transformed, or combined in various ways
4. questioning neutrality, the obsolescence of the school building and the influence of practices as pedagogical devices
   1. can we escape from the spatial/cartesian model of the buildings as spaces of education? two directions/three dimensions vs multimodal opportunities (including emotional questions as solutions)?
   2. what multimodal approaches are taught to develop architecture pedagogy and therefore, influence the devices?
   3. did we forget the work of some as examples of alternative proposals?
   4. how can architectural design pedagogies evolve into a radical and productive transformations?
   5. what if student led chairs could prevail in the curriculum?
   6. can lexicon change the dynamics/relations between students, both teachers and learners?
   7. in line with the call’s emphasis on observing the behaviour-inducing physical space in university buildings, the research relates the influences of pedagogical methods and educational aims to the concept of ‘divergence’ in pedagogy; acting as a complement to the call’s focus on tracing limits and critically positioning ideas and projects within a recognizable system of production
   8. delve into how pedagogical theories, expressed through spatial configurations, shape the attitudes and ideals of aspiring architects
5. careful considerations about possible solutions
   1. aims, programmes, and objectives are necessary technical terms, but they are insufficient to provide a complete system or framework to address contemporary questions and needs; this is because they follow obsolete programmatic approaches that are too rigid to adapt to changing circumstances.
   2. if we consider radical in the sense of a process of questioning of a fundamental nature, in order to advocate a complete political or social change (while acting as a system of molecular elements behaving as one component), only a radical school can change what are the conditions necessary to preserve and what of them we must accept to lose
   3. perhaps only through deliberate acts of disobedience can we free our thoughts from the conformist spaces, always respecting the idea of the institution.
   4. the possibility of opening a discussion around a radical framework, focused on the essential, could support the implementation of functional, flexible and inclusive radical spaces, thus positioning a kind of sustainable pedagogical device that, by its very design, can influence, use and mediate social relations from the recognition of true and democratic transformative power
      1. a framework that derives from project-based methodologies and accepts design as the core of the school of architecture, demanding resistance and non-conformity from the edifice (complex beliefs) of the BUILDING
      2. a heuristic device that incorporates non-neutrality from the foundations of the building to the core of the curriculum, assuming the flexibility of spaces and a never-ending end result.

operativity

From the initial brief of the call, I propose a set of 03 sequential activities;

1. 01 article from 05-06 cases and 05 interviews, invoking 01 moderated assembly that relates “teachers and learners” from 05 dialogues into a set of occasions in one of the selected architectural pedagogical devices
2. challenge Inês Lobo to design/essay a radical school for architecture from words taken from the interviews with the scholars
3. consider Mio Kojima as a general supervisor for a continental network tour that engages locally each student led project

These acts compose an editorial opportunity to obviously publish the research topics, but more importantly, to achieve a broader audience; using the STOÀ journal as an excuse to gather around interest around the topic in an international tour that focus on the physical experience of the selected places (New York, Valparaíso, Boston, Porto, Nantes, Luxembourg, Wien, Lausanne, Munich and Zurich)

Sérgio Miguel Magalhães, FAUP

#divergence

Title

Radical Obedience: notes on pedagogy from design.

Radical Obedience: notes on architectural pedagogy.

Radical Obedience: notes on subliminal (pedagogical) divergence.

Abstract

Questioning the use of university buildings as pedagogical devices from the perspective of the non-neutrality of schools of architecture is a project on autonomy, virtue, principle, and even morality.

Architectural design pedagogies should be considered as autonomous mechanisms that have the potential to transform different systems of production, and thus the impact of architecture as the most subliminal contributor to the current state of our built environment.

These power systems of production can be responsible for the creation of a tangible cultural engagement, by making research and experimental based practice understandable to the public, establishing appropriate relationships between theory and spatial dynamics. Also, by providing context not only for the current state of our society but also for relevant specific cases, such as relating sustainable school buildings to immaterial conditions like bodies, territories, and landscapes, we avoid contributing to a systemic and endemic construction of mere agents of the discipline. Consequently, buildings are demoted from a self-centred technical representation of semantic disinterest in human relations by the author and instead, they are proposed as acting symbols of the achievements of a school as a community.

We must consider constructing a framework for architectural education as an open and equidistant system between teachers(professors?) and learners(students?). It is necessary to invest in a revised and updated lexicon, not only from the discipline but also from other contemporary fields.

By prioritising a virtuous and progressive approach to school building design (not simply eliminating certain “models”), we can aim for a radically innovative approach that could bring action to s positive transformation. Consider the potential impact on architecture students if they could enhance their experience of the urban environment by placing the city in its proper context and forging a stronger connection between the academic community and the natural world through the presence of perhaps the absence of a building. Far from being a manifesto against the urban context I propose an ethnological approach to multimodalities that can only be achieved by exploring other fields and practices, within a framework of disobedient divergence.

Buildings themselves do not create culture, but they serve the medium from which a culture on architecture is reproduced.

Bibliography

The essays could be accompanied by a short bibliography that will be placed at the end of the article as follows: Last and first name of the author, Title, Publisher, Place 1975, p. x. (same as footnote form, but inverting first and last name of the author)

• Ruskin, J. (1849). The Seven Lamps of Architecture. United Kingdom: J. Wiley.
• Roth, A. (1957). Neue Schulhaus. Estados Unidos: Praeger.
• Colomina, B., Galán, I. G., Kotsioris, E., & Meister, A.-M. (Eds.). (2022). Radical pedagogies: Why human intelligence still beats algorithms. The MIT Press.
• Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on ‘Camp’. Penguin Books.Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on ‘Camp’. Penguin Books.
• Jaque, A. (2019). Mies y la gata Niebla: Ensayos sobre arquitectura y cosmopolítica. Puente Editores.
• Fuller, J. (2023, March 15). Scratching the Surface—227. Andrés Jaque (227).
• Fuller, J. (2023, March 29). Scratching the Surface—230. Sarah Whiting.
• Miessen, M., Maric, M., Nájera, C. R., & Cane, F. (2024, January 21). Cultures of Assembly—CoA 10. On Architecture and Politics with Oana Bogdan and Olaf Grawert. (10).
• Blunderfield, M. (2024, January 24). Scaffold—97: Apparata (79).

Notes

Please place notes at the end of the document and not at the bottom of the page.

No style, no formatting, no hyphenation, no section or page interruption.

John Ruskin (1849). The Seven Lamps of Architecture. United Kingdom: J. Wiley.

• “Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man…that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.”

Andrés Jaque (2024). Letter From The Dean. New York

• https://www.arch.columbia.edu/deans-letter
  

  January 19, 2024
  Dear GSAPP students and colleagues,

  
  

  As we start a new semester, I want to welcome all of you back to the School, and take this opportunity to thank our program directors, sequence coordinators and faculty at large for putting together such a timely and needed pedagogical frame across programs for the Spring of 2024. As this week’s studio lotteries, course presentations, and syllabi have shown, GSAPP anticipates change through (and as) our disciplines. Change manifests itself now as the inseparability of design, discourse, and activism.
  Next Monday, we will celebrate the sixth AFFIRMATION. This is an opportunity to think collectively beyond disciplinary divides about what the agency of material, spatial and relational settings is now, and how it is mobilized. At a time when a world founded on the intersection of carbonization, extractivism, colonization, racialization, anthropocentrism, ableism, inequality, patriarchy, and technocracy is cracking, AFFIRMATIONS brings together designers, researchers, planners, and activists to affirm and interrogate how to think and redesign the built environment.
  During the next ten weeks, we will be welcoming exceptional interlocutors: Jack Halberstam, Samia Henni, Rob Nixon, Elizabeth Povinelli, Paul B. Preciado, Filipa Ramos, C. Riley Snorton, Eyal Weizman, and David Wengrow, who will engage in a conversation with GSAPP faculty, guests, and students moderated by Bart-Jan Polman, and in connection with a planetary cohort of participants from all around the world. Together, we will interrogate how our disciplines operate through climate regimes, societal accountabilities, ecological entanglements, and queer/trans eco-territorial-bodiments.
  The AFFIRMATIONS sessions are intended to offer a space for the school to reflect and underline what is possible in our studios, courses and clinics. They are also connected to other events that will contribute to our collective discussions this semester. We will have the opportunity to hear from, and discuss the work of Bijoy Jain (Studio Mumbai), Madelon Vriesendorp, and our very own Hilary Sample, Bernard Tschumi (whose game-changing Parc de la Villette is now 40 years old), as well as Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano of LOT-EK, who are the subject of a film by Thomas Piper that we will screen. We will celebrate the inaugural PhD in Urban Planning Lecture with Joe Schaffers of Cape Town’s District Six Museum; a CCCP Lecture with Hamza Walker of LAXART; the Detlef Mertins Lecture on the Histories of Modernity with Dwight Carey; the Constructing (Activist) Practice conference with young practitioners organized by Juan Herreros; a lecture by Damon Rich of HECTOR; and the The Paul S. Byard Memorial Lecture by Svein Lund, Jonas Norsted, Erik Langdalen and Jorge Otero-Pailos. We will also see five iterations of “The Library is Open” book discussions taking place in very central locations across the School.
  Putting together this platform for collective interrogation and affirmation is the result of numerous contributions from many of you, and especially the curatorial insight and dedication of Bart-Jan Polman. The best way to thank all of them (i.e. you) for this is making the best of these opportunities. The future of our disciplines and our worlds to a certain extent depend on these discussions.
  You can browse the full event calendar on the website, and I encourage you to look out for the regular newsletters with upcoming events and recommendations.

  
  

  I am happy to be able to share this with you.
  All the best,
  Andrés

  
  

  Andrés Jaque
  Dean

  
  

Matthew Blunderfield (2024) Scaffold Podcast #97 Apparata: Nicholas Lobo Brennan and Astrid Smitham. United Kingdom: The Architecture Foundation

• 53:30
• Matthew Blunderfield (MB): It’s so exciting to think of feminist architecture as being about where the soft spot in the wall might be, to make a new door between flats. Or how high the upstand on a window is. Or how much glazing in fact, there is on a front facade. I feel like these types of concerns are entirely architectural and spatial and yet, so obviously social in their consequence. And yet, the discourse of feminist practice in design often seems to ignore this very prosaic questions. And maybe it’s a, maybe it’s an invitation, to recover a feminism within architectural design itself. I feel, I feel that a lot with this project. I feel like a lot of optimism for the kind of discussions it might enable, especially among students. I mean, maybe we can go there. How do you bring these concerns to a student audience or how do you animate the urgency of these ideas among students?
• Nicholas L. Brennan (NLB): Maybe it links up a few things you’ve asked about our practice and how about impact that has? And you’re saying about certain forms of, hum, politically driven critical practice. Um, I guess what we’re always trying to do, is we’re trying to say that, with, in a sense we’re doing a kind of activism, right? But the activism is entirely expressed and developed through, as you called it prosaic things, right? The language, the grammar, the output is to do with the things that impact people’s material lives.
• MB: Literally, where is the door?
• NLB: Yeah, literally, where is the door?
• MB: How wide is the walkway?
• NLB: Exactly. Exactly. It’s literally that stuff and it’s it, and it can be because we’ve had 40 years of a kind of critical practice schools, right? There’s been very important right? To completely try and change the curriculum. Hum, that probably has to be room for the idea that the actual devices you use to engage in that work can be literally just construction, right? And space, and architecture? I guess that’s what we tried to, with the students. So, it’s not this either or, hum right? It’s not either, either, it’s architecture as autonomous discipline, or its social practice, you know?
• Astrid Smitham (AS): Yeah, I think we, we let our students work very freely actually in terms of what they, how they like to work so, like we’re not posed to say parametric system. If it’s a kind of parametric system that’s, that’s aiming for… That’s not just here about…
• NLB: It’s not formal.
• AS: It’s not formal…But is about…
• NLB: Complex systems.
• AS: Complex systems and trying to understand something. So, whatever student brings to us, I think we’re quite open.
• NLB: Yeah, we like to like yeah, I mean, in a certain sense, there’s a problem with a… So, one.. We initially started… I mean, we’re still not just as a whole bunch of people in the same generation… We’re interested in really building things, right? And I think that was a little bit to do with the deficit of… uh, the formal education one gets right? And also the early experience in offices where you’re doing illustration rather than construction, right? Um…
• MB: You’re kind of compensate through practice for a deficit in education?
• NLB: Yes, so, so, so… so that’s definitely an issue of, of the kind of deskilling of architectural education and also, also the… the younger members of the community, like what, what their jobs are, right? Simultaneous at the same time, you have to have (like Astrid saying), quite a free, a place to think very freely, free of assumptions were we’ll try and break assumptions and so, we’re trying to constantly balance those two out, right? Because if you go straight from just construction, construction, construction, I think they can be very limiting, hum, but equally, if you don’t, land in like you say the width of the door being a, a, a political iss… issue, then also it’s a little bit useless the big thinking potentially.
• AS: The width of the walkway is determined by having 20 centimetres for plants. 1.1 meters for access and 80 centimetres per furniture. Which we thought… was the minimum to be able to use it really well…
• NLB: I mean something…
• AS: … while so still bringing in enough light.
• NLB: I think, I think something worth saying is something that, how can I say it, something that drives Astrid mad, is double yellow lines and this idea of the instruction rather than being intuitive, right?
• AS: Yeah, we like instructional spaces in the UK. We make all our streets instructional.

Anne Lacaton (1955) ; Jean-Philippe Vassal (1954)

• Ecole d’architecture, Nantes
• lieu/location: Nantes, France > show on map
• année/year:2009
• catégorie/type: education
• état/status: built/réalisé
• surface/size: 15 150 m2 basic program + 4 430 m2 extra space + 5 305 m2 accessible outside terraces
• client: Ministère de la culture et de la communication – DRAC Pays de Loire
• coût/cost: 17,75 M€ HT/net (val. 2008)
• En construisant une structure de grande capacité, le projet invente un dispositif capable de créer un ensemble de situations riches et diverses, intéressant l’Ecole d’Architecture, la Ville et le paysage.
  Trois planchers en béton, largement ouverts, à 9 m, 16 m et 22 m au-dessus du sol naturel, desservis par une rampe extérieure en pente douce, mettent progressivement en relation le sol de la Ville et son ciel.
  Une structure légère re-divise la hauteur de ces niveaux principaux. Elle permet d’installer généreusement les espaces dédiés au programme et crée un système propre à leur extension et leur évolutivité future.
  Aux espaces du programme sont associés d’amples volumes, en double hauteur, aux fonctions non attribuées, dont les façades transparentes captent les apports solaires et assurent le climat intérieur. A l’initiative des étudiants, des professeurs ou des invités ces espaces deviennent le lieu d’appropriations, d’événements et de programmations possibles. A tout moment l’adaptation de l’Ecole à de nouveaux enjeux et sa reconversion sont possibles.
  Tel un outil pédagogique, le projet questionne le programme et les pratiques de l’Ecole d’architecture autant que les normes, les technologies ainsi que son propre processus d’élaboration.
  

  Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal, architectes avec Florian De Pous, Frédéric Hérard, et Julien Callot, Lisa Schmidt-Colinet, Isidora Meier, architectes collaborateurs avec Setec Bâtiment (structure béton, fluides), CESMA (structure métallique), E2I (économie de la construction), Jourdan (acousticien), Vulcanéo (sécurité incendie)

  • Programme: école d’architecture pour 1 000 étudiants
  • Surface: 26 837 m2 surface hors œuvre brute comprenant:
    • 19 580 m2 surface hors œuvre nette (15 150 m2 correspondant au programme de base + 4 430 m2 d’espace supplémentaire appropriable)
    • 5 305 m2 terrasses extérieures accessibles

Inês Lobo (1966)

• E com o passar destes 14 anos, em que ponto é que acha que está o curso da UAL?
  É uma pergunta muito difícil… nós não sabíamos o que iria ser o mundo e o mundo da arquitetura nos anos que se seguiram à formação do curso e eu penso que não estamos a atravessar um momento muito interessante, nem no ensino da arquitetura, nem na arquitetura propriamente dita, nem na vida do arquiteto… e penso que as universidades estão a padecer desse problema.
  O primeiro problema com que acho que a UAL se está a debater e com o qual se continua a debater, tem a ver com a quantidade de alunos. E não é porque entram poucos alunos, é porque não há possibilidade de escolha dos alunos e quando eu digo “escolha”, não é que se deva selecionar. O importante era aparecer muita gente, para depois ficarem os “bons” dessa gente que aparecia. E quando eu digo os “bons” são os que querem ficar, os que têm vontade de ficar e fazer o curso.
  A esse problema junta-se outro que é o dos cursos estarem a desaparecer e os alunos também. Há menos alunos a entrar para Arquitetura e há também mais escolas públicas, eu penso que nos últimos catorze anos apareceram uma série de outras escolas públicas, que estão sempre antes das escolas privadas – por razões variadas mas sobretudo por razões económicas. Portanto, por muito que se queira, uma universidade privada de Arquitetura em Portugal, neste momento, não tem uma vida fácil, por muito boa que se seja, enquanto existirem tantas públicas como existem.
  Com Bolonha, pensou-se que estas coisas podiam inverter-se um bocadinho abrindo livre concorrência nos últimos os alunos passariam a circular mais entre privadas ou públicas, mas não é isso que está a acontecer. Ainda não chegámos a esse ponto porque ainda não se paga nas públicas como numa privada.
  Também é evidente que a Autónoma evoluiu imenso! Quando começou estava muito ligado àquele núcleo central – o arquiteto Manuel Graça Dias, o arquitecto João Luís Carrilho da Graça e o arquiteto José Manuel Fernandes – que foram figuras muito importantes nos primeiros anos da Autónoma – e juntaram-se pessoas mais novas, pessoas mais velhas, e de diversas áreas disciplinares também, para o discutir. Sempre foi um dos grandes objetivos da Autónoma dizer que um curso de arquitectura não pode ser só feito por arquitectos. E tentou-se sempre que as outras áreas disciplinares tivessem um certo peso. Depois, e penso que passados estes catorzes anos, com um olhar critico, não deixamos de estar com um curso em que o Projecto é o tema central e que ocupa, se calhar, espaço excessivo em relação às outras disciplinas. Outra coisa que é importante é que a Autónoma sempre defendeu que estávamos ali para formar arquitectos projectistas. Como é uma escola pequena, acho que foi isso que sempre quisemos fazer e funciona. De qualquer maneira, se olharmos para a quantidade de arquitectos que estamos a formar, hoje em dia, eu penso que o ensino da arquitectura não pode continuar a imaginar que vamos ser todos arquitectos projetistas, porque não vamos. Eu acho que a formação dos arquitetos tem de se reinventar um bocadinho e tem de passar por outras coisas. Não quer dizer que seja a Autónoma a fazê-lo, porque tem um perfil para formar esses arquitectos projetistas, mas temos de pensar um bocadinho sobre qual deve ser a formação dos jovens arquitetos neste momento.
  • https://www.estudoprevio.net/ines-lobo/
  • 2009 School in Cabo Verde Santiago, Cabo Verde
  • 2010 Avelar Brotero High School Coimbra, Portugal
  • 2010 Art and Architecture Faculty Évora, Portugal
  • 2011 Francisco Rodrigues Lobo High School Leiria, Portugal
  • 2011 Joaquim Carvalho High School Figueira da Foz, Portugal
  • 2015 Dr. Mário Sacramento High School Aveiro, Portugal

1. https://www.arch.columbia.edu/deans-letter the motivational and political discourse that engages the community in a specific curricular bearing ↑
2. “transscaralidades” (PT) “transcalent” (UK) is a term that Andrés Jaques used in is presentations (https://www.galeriamunicipaldoporto.pt/pt/programas/galeria-energia-encontros-entre-arte-musica-natureza-e-ciencia/imaginarios/20230224-transcalaridades-niebla-a-gata-e-outras-formas-de-dissidencia-material-andres-jaque/) , derived from the latin transcalēre : pervious to or permitting the passage of heat – https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcalent ↑
3. https://www.arch.columbia.edu/ online description of the main curricular arguments ↑

Tags:

• #divergence
• #phd
• #STOA