A DIALOGICAL STRATEGY IN ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION
One of the most enduring qualities of an architecture education is its ability to critically re-examine itself. As any good architect knows, the interpretation of the architecture brief, the reconciliation of conflicting demands of site, program, form and space in the design process is not a linear one. The architect is trained to continuously demand that problems be viewed with fresh eyes to seek new insights, recognizing yet at the same time challenging the constraints imposed to find different solutions to problems and even raise new questions in the process. Architects are accustomed to working with relative indeterminacy, which is gradually shaped into a tangible spatial solution. Architecture education is unique in this regard when compared to the more prescribed professional education like medicine or law. It is also what makes architecture education unique and challenging for students who are not accustomed its openness and indeterminate nature.
My role as a teacher of architecture is to uncover and help cultivate in students their innate sensibilities; to sharpen their intuitive temperaments while inculcating in them a view of the world that is open, manifold and dialogical. I am inspired by Mikhail Bakthin’s notion of the dialogue as a fundamental operative armature by which we know the world. Despite the unbridgeable difference between self and the world, it does not mean a path leading to pure relativism. We still attempt to make sense of the world through our continuing participation and engagement, to find a momentary anchor. Meaning in this case is not received or static but constructed through relations between self and the other. It is constantly being made and unmade. It is situational and responsive. I find this mode of thinking and action particularly refreshing and revealing when Bakthin’s idea of the dialogue is interpreted in architecture education.
First, it implies that the life of a building continues beyond its presence in magazines but persists as a continuing dialogue between occupants and the building. Spaces are therefore not mute. Like a text in a novel, architectural spaces generate an interior, open dialogue with the everyday life of the occupants. However, it is not a linear one but is continuously ordered and re-ordered. Second, it demands that architecture students recognize very early in their education that one does not act in isolation but in constant interaction, negotiation and dialogue with others. This may require painful departures from the familiar and even confronts one’s own impalpable wall of preconceptions and habits. Thirdly, a dialogical pedagogy does not restrict one to fleeting design trends, the tools of production nor succumb to formalistic imperatives or ideological sentiments. The possibly for genuine creative works is enormous, as each individual becomes aware of the multiple, conflicting and disorderly voices that need to be recognized, calmed or amplified. These voices, when sensitively tuned, can be shaped into tangible and memorable spaces, while deepening our comprehension of the world.
Architecture is first and foremost an ordering of life through care, judgment, empathy and generosity. The recognition of our common humanity by architecture students is especially critical in an age of scarce natural resources and social inequalities. It does not matter if the architect uses the computer or her own bare hands in shaping a work into existence, as long as it is an invitation to participation and action in the collective realm. In my teachings, students are encouraged to work across different disciplines and scales of involvements to find common grounds for engagement. In particular, to reflect critically how their design decisions can empower the disenfranchised, question accepted conventions, intensify lived experiences and reveal potentials for a sustained and meaningful creative practice. It is not education per se but the cultivation of a way of looking, thinking and participating in the world, and they way we represent life through ourselves and our works.
One of the most enduring qualities of an architecture education is its ability to critically re-examine itself. As any good architect knows, the interpretation of the architecture brief, the reconciliation of conflicting demands of site, program, form and space in the design process is not a linear one. The architect is trained to continuously demand that problems be viewed with fresh eyes to seek new insights, recognizing yet at the same time challenging the constraints imposed to find different solutions to problems and even raise new questions in the process. Architects are accustomed to working with relative indeterminacy, which is gradually shaped into a tangible spatial solution. Architecture education is unique in this regard when compared to the more prescribed professional education like medicine or law. It is also what makes architecture education unique and challenging for students who are not accustomed its openness and indeterminate nature.
My role as a teacher of architecture is to uncover and help cultivate in students their innate sensibilities; to sharpen their intuitive temperaments while inculcating in them a view of the world that is open, manifold and dialogical. I am inspired by Mikhail Bakthin’s notion of the dialogue as a fundamental operative armature by which we know the world. Despite the unbridgeable difference between self and the world, it does not mean a path leading to pure relativism. We still attempt to make sense of the world through our continuing participation and engagement, to find a momentary anchor. Meaning in this case is not received or static but constructed through relations between self and the other. It is constantly being made and unmade. It is situational and responsive. I find this mode of thinking and action particularly refreshing and revealing when Bakthin’s idea of the dialogue is interpreted in architecture education.
First, it implies that the life of a building continues beyond its presence in magazines but persists as a continuing dialogue between occupants and the building. Spaces are therefore not mute. Like a text in a novel, architectural spaces generate an interior, open dialogue with the everyday life of the occupants. However, it is not a linear one but is continuously ordered and re-ordered. Second, it demands that architecture students recognize very early in their education that one does not act in isolation but in constant interaction, negotiation and dialogue with others. This may require painful departures from the familiar and even confronts one’s own impalpable wall of preconceptions and habits. Thirdly, a dialogical pedagogy does not restrict one to fleeting design trends, the tools of production nor succumb to formalistic imperatives or ideological sentiments. The possibly for genuine creative works is enormous, as each individual becomes aware of the multiple, conflicting and disorderly voices that need to be recognized, calmed or amplified. These voices, when sensitively tuned, can be shaped into tangible and memorable spaces, while deepening our comprehension of the world.
Architecture is first and foremost an ordering of life through care, judgment, empathy and generosity. The recognition of our common humanity by architecture students is especially critical in an age of scarce natural resources and social inequalities. It does not matter if the architect uses the computer or her own bare hands in shaping a work into existence, as long as it is an invitation to participation and action in the collective realm. In my teachings, students are encouraged to work across different disciplines and scales of involvements to find common grounds for engagement. In particular, to reflect critically how their design decisions can empower the disenfranchised, question accepted conventions, intensify lived experiences and reveal potentials for a sustained and meaningful creative practice. It is not education per se but the cultivation of a way of looking, thinking and participating in the world, and they way we represent life through ourselves and our works.
