A Focus on Pedagogy
Abstract
This paper reports a pedagogical experience during the pandemic period at the Department of Architecture Design (DPA) of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU) of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), seeking to identify contributions from alternative design modes of teaching to the design studio discipline. The need to fit in a shorter schedule, as defined by UFRJ, in addition to the sudden migration to virtual educational environments, opened new challenges and opportunities for the re-formulation of design studio approach. In response to these new impositions, DPA chose to offer elective disciplines instead of mandatory ones. By doing so, it allowed professors to propose significant changes in restructuring both the discipline content and its design procedures, resulting in a variety of teaching approaches not necessarily aligned with the traditional design studio practice consolidated at FAU. Design teaching is a matter of constant theoretical concern, focusing on either epistemology of practice or methodological description. In this sense, we are interested in exploring epistemological and methodological outcomes that can be drawn from the remote experience, by analyzing the proposed program, the didactics applied and the outcomes of two design disciplines: Ateliê Integrado I (AI 1) and Projeto Arquitetônico IV (PA IV). The AI 1 course explores problem finding and problem-solving exercises through an interdisciplinary approach involving architectural and landscape design, theory and digital communication. The PA4 course focuses on small scale interventions and its strategic impacts. Site and program are defined by the students and the design has tectonics as a primarily concern. The definition of a “traditional design teaching” model and the explanation of its intrinsic components, offered by Ashraf Salama (2016), will serve us as a guiding parameter to build a parallel between the two approaches, highlighting their diverse and complementary contributions to design thinking and design education.
Aline A. A. Cruz is a PhD candidate in Urbanism, with a focus on Design Education, at PROURB-UFRJ, being a member of LAPU – Laboratory of Urban Project, as a student/researcher, with a scholarship by FAPERJ-RJ. Professor of Architecture and Urban Design with a Master Degree in Urbanism, with over 15 years of experience in the field. Architect and Urban designer with more than 18 years of practice among partners and on her own studio, ranging several scales and types of projects. Content Supervisor and podcaster in Arquicast. Interested in design methods and building knowledge by design on both academic and professional fields.
Ana Slade is a licensed architect and urbanist and Adjunct Professor and Coordinator of Department of Architecture Design (DPA) at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (FAU-UFRJ). Master’s in Visual Arts (EBA, UFRJ, 2007) and Doctorate in Urbanism (Prourb, UFRJ, 2019) and research visitor at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada (2017). Has experience in Architecture and Urbanism, with emphasis on Architecture Design, acting on the following topics: design and architectural theory, modern Brazilian architecture, architectural teaching and live-work architecture.
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Friday 22nd April, 2022