IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION A

Abstract

Architectural design oscillates between individuality and self-erasure—a tension embedded in architectural thought. What does individuality mean when designing space, and what happens when it is either over-amplified or erased? Architecture moves between the cult of the star-architect—where a single author’s vision dominates—and collectivised processes that can sideline architectural expertise. Celebrating the singular “genius” can legitimise spatial exploitation—privileging formal spectacle over social, ecological and ethical responsibilities; conversely, abolishing the author entirely yields context-less designs detached from responsibility. Roland Barthes’s questioning of the “Author-God” and Michel Foucault’s author-function do not erase the author; rather, they distribute authority across networks. This theoretical tension frames the pedagogical experiment described next. To address it, we will run a nine-day Research-through-Design laboratory in Istanbul. Students, local residents and civil participants will document how a public space is personalised. Historians, sociologists and urban researchers will guide this process. Participants then design reversible interventions that invite new forms of self-expression while protecting communal ownership. Daily Reflection-in-Action sessions require continual navigation between individual intent, collective consensus and user adaptation; design narratives, rapid prototypes and scenario mappings will be gathered as qualitative data. By uniting the production and appropriation of space within a single pedagogical experiment, the studio intersects star-architect critique with rights-based participation scholarship. The project offers a practical teaching framework that moves authorship beyond a binary presence/absence debate and redefines it as a fluid combination of disciplinary knowledge, collective negotiation and user self-expression.
Keywords: individuality; authorship; star-architect; participatory