IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION A

Abstract

Design – make is an established form of architectural education that provides a setting for students to collaboratively design and then construct projects that typically respond to real needs, briefs and sites. In the contemporary university setting, these types of projects have become increasingly challenging to undertake. Risk aversion, disruption from the covid pandemic and prevalence of digital learning all present challenges to the delivery of and engagement with this form of teaching and learning. Despite this, the value of these projects is that while they offer students hands on experience in the technical resolution of design ideas, they demand direct engagement with the processes of working with, and for, others; essential human aspects of ‘doing’ architecture. This paper will present a recent project undertaken at Monash University in Melbourne as a case study of the value of design – make education in the contemporary university context. The first of a multi-year engagement with a post-industrial site being rehabilitated on the outskirts of a regional town two hours drive from Melbourne, the project called Negative / Positive uses a range of locally available and recycled materials to form a pair of gathering spaces that allow people to come together and participate in the regeneration of the site. The paper will present the Positive / Negative project not simply as a ‘thing’ that was built, but rather as a process that was undertaken and will articulate and ultimately advocate for the student learnings beyond the architectural, and into the realm of life, and ‘being’ in an increasingly unstable world.