IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION A

Abstract

Architectural Pedagogy has long faced questions about its mission, striving since the 1960s to reconcile its role as an environment for professional training and intellectual experimentation. Yet today, architectural education remains largely confined within academic boundaries, offering limited opportunities for students to engage with real-world conditions. This disconnect seems particularly acute in Spain, where a highly regulated educational framework leaves little room to engage beyond the disciplinary and institutional boundaries. In cities marked by depopulation and fragile public infrastructures–a condition affecting 76% of Spanish municipalities–the challenges of urban resilience and governance present a fertile ground to test educational models based on engagement and collaboration among academia, public institutions, and communities. Within this context, a critical question arises: to what extent can architectural pedagogy generate spaces of engagement that productively intersect academic knowledge with the challenges of the present? This paper addresses this question by examining the role of the d-Lab at IE University as an experimental, non-curricular initiative aimed at shortening the distances between architectural education and real world challenges. By critically reflecting on the evolution of the d-Lab since its foundation in 2013, this paper investigates how “situated pedagogies” can operate within three interrelated and fractured contexts: the regulatory constraints of Spanish architectural education, the socio-economic conditions of small, shrinking cities, and the shortcomings of public institutions. Drawing on the experiences of the d-Lab, the paper explores how practice-based engagement can expand the boundaries of architectural education by fostering collaboration and local action within—and often in critical negotiation with—the margins of the formal curriculum.