IN-PERSON Prague Research & Teaching Conference

Abstract

This paper calls for a radical transformation in architecture and design education. It advocates rethinking our educational approach to address the enduring influence of Western capitalist ideology and aesthetics while transforming the teacher-student-researcher relationship. The proposed pluriversal education models recognize and embrace diverse forms of knowledge, values, worldviews, and epistemologies essential for understanding today’s multifaceted world. Central to this transformation is the concept of repair, both as a mindset and a design principle. This philosophy of repair emphasizes innovative reuse and the remaking of everyday objects, spaces, buildings, and society at large. It involves a series of reparative actions to creatively and critically imagine alternative futures. By promoting a multiplicity of actions, this paper calls for a rebellion against the constant impulse to acquire new things, advocating for sustainable and equitable practices in research and teaching. This approach is demonstrated in years of advanced studio settings where repair, care, and re-harvesting of residual materials and objects from waste and demolition is practiced. A further argument for research and teaching is the blurring of boundaries between research and education and the blending of architecture, design, and art fields. Encouraging these blurred boundaries and incorporating repair fosters an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary educational environment. This environment is responsive to ecological and social imperatives and focuses on resources that move from extraction (or resources) to building material and immaterial value. This also means transforming designers and architects from originators and authors of work to custodians, caretakers, maintainers, and repairers of our built environment.