Pedagogy 2025

Abstract

This paper explores a transformative pedagogical experiment in an urban design studio at a university in Amman, Jordan, conducted during Fall 2022/2023, Fall 2023/2024, and Spring 2023/2024. The experiment emerged from the instructor’s critical response to a course description emphasizing European-based best practices. The study challenges the dominance of Western urban design pedagogy, advocating for alternative teaching methods that integrate local contexts, indigenous knowledge, and postcolonial perspectives in the global South. Key strategies included using ‘lived problems’ as project typologies, applying ‘embodied experience’ and ‘local lexicons’ for experiential research, and employing ‘countermapping’ as an analytical tool. Findings revealed that the key strategies used in the studio exposed socio-spatial dynamics overlooked by normative mapping techniques. The unconventional maps created during the studio served as tools for critique, education, and visibility, highlighting spatial subjectivities. These alternative representations challenged normative mapping procedures and universal urban planning standards uncovering socio-spatial dynamics. The findings show that mapping is both an epistemological and political act, contributing to global urban studies and promoting epistemic justice. The study proposes a pedagogical framework that rethinks urban design education from and in the global South. It emphasizes incorporating local voices, indigenous knowledge, and alternative mapping practices into curricula.