Pedagogy 2025

Abstract

Conduction-based technological practice and its pedagogy inherently focus on efficiently isolating their subject through low U-values and high R-values. Tested in labs and concentrated within the wall thickness, this approach aimed to solve real emergencies, inadvertently dismissing what surrounds the wall—isolating itself from the outside climate and the inside interior volume. As isolation becomes the primary response to the climate crisis, architectural design and spatial experiments now feel anachronistic, a luxury of the past, losing meaningfulness, particularly for students with high climate consciousness. This raises important questions: How do we justify and teach spatial practice during the climate emergency? Can technological and spatial practice entangle to achieve higher sustainability? Can new technology and datasets catalyze the production of sustainable spatial strategies and differentiated spatial experiences? The author finds alternatives by integrating comprehensive heat transfer modes and advanced simulation into spatial design—designing beyond R-values. Rather than blocking energetic flow, the approach prioritizes passively moving and exchanging energy at appropriate speeds. To achieve this, space extends, exaggerates, and staggers in multiple dimensions, naturally producing differentiated spatial volumes and material experiences. Advanced cloud-based simulation now processes and visualizes complex calculations on personal computers, allowing students and professionals alike to verify and update spatial strategies through iterative processes. Through this, technological innovation focuses on spatial practice itself, where buildings become habitable climate control systems. Utilizing datasets from 16,000 weather stations helps identify the passive spatial design potential, generating spatial and material strategies that amplify local ambient energetic flows with reduced reliance on fossil fuels.