Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

The landscape of the architectural profession is advancing at a radical pace as new technologies and personal skills are introduced to the Built Environment. Pursuing a career in architecture is becoming increasingly more skills-based, challenging the architectural pedagogies educating the future profession. The turn of the century has highlighted the increasing disconnect between the architect in practice and the architect-to-be, with calls from academia and the architectural profession demanding a re-evaluation of architectural education. These calls for change and the arising issues with the architectural design studio, present an opportunity to re-evaluate the design studio pedagogy and assess its value in educating architects in contemporary education. Architecture Schools internationally, adopt the design studio and historic influences from the Beaux-Arts education system as well as the master-apprentice form of learning. However, there has not been a study on the effectiveness of vertical teaching as a pedagogy for educating architects in the design studio integrating both master’s and bachelor’s degrees in the same learning environment. Vertical Design Studios are introduced in education to enhance aspects of collaborative learning, accelerated learning, peer review and to generate a learning culture within an educational environment. Now in its sixth iteration, The Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment (BSoA) within Ulster University have introduced vertical teaching to both Masters and Bachelors courses of architecture, as a new innovative design studio pedagogy. This paper aims to discuss the new, innovative pedagogy which is challenging the traditional methods of educating the future of the profession in architecture