Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

The crisis of democracy and education showed us the inability to change and face society’s needs. Now, we have an opportunity to rethink and reevaluate our previous positions. Traditional architectural methodology and the tutor-student relationship created a pragmatic and technologically neutral profession able to solve problems inside the constraints of a design, and spatial-critical courses instead often lead to theoretical distance and ineffectiveness. We are under the pressure of different crises and need new forms (or recomposing the existing ones) into a communicative and adaptable education model. To optimize our abilities to interact and change spatial dynamics, education should provide a safe space for everyone to help them vocalize their perspectives. The critical educational model with horizontal communication should prepare us to face the change. Because democracy needs continuous harmonization of value systems, Mannheim proposes a new evolutionary democracy based on planning for freedom and diversity instead of control. The main objective of the essay is to analyze, on a theoretical level, Mannheim’s proposal for democracy and Habermas’s communicative action and the application of different social models of communication in architecture and design. We are reconsidering the isolation in creating a new pedagogical methodology into an open and co-creative invention process. We must include different voices to redefine the profession’s role and value system.