VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY

Abstract

Abstracts are evaluative instruments. They perform coherence, promise clarity, and ask to be accepted. They tell committees that the project will be tidy, conclusive, and aligned with the call. This one won’t. What follows is not a solution, but a tension. Architectural education – like many disciplines – is increasingly shaped by the logics of assessment. We ask students to reflect, but only in measurable ways. We celebrate experimentation, but only when outcomes can be clearly defined. We encourage engagement but rarely question who defines it or how. This project begins by asking whether assessment itself should be treated not as a neutral framework, but as a cultural artifact. One that reveals what we believe learning should look like, and what we are unwilling to see. Rooted in graduate architecture teaching but relevant across disciplines, the project develops a speculative framework for what we call attuned assessment. This model values attention over coverage, curiosity over performance, and ambiguity over resolution. Drawing from post-qualitative inquiry, feminist pedagogy, and design studio culture, it considers how we might evaluate students without reducing them. Yes, the research is structured. It will produce insights. But it resists tidy conclusions. Because the real question is not how we assess students, but how assessment shapes what we allow ourselves to teach, learn, and imagine. If that makes the project difficult to evaluate, perhaps that difficulty is part of the point.