VIRTUAL Prague Research & Teaching Conference
Abstract
This paper explores the innovative pedagogy of the course “Future Design Methodologies – Design Methodologies for the Future”, which challenges traditional architectural paradigms by inviting students to develop speculative, adaptive, and critical approaches to the design of spaces and objects. Anchored in a post-digital and post-human context, the course aims to equip students with tools to navigate the uncertainties of an interconnected world shaped by technological evolution, social asymmetries, and ecological crises. The course begins with an analysis of canonical design methodologies—typological approaches, morphological analysis, genius loci, and programmatic frameworks—before transitioning to contemporary practices that embrace fluidity, adaptability, and inclusivity. Students critically engage with existing spaces or objects of their choosing, questioning their ontologies and proposing transformative methodologies for reimagining their function, significance, and materiality. By creating a design diary that combines text, sketches, diagrams, and models, students document their iterative process and propose speculative futures for their chosen subject. Drawing on insights and examples from the course, this paper highlights how students develop a pluralistic and experimental design vocabulary. The pedagogical framework fosters interdisciplinary thinking, enabling students to navigate the intersections of the human and non-human, the material and immaterial, and the traditional and speculative. This approach aligns with the broader transformations in architectural education, where sustainability, digital intelligence, and participatory design are becoming essential pillars. By presenting the course’s structure, methodologies, and student outcomes and evaluation, the paper contributes to the discourse on the future of architectural pedagogy and highlights how design can serve as a medium for rethinking spatial, social, and cultural paradigms in an era of flux.
Avrokómi Zavitsánou is an architect, a graduate of the Department of Architecture at the University of Thessaly, and holds a degree in Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art from the Technological Educational Institute of Athens. She also holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Management from Panteion University and a PhD from the Department of Architecture at the University of Thessaly. She is currently an adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Greece.