After 17 continuous years, this is the last -ENHSA supported- Meeting of Heads of European Schools of Architecture organised in Chania. In the last 13 years the meeting was supported by the EU funded project ENHSA, which is now reaching the end of its contractual period. For this the forthcoming Meeting will be a big event signaling a long period of creative contacts, constructive academic debates and fruitful exchange of views, information and positions between those who are teaching architecture or have responsibilities of the academic administration of schools of Architecture in Europe. It will be an International Festival on Architectural Education.

There will be three complementary events taking place this year at Chania, all hosted by the Centre for Mediterranean Architecture:

International Conference on Trans/Inter disciplinary Architectural Design Education

Drawing Together the Elements of Architectural Education. What now?

Wednesday 27 and Thursday 28 August 2014

Over the last 13 years EAAE and ENHSA have collaborated towards creating thematic sub-networks on construction and technologies, on the environment, on restoration, and on theory, which has resolved in giving floor to the teachers in schools of architecture teaching specific subject areas in architecture to communicate among themselves and to exchange ideas, viewpoints and teaching practices. A large number of conferences and books of proceedings have been disseminated, offering a unique array of significant material on educational experiences and reflections on the way students should be educated on the specificities of these domains of architectural knowledge.

While closing a cycle of academic activities, the question that this Conference intends to raise is how these subject areas fuse in the architectural design studio. How they can become a driving force for architectural creativity in the design studio and not just external knowledge present in the mind of the learner. Nowadays, it is becoming increasingly evident that in the complex and highly specialised practice, the profile of an architect as homo universalis can no longer encompass the complexity and the trans/multi/cross disciplinary nature of architectural creation.  Architectural design requires a new interdisciplinary identity, which is no longer conceived as information flow from the specialist to the architect in the form of constraints, technical requirements or quality standards. Rather, it is increasingly conceived as dynamic teamwork assuring constructive collaboration of differences, creatively amalgamating the ‘other’ and offering prosperous conditions for a fortunate stroke of serendipity. Do our schools of architecture host this type of architectural design studio? Do they prepare their students to be agile and adaptable to this new condition of architectural design practice?

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The 17^th Meeting of Heads of European Schools of Architecture 

What next? Drawing Future Perspectives of Architectural Education

Friday 29 August – Monday 1 September 2014

The main question of the Meeting is to detect and define the most outstanding changes occurring nowadays in order to contemplate and discuss the ‘what next’ and investigate appropriate strategies for the architectural education of the future. Based upon the experiences of all previous meetings this event will try to conclude on the consideration of some milestones of our contemporaneity as parameters affecting the established nature of architectural education in Europe and demand new strategies for its development in the near future. The speed at which changes have occurred in all our environments has compelled the realization that what was accepted and established yesterday is no longer valid today and that a ‘new normal’ has already been established with which we have to deal. This agility is creating a new situation that Schools of Architecture must take very seriously into account in order to deliver an architectural education able to create competent graduates in the equally agile professional and academic environment.

The meeting proposes four main themes, which have a significant impact on the architectural education in Europe expressed in four keywords:  Financial crisis, Information Technology, EU legislation, and cross-disciplinarity/professionalism. The Meeting will also tackle these issues as part of the ongoing discussion for the future of the EAAE, and will be completed by the decisions that will be taken at the EAAE General Assembly.

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