A new series of workshops of the EAAE Education Academy

14 January 2022 – 13:30h-15:30h – online !

The EAAE Education Academy invites architecture educators, students and university administrators, policy makers, research institutions and researchers, funding agencies, professional bodies and architectural practices that are committed to education in architecture and in related disciplines to discuss and deepen its position paper Principles and Practices of Architectural Education. To do so, the EAAE Education Academy launched a series of five workshops dedicated to this position paper. 

This fifth and final workshop concludes the series with reconsidering, reframing, and clearly articulating the relevance of architectural education. What can architectural education do and for whom? Why is it not only a good idea, but even a necessity for a society to support and invest in this particular type of academic higher education, this particular pedagogical milieu (cf workshop 4/5), with its design-based didactics (cf workshop 3/5), its specific research scope, mode and methods (cf workshop 2/5), its inextricable bound with professional practice (cf workshop 1/5)? 

Driven by the content that participants put on a MIRO-board (a link is sent after registration), the workshop will deal with the following six questions:

1. Since we claim that AE can create professionals that are capable of responding to emergent needs, which are those emergent needs today, and how to update our teaching likewise?
2. How do we still realize the goal of delivering graduates that are not only capable to deal with complexity and uncertainty, but even to embrace it as occasions for developing spatial concepts for the built environment?
3. What does it mean today to say that AE balances local, regional and global value systems of spatial production?
4. If we say that AE is able to “manage the whole”, how does our teaching manage to bridge disciplines, sectors and agendas? Which disciplines, sectors and agendas do we actually address?
5. How do we update our teaching when it’s said that the future of architectural practice, and the role of the architect is contested and uncertain?
6. How and to which extent do we effectively pursue inclusivity with regard to access to both education and practice, to decolonisation of the curriculum, and to architectures from the east and global south?

This workshop is followed by a workshop by the EAAE Research Academy (18:00-19:00h)

About the EAAE EA Position Paper

The position paper “Principles and Practices of Architectural Education” is intended as a reference document for all actors involved in production and care for the built and unbuilt environment. It responds to the ongoing changes within society that affect the architectural profession as well as architectural education and research.

The paper declares the principles for the development of a vibrant, internationally recognized, qualitatively outstanding and well-grounded architectural education and research, in order to lead to a well-informed professional practice. The statements of the position paper are open to discussion. As such, the paper is a source of inspiration, dialogue and exchange concerning the future curriculum and pedagogy of architectural education.

The paper contains five chapters, each focusing on one part within Architectural Education (AE). The first chapter, “What can architectural education do and for whom” (1) clarifies the potential societal meaning of AE graduates in the current-day world. Chapter two focuses on the “conditions under which AE can flourish” (2), hence defining the role of the design studio around which all curricula orbit. The last three chapters clear up the interlinked connection between AE and design practice. “Teaching-through-design” (3) primarily determines teaching architecture as a practice in itself, requiring a pedagogy of playful anticipatory imagination. “Mutual learning” (4) then explains the reciprocity between practice and academia, which is to be assured by including practitioner educators and equalling professional merit to academic qualification. “Resonating fields” (5), the last chapter, clarifies to role and conceptualisation of research, that is to be understood as the common quest in which both the students and teachers are engaged in, thus defining the architectural design studios and by extension AE as a whole, as a place of research in itself.

The Position Paper Workshop Series cycles through these chapters in backwards order, starting from the relationships with research and practice, to conclude with an updated view on the relevance of architectural education, and why it is clever for a society to cherish it!

Programme and invitation for participation

The Education Academy aims to be a platform and a think-tank where concerns and best-practices all across Europe can be shared. The workshop will take place online, and will be framed around a Miro-board that addresses the six questions mentioned above. After registration, each participant will achieve an invitation for accessing the Miro-board. From that moment on, (s)he can post any material (text, image, statement, …) (of a reasonable size), on the Miro-board, in the appropriate area of the board.

The workshop will consist of discussing the posted material, commenting and amending the position paper, towards an updated version.

Therefore we need your uploads on the board as well as your voice at the workshop!

13:30-13:40   Welcome and introduction to the Miro-board

13:40-14:20   debate/argumentation/brainstorm towards updating the position paper

14:20-14:30   break

14:30-15:00   debate/argumentation/brainstorm towards updating the position paper

15:00 15:15   concluding discussion and wrap up

15:15-15:30   what to do next? future perspectives 

Registration

The workshop will take place online. Participation is free, but in order to receive access to the Miro-board registration is required.  The link for participation at the workshop as well as an invitation for accessing the Miro-board will be sent to registered users.

For any questions related to practicalities and organization of the workshop contact Johan.dewalsche@uantwerpen.be.  Certificates of attendance are available on request.

For updates about the workshop, please check the website 

Organizing and scientific team

 EAAE  EA position paper working group

Michela Barosio (Politecnico di Torino)
Dag Boutsen (Faculty of Architecture – KULeuven)

Johan De Walsche (EA main coordinator – University of Antwerp)

Riva Lava (NTUA School of Architecture – Athens)

Mia Roth Cerina (Faculty of Architecture – University of Zagreb)

Carla Sentieri Omarrementeria (UPV València) 

concept, design and assistance of the Miro-board by Adriaan Debruyne, www.saflot.be

Previous workshops:

1/5 – architectural education and professional practice: mutual learning

2/5 – architectural education and research practice: resonating fields

3/5 – architectural education and research practice: teaching through design

4/5- architectural education and design practice: conditions for flourishing

This workshop is part of a Workshop Series on SDGs in the architectural education, feel free to join!