Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design

154 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy

The Concept of a Critical _Spatial_Design Studio

If you don’t learn while teaching, don’t teach.

Ancient Arab proverb

In education it is not only important to look ahead and confront the future with an
open mind, but also to consciously review what is behind us with a critical attitude.
Education is not as much about giving the right answers, as it is about asking the
right questions over and over again. Thinking fundamentally about architectural
education, is impossible without questioning architecture: what is the meaning of
architecture, how is architecture experience and what is the impact of architecture on
the life of individuals as well as society as a whole? Only by continuously question-
ing the meaning of architecture can useful viewing points concerning architectural
education become apparent.
This paper wants to review the concept of critical-spatial designing in the design
studio of the second bachelor year of the department of architecture of the Hasselt
University College PHL. It puts forward the considerations and experiences that have
prompted us to implement this pedagogical concept in the design studio. While our
primary aim is presenting and sharing the general premises, experiences, specific
educational activities and results of the design studio, this paper also provides us
with an opportunity to evaluate the initial expectations and goals.

Architecture is never ‘innocent’

Within society at large, architecture takes on an important position. Architecture
is everywhere and due to its size, its durable and functional character as well as its
visual, artistic and cultural dimension, architecture pervades every pore of our daily
live. On the one hand, architecture is the result of our daily lives, but on the other
hand, architecture conditions to a great extent the way we live together.
By definition then, architecture is all-encompassing because it has to do with
human being in general and with the emotional, physical, individual and collective
dimension of human settlement more specifically. As a comprehensive discipline,
architecture comprises of a vast number of domains ranging from a purely theoretical
and reflective level of architecture to the pragmatic production of a building. Moreover,
architecture manifests itself at all scale levels. Through architectural thinking, complex
urban models as well as small scale objects are created. This results in a need for a
broad range of knowledge and insights and a very specific position of architecture as
a discipline within the large spectrum of knowledge and science. More than anything
architecture requires an ability to transcend disciplinary boundaries and to bring
together differing expectations and viewing points in a meaningful synthesis.
Following these considerations, the design studio of the second bachelor year at
the school of architecture of the Hasselt University College PHL, works with a specific
pedagogical concept called critical-spatial-designing.

The concept of a critical-spatial-design studio has come into being to address the re-
occurring fact that students project architectural solutions in a complete arbitrary