156 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
searching for relevant contextual information with a sufficiently critical attitude to
be able to integrate this information in the design process in a consequent manner
and to make it an outset for design.
A critical attitude
We must be systematic but we should keep our systems open.
A.M. Whitehead
The second pillar of designing we want to address with this concept is a fundamentally
critical attitude as the backbone of the design process. Well-considered and proper
decisions within the design process can only be taken on the basis of extensive knowl-
edge and collected insights. A critical attitude entails a methodological approach
of the design process, from observation and documentation through analysis, to
interpretation. Students must therefore learn about:
- general and specific research methodologies (theoretical, socio-cultural, techno-
logical...) - knowledge as a indispensable ground for design decisions
- the critical assessment of decisions in relation to their own projects as well as
other’s - developing communicative skills (verbal & visual) for conveying their critical
insights
Methodologically, this is accomplished through preliminary studies, extensive read-
ers and documentation, study-trips, typological studies... But criticality does not
stop after the preliminary research. It is important that all information is exchanged
between the students participating in the design studio using a permanent, dynamic
and continually updated communication system. Firstly, this is done very explicit by
organising group presentations. Secondly and more implicit this is done by bringing
together all study-results on the internal network server. This network is used as a
permanent and dynamic (continuously updated) information system. All information
is immediately centralised and permanently at the disposal of each individual.
Designing
The third pillar of the critical-spatial-design concept considers the act of designing
as an activity of synthesis. Designing is the act of bringing together different claims,
viewing points and affinities in an integral and coherent whole that gives a new
dimension to all separate considerations in the design process. Designing is unmis-
takably a creative process, but creativity is not to be mistaken with the invention of
completely new things. Creativity will essentially be grounded in a wide and general
education of social-cultural knowledge and insights. In making new combinations,
students take on personal emotional-rational tests. In this regard a specific focus of
the design studio is put on the materiality of architecture.
Architecture has many faces. It can be a virtual universe of pure intellectual con-
siderations or a theoretical framework, but in its richest form architecture has a real
and material form of appearance. Architecture is physically present. It really exists.