362 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
be? The question that relates to this conference would be: Can such condition of
complexity be taught in architectural design studios and why? Can such condition
become a vehicle of constructing an architectural culture which the architect would
need in the contemporary society?
Shifting the role of the architect -
Towards a “project” based architectural education?
One could observe nowadays that the technological development provides more and
more tools for designing and constructing buildings. But, there are always more and
more up to date engineers to handle such technologies, taking away parts of the
making of the project done in the past by architects. Plus, the rapidity and complex-
ity of doing things in the contemporary world have yielded to uncertain but rich
environments running insufficient the architectural knowledge of action.
How the architect could compensate in such environments? One could argue that
there could be a new role for the architect not on the technological level by acquiring
more and more capacities but on the management of such complexity by acquiring
capacities of keeping herself/himself creative and innovative.
In order to do so the architectural design needs to shift from being concentrated
on the “object” to construct towards the design processes that yield to the final
outcome. These processes involve in fact, systems of actors and things from hetero-
geneous contexts (political, financial, technical, social, etc.) Could the architect then
shift his / her role from an “object” designer to a “project” designer? Guiding through,
reconnecting systems involved, contextualizing knowledge that exists in these systems
towards the best possible outcome, intervening into non linear design processes
plus, in disciplinary areas where he / she did not have a say in the past: formulating
the right questions for a building brief, working on communication tools in order to
sustain cohesiveness in the various processes between the actors involved?
Continuing in the same logic, the education of the architect needs to shift from
an “object” based education into a “project” based one, giving more importance to
the notion of the project.
Defining the notion of the “project”
It is very crucial to define the notion of the “project”^2 beyond the usual references
in architecture as that of the physical object projected.
The way it is defined for the purpose of this text is in fact, that of a hybrid form
of action between analysis and proposition. It is a form of action in which means and
ends are interrelated. There is always a universe of possible and plausible directions
that are constructed dynamically through the system of actors involved.
In this case, the system of actors becomes decisive in the project becoming.
Such actors usually operate independently with their own communication tools. It
is not evident that when they are put together for a project they will succeed in
communicating. A process of constructing adaptive communication tools^3 becomes
a major issue.