The Bologna Process introduced several changes in university educational programs. In architectural education, at least in Portugal, it has strongly reduced the educational time period. If we compare the current situation with the educational time length of Siza’s generation (the 1950’s), in which after 5 years of academic higher education students did professional practice in private offices for 3 or 4 years and then would finally do their Exam for Obtaining the Architect Diploma (CODA), we conclude that the time spent in architectural education is now reduced roughly from 10 to 5 years.
In Portugal, the Bologna Process also brought other changes in the architectural education, such as the introduction of a two cycles system (Bachelor/Master). The autonomy of these two cycles facilitates the access to Master programs in a different school than the one in which students acquired the bachelor degree. Therefore it is now clear that the bachelor education should accomplish a more universal standard precisely to allow students to choose among those Schools, which serve their main interests at Masters level.
Besides those pedagogic thoughts, we have to consider students’ technical education and knowledge, now in more comprehensive demand. Concerns about sustainability, inclusive accessibility and the suitability of the education to specific aspects of architectural production put pressure on architectural education in new and unpredictable ways.
The main purposes of the colloquium "Teaching through Design" is to debate the paths that have been traced in the bachelor education, and to get some perspectives on how to improve architectural education in order to answer the questions that have been raised.
We considered three main issues:
1. On teaching methodologies mainly in the “Design Studio” in architecture bachelor educational programs.
2. On general or universal goals for architecture bachelor educational programs, mainly those instrumental tools that allow students to pursue a master degree at another School.
3. On the specific role that each year/semester of architectural education have, and mainly the role that Design Studios have in the bachelor degree educational program.
Beyond the definition of general objectives and methods for the first cycle of studies in architectural education, other questions have been raised; among those, we can highlight the role that professional architects do have in architectural education and in design studios.
Portugal, as other western countries, introduced in the mid-eighties the architectural education at a university level, replacing the polytechnic education. As a result of that change the university distinguishes the teachers who are coming from an “academic career” from those who are coming from “professional practice”. The general tendency is for Schools of Architecture to be run by academic teachers instead of professional architects, and this will have, in medium term, a very controversial result. In general the trend is to have “professional architects” as “guest professors”, reducing their role in the main directions that architectural education will have in schools of architecture.
Of course this debate on architectural education implies a certain forecast of the architect that schools of architecture intend to educate; starting from the architect-as-artist, to the architect-as-social-engineer, going through the architect-as-space-specialist, architectural education is related to social, topographic and technical contexts that we cannot ignore, and these are related to the specific needs of each country.
This debate about Architectural Education is also occurring in other European (and non-European) countries; as an example the TU-Delft, with the support of other Schools (Paris-Beleville, Mendrizio, Aachen, Lausanne, Madrid or Barcelona), has launched an inquiry about architectural education in those several and different schools. Our aim is to provide a first overview about this study, as in October of the current year there will be already some results or provisional conclusions.
The colloquium "Teaching through Design" also aims to contribute to a publication that should present the current status of the art on bachelor degree education in architecture. Focused on the Design Studio as the structure of architectural education, the research that will result from the Symposium will have consequences on the reform of the curricula, and eventually will improve programmatic articulations between each course and the general bachelor or master degree education in architecture. The debate allows also a “comparative conscience” about several teaching methods leading to improving architectural education.
The structure of the colloquium "Teaching through Design" according to the aims set above, presents two main areas of debate:
1. One associated with teaching models, and particularly to the presence of professional architects in architectural education, and their role in research and research-by-design in design studio.
2. The other about teaching methodologies, Design Studio teaching methods, design tools, studio exercises, design briefs, programs and themes, and the objectives of architectural education in the bachelor and master degree.
To debate the first theme there will be two round tables:
Inquiry
The first one with a keynote lecture by Willemijn Wilms Floet, from TU Delft, who will present the results of the inquiry developed by TU-Delft; the moderator of this debate is Gonçalo Canto Moniz.
Dissertation
The second round table with a keynote lecture by Elizabeth Hatz from KTH Stockholm is about the Dissertation or Diploma Projects, and will be moderated by José Fernando Gonçalves.
The second theme will be debated in four sessions and there will be keynote lectures by Juan Domingo Santos, Florian Beigel and Philip Christou, Andrea Deplazes, and David Leatherbarrow.
The debate will cover the following aspects:
1. Programs and Themes
Keynote: architect and professor Juan Domingo Santos (ETSA de Granada); coordinator João Mendes Ribeiro
2. Design Instruments and Composition
Keynote: architect and professor Florian Beigel + Philip Christou (Dep. of Architecture Metropolitan University, London); coordinator Paulo Providência.
3. Design as a Synthesis: cross-referencing Disciplines
Keynote: (to be confirmed); coordinator José António Bandeirinha.
4. Research by design
Keynote: architect and professor Leatherbarrow (School of Design, Penn State University, Philadelphia); coordinator Jorge Figueira and Nuno Grande.
The debates will be organized in these four sessions.
There is an option to start each debate by a keynote lecture of an international and highly respected scholar in the field of architectural education. These scholars, coming from very different schools and teaching traditions, have strong ideas about architectural education and have already published extensively on the theme. Furthermore there will be two more groups of communications; one by invited Portuguese scholars, from the main Schools of Architecture in Portugal, and another that will be selected from a call for papers. There will be also a final session debate, which will be moderated by the design studio teachers of the Department of Architecture of the University of Coimbra.
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