Other Landscapes: dwelling and urban space today

Recommended Prerequisites

The successful completion of under-graduate modules related with the practice, history and theory of architectural design, such as Design I, II and III, IAC I and II (Introduction to architecture and the city), History of Architecture I, II, III and IV, and Architecture Theory I, II and III, or equivalent modules. Students should feel at ease with the practice of architectural design, as well as with the history of architecture and urban environments, in addition to being able to articulate a general and specific reading of architectural culture. Students should be able to critically examine spatial organization in the variety of its components and effects.

Teaching Methods

Following the concepts of critical and social pedagogy from Paulo Freire and John Dewey, the module is centered in the student through the use of participative teaching methods that aim to stimulate the development of critical thinking. For this purpose, the module also makes use of the experiential teaching method of David Kolb, in which the student’s concrete experiences allow for a deeper and richer knowledge appropriation. There will also be room for the exposition of contents without, however, downplaying the central role given to students’ participation and experience.

Learning Outcomes

This module has the general aim of developing critical awareness regarding the diverse forms of dwelling in the present, focusing on the discussion of knowledge concerning housing and urban space as the key units for the development of critical competencies.This objective is structured through three secondary objectives:

1 - introducing students to a critical history of dwelling and urban space as emergent problems;

2- to develop ways of examining and representing different modes of dwelling;

3 - to supply the tools to students to critically approach contemporary dwelling situations and articulate possible solutions and lines of action.

By the end of the module students should be capable of situating dwelling issues in their situated histories, develop critical analysis of current challenges in the organization of dwelling, and feel comfortable to work through these with specific design skills and knowledge.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

The module approaches the following contents:

- the history of dwelling as the history of the emergence of dwelling problems, in their collective and situated dimension;

- the discussion of the different approaches to notions of dwelling and urban space as structuring elements in modern communities;

- analytical and representational tools of the infrastructural, urban, social and architectural dimensions of dwelling today.

These contents are approached, on the one hand, through exposition and discussion of contents, as well as by the examination of various cases and examples. On the other hand, the module proposes the development of group work and its continuous discussion in the class. The latter is divided in two moments: a first reserved for the presentation and discussion of ideas, readings and histories; and a second devoted to the analysis and production of particular situations and experiences, derived by the different groups of students.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Project: 30.0%
Resolution Problems: 30.0%
Laboratory work or Field work: 40.0%

Bibliography

Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider and Jeremy Till, Spatial Agency: other ways of doing architecture, London and New York: Routeledge, 2011.

Henri Lefebvre, The production of space, Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991 (1974).

Bruno Latour, “A cautious Prometheus? A few steps toward a philosophy of design” in Networks of Design: proceeding of the 2008 annual international conference of the design history society, Jonathan Glynne, Fiona Hackney and Viv Minton (eds.), Boca Raton, Florida: Universal-Publishers, 2009: 2-11.

Marcel Mauss, “Les techniques du corps,” Journal de Psychologie, XXXII, 3-4, 1934.

Michel Foucault, “Space, Knowledge and Power,” in The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow (ed.) New York: Pantheon Books, 1984: 239-256.

James Holston, “Spaces of insurgent citizenship,” in Cities and Citizenship, James Holston (ed.), Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999: 155-173.