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Home > Vol 8, No 3 (2018) > Bardí-Milà

WORKSHOP ON EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION IN ARCHITECTURE: JIDA’17 FIFTH EDITION

1Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain)

2Projectes d’Enginyeria, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain)

3Enginyeria Química, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain)

Received February 2018

Accepted May 2018

Abstract

Workshop on Educational  Innovation in Architecture (JIDA, http://revistes.upc.edu/ojs/index.php/JIDA) are a meeting point for professionals in teaching innovation in the field of Architecture. Its main aim is to present and share teaching experiences within several architecture disciplines. In this sense, the conference becomes a forum to discuss issues related to the daily pedagogical practice from a wide range of views both from national and international schools of Architecture.

JIDA’17 goal is to improve the quality of learning in this specific field of knowledge and, more precisely, in the general training of architects. The five editions so far (2013-2017) have been developed under the initiative and coordination of the Grup per la Innovació i la Logística Docent en Arquitectura (GILDA), in cooperation with the Institut de Ciències de l’Educació (ICE-UPC). In the current monograph, we have included four communications which were presented in JIDA’S fifth edition (2017), and a preface by the Conference directors in which we discuss the global panorama of education in architecture in terms of teaching experiences collected in all previous JIDA’s proceedings.

Keywords – JIDA, Workshop on Educational Innovation in Architecture, innovation, teaching, architecture, research.

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1. Presentation

The Workshop on Educational  Innovation in Architecture (JIDA, http://revistes.upc.edu/ojs/index.php/JIDA) are a meeting point for professionals in teaching innovation in the field of Architecture. Its main aim is to present and share teaching experiences within several architecture disciplines. In this sense, the Workshop becomes a forum to discuss issues related to the daily pedagogical practice from a wide range of views both from national and international schools of Architecture. In brief, the main aim of JIDA is to create synergies and to improve the quality of learning in this field of knowledge and in the general training of architects.

The five editions so far (2013-2017) have been developed by the initiative and coordination of the Grup per la Innovació i la Logística Docent en Arquitectura (GILDA), in cooperation with the Institut de Ciències de l’Educació (ICE-UPC). The organizing committee is composed of the Workshop directors and a group of lecturers from GILDA Group: Jordi Franquesa (Coordinator), Joan Moreno and Judit Taberna. Year after year, there are more lecturers who cooperate in JIDA’s Conference. Furthermore, the Scientific Committee includes representatives from all the schools who have held JIDA and have participated presenting communications in any of the five editions so far.

Throughout these five years, lecturers from 21 foreign universities and from 33 national ones have participated in JIDA (See map: https://goo.gl/1ocG4J). The first three editions were held at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC), the fourth edition took place in the Valencia School of Architecture (ETSA-UPV) and the fifth in the Sevilla School of Architecture (ETSA US), sponsorized by the Official College of Architects of Sevilla (COAS) and the Fundación Arquia.

2. Areas of General Reflection

Following the interests of the European Schools of Architecture and the Association that gathers them all (EAAE), JIDA Conference involves the following three main areas of reflection:

2.1. The changing role of the architect

The role of architects has been changing according to both social and cultural movements throughout the centuries. Thereby, the nature of the profession has evolved and the training of future architects, too. In this vein, current architects have to adapt to their changing role while consolidating the physical and environmental areas. In other words, two of the most recent trends are on the one hand, the “specialization” of the profession and the more and more “online” development of the job and the cooperation with colleagues from other disciplines and working outside the traditional professional office, on the other hand.

2.2. The roots and school traditions

Already in the 21st century, we should ask ourselves about the relevance and presence of the two still existing main teaching and pedagogical traditions of the last 150 years. In other words, the French model, characterized by the academic duality of the Beaux Arts and the Polytechnic Schools; and the German model, whose paradigm lies between the Bauhaus and the Russian and American correlates. Therefore, one should ask the following questions: How do formation/training centers relate to those traditions? Which are their true roots? How have they incorporated the radical/modern pedagogies from the 60’s and 70’s originated from social and countercultural movements? and to which extent the new schools are re-connected or detached from those conceptions and practices?

2.3. The pedagogy

Traditionally, the learning pedagogical model of architecture has been teaching per se, in other words, the one produced in presence of a teacher’s performance of the job and the patient observation of the learner. Hence, to which extent does the projects workshop last as the core teaching of architecture and the consequent learner-teacher model? Which is the actual role of the lecturer: teacher, guide, partner, expert or adviser? What do you actually teach when you teach architecture? and how do you teach when you teach architecture?

3. Objectives

These three areas of reflection are not considered separately. In fact, they are the different sides of a further investigation on the education of future architects and the role of the different institutions involved on such competencies. In each of these areas there are four main objectives, as follows:

1. a)The mapping of the research carried out so far.

2. b)The mapping of the current situation both at European and Worldwide level.

3. c)The reflection on the schools’ real/actual context.

4. d)Research on what should/could be done.

4. Thematic blocks

Within the general framework of each JIDA’s edition, the communications are organized around the following four set themes:

4.1. Active Methodologies (AM)

Active learning implies a specific scenario in the classroom in which the roles of students and teachers are reformulated. In other words, the student takes direct responsibility of the process while the teaching staff develop a role of advising and accompanying. This paradigm –set up in the 19th century with the New School– allows students to develop multidisciplinary competencies and teamwork, which are intensively reflected on their learning and the construction of their critical thinking.

4.2. ICT Tools (ICTT)

The new communication devices and technologies require the key application of renewed techniques for information and communication within the teaching framework. Such techniques should suit the language used by students and be practical for both their training and knowledge acquisition.

4.3. Self-regulation Learning Methodologies (SRLM)

They are pedagogical tools to enhance students’ reflective and critical thinking. These methods should promote tolerance and mutual understanding of other’s points of view and the development of methodologies to know how to detect students’ needs. The new methodologies of peer-assessment and self-assessment following specific rubrics imply efficient learning mechanisms and boosting deep knowledge.

4.4. Learning Architecture Antecedents (LAA)

This block aims at gathering investigations on diverse teaching practices taking place throughout History (recent or not) in the varied training centers and schools all around the world. The objective is to build a solid basis on which to rethink nowadays teaching. Such antecedents can be related to methodologies, pedagogical theories or architectural projects (nurseries, schools, universities, etc.) that through their spatial configuration could have promoted certain ways of teaching and learning.

5. JOTSE Monograph

In the current monograph, we have included four communications which were presented in JIDA’S fifth edition (2017), and a preface by the Workshop directors in which we discuss the global panorama of education in architecture in terms of teaching experiences collected in all previous JIDA’s proceedings: “The JIDA Conference: Teaching practice as research”. Our objective is to offer a global and organized vision of the teaching in all the architecture schools involved through a gathering of pedagogical practices and researches carried out on university tuition.

The article “Basic learning of Form” aims at explaining the contents of a first year course on Projects and show how the implementation of a series of theoretical and practical tools and the use of a dynamic and active pedagogy, students can reach a very optimal academic performance. In other words, the author demonstrates that within 12 tuition weeks students can acquire the necessary tools to face right from the form/shape any design problem that might arise. The article is part of the active methodologies thematic block and discusses the underlying question of the recovery of the path outlined by the pioneer schools on the application of active pedagogical systems or design didactics, such as Vkhutemas (Moscow, 1920-1930), Bauhaus (Weimar, 1919-Berlin 1933), or Hochschule für Gestaltung (Ulm, 1953-1968).

The article “Designing from cinema: Film as trigger of the creative process in architecture” continues the reflection on the teaching of the early years in the degree. In this sense, the paper reviews, as a study case, the use of films, shorts o audiovisual documentaries as the argument and reference in certain headings/statements in the early years of architectural projects. Departing from varied experiences, the author tries not to only revise and verify already known synergies between cinema and architecture but also to methodologically highlight the importance of providing students in their first years of projects practice with reliable and functional support through visual aids. Tools that will make them realize the need of realism that each project requires. In this vein, cinema becomes a real ICT tools and a way to question what we teach when we teach architecture.

The following article, “From theory to practice: Five years of urban regeneration workshops”, focus its attention on the urban planning, which is a pivotal element in architecture studies. Urban regeneration workshops deal with interventions in vulnerable areas in the consolidated city. Its idea is to work in a context with a strong social component in which the student can perceive the varied sensitivity and motivations of the social agents involved in a specific vulnerable neighbourhood. With this idea in mind, the work is focused in a physically close reality but, above all, in areas where synergies with the agents implied in urban governance can be found. We are not only dealing with the Administration but also with the social network represented in neighbourhood associations. This pedagogical approach is framed within the well-known active methodologies and it also implies the fact that the contact with reality can be used as a self-regulating tool for students’ learning.

Finally, we have included a research article presented in the thematic block “Learning antecedents”. As a matter of fact, this paper entitled “Dualities in architectural training: The Architecture School of Valencia (1968-1975)” analyzes students’ movements in that year and how architecture and their studies plans changed. The paper goes from the European panorama to Spain and, more specifically, Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia cases. Witnesses and filed unpublished documents uncover a particular situation which shares certain pedagogical parallelism with nowadays context. The demand of “reality” and social implication in architecture studies are still one of student’s current inputs.

Acknowledgments

JIDA fourth edition took place in the Sevilla School of Architecture (ETSA-US), from 16th to 17th November 2017 and we would like to thank them for their implication and the scientific rigour of the Organizing and Scientific Committees. In this sense, without them it would not have been possible to held JIDA Conference. We would also like to thank the Sevilla School of Architecture for their warm welcome and the School Director: Francisco Javier Montero and the two lecturers from ETSA-US who participated in the Organizing Committee: Rodrigo Carbajal Ballel and Silvana Rodrigues de Oliveira. In the following lines we present the complete list of both committees:

Scientific Committee

• •Rodrigo Almonacid Canseco (ETSA Valladolid)

• •Fernando Álvarez Prozorovich (ETSAB-UPC)

• •Atxu Amann Alcocer (ETSAM-UPM)

• •Silvia Blanco (San Jorge University)

• •Ivan Cabrera i Fausto (ETSA-UPV)

• •Raúl Castellanos Gómez (ETSA-UPV)

• •Nuria Castilla Cabanes (ETSA-UPV)

• •Eduardo Delgado Orusco (University of Zaragoza)

• •Mariona Genís Vinyals (BAU Centro Universitario del Diseño de Barcelona)

• •María González (ETSA-US)

• •Antonio Juárez Chicote (ETSAM-UPM)

• •Juanjo López de la Cruz (ETSA-US)

• •Nieves Mestre (Universidad Europea)

• •Francisco Javier Montero (ETSA-US)

• •Antonio Peña Cerdán (ETSA-UPV)

• •Ana Portalés Mañanós (ETSA-UPV)

• •Amadeo Ramos Carranza (ETSA-US)

• •Jaume Roset Calzada (ETSAB-UPC)

• •José Vela Castillo (IE School of Architecture and Design, IE University)

Organizing Committee

Directors

• •Berta Bardí i Milà (GILDA-ETSAV-UPC)

• •Daniel García-Escudero (GILDA-ETSAB-UPC)

Organization

• •Rodrigo Carbajal Ballell (humAP) (ETSA-US)

• •Jordi Franquesa (GILDA Coordinator - ETSAB-UPC )

• •Joan Moreno Sanz (GILDA - ETSAV-UPC)

• •Silvana Rodrigues de Oliveira (humAP) (ETSA-US)

• •Judit Taberna (GILDA - ETSAB-UPC)

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