Revista Lusófona de Arquitectura e Educação nº 11 (2014)

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Percorrer Revista Lusófona de Arquitectura e Educação nº 11 (2014) por assunto "ARCHITECTURE TEACHING"

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    Competitions serve a larger purpose in architectural knowledge
    (Edições Universitárias Lusófonas, 2014) Guilherme, Pedro Miguel Hernandez Salvador; Escola de Comunicação, Arquitetura, Artes e Tecnologias da Informação
    The Beaux-Arts programme was structured around a series of anonymouscompetitions that culminated in the grand prix de ‘l'Académie Royale’, more wellknown as the ‘Grand Prix de Rome’, for its winner was awarded a scholarship and aplace at the French Academy in Rome. During the stay in Rome, the ‘pensionnaire’would be expected to regularly send his work in progress back to Paris. Contestantsfor the Prix were assigned a theme from the literature of Classical Antiquity; theirindividual identities were kept secret to avoid any suspicion of favour.These competitions ensured that the fundamental hierarchy of the members of theacademia (the teachers and juries: who defined what good art and architecture was)and those that would ascend to it (the students: who were prized and hence were thegood artists and architects) and perpetuated a secular way to ascend to stardom.The use of competitions in the traditional ‘studio’ class is still a current practice inuniversities. The class is provided with a ‘live’ project or a model case study problem, asite and a context, a fixed timetable, and each student is expected to research inarchitecture in order to present (using predetermined models and mediums) his finalconclusions (statements). Each personal architectural research is in fact subjected toan ‘informal’ (unstated) merit competition (were the teachers take the part of clients,sponsors and juries), to a peer evaluation, in order to prove its author’s right to, stepby step, become a graduated architect. The research is validated by the competitionand assures the originality of the research, its significance and rigour.There are of course mixed feelings towards competitions by different parts -architects; clients; juries or sponsors – and in face of personal past experience. Yet, itis undeniable the role and value of competitions in the process of generating aqualitative built environment. In general, competitions can bring out the best inpeople and are a way to achieve excellence in design. It can be stated that a largemajority of competitions is experienced daily either as users or as passers-by sincemost public buildings in Europe are subjected to competitions procedures.Therefore, along their professional practice, licenced architects outside the academiaand in praxis, seem to continue a personal architectural research within professionalarchitectural competitions. There are evidences that, besides the investment indeliberate or improvised practice’s business strategies, architects use competitions asfundamental research opportunities.So I intend to put forward that competitions served once (and still do) as a specificway of peer evaluating the architectural research in academia. Architecturalcompetitions are in fact a time and a space were academia and praxis connect andmay, to certain extent, constitute prove of Schon’s research-in-action and Till’sevidence of “architecture [as] a form of knowledge that can [, is] and should bedeveloped through research”.
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    The experience of a pioneer research program in architecture in Évora
    (Edições Universitárias Lusófonas, 2014) Salema, Sofia; Soares, João; Rivera, Jorge Croce; Escola de Comunicação, Arquitetura, Artes e Tecnologias da Informação
    Three years ago the University of Évora implemented a research PhD program in architecture. Generally a doctorate in architecture has been an academic title awarded to architects who present a theoretical dissertation; however, for us, as a young but promising school of architecture it was just natural that a project (as a methodology,a process of knowledge or simulation of a hypothesis) could be part of an advanced research in architecture. Thus, we started with this doctoral program seeking toquestion the current model of PhD programs and to established a new pioneering paradigm syllabus in the national context with the intention to reach the international arena During the course syllabus the project lab integrates the formulation of a theoretical hypothesis (a conjecture), that becomes an architectural design, which is unique, but simultaneously an universal knowledge. The program already had two editions were PhD students have been encouraged to develop advanced research and to foster interaction between the theoretical and architecture production. Currently no research has yet finished. Students, although much interested in this type of research, are divided in their approach to architectureas a theoretical, speculative and critical field, and to architecture as a field of research. Students and teachers are interested in research that develops their architecture design skills, as a relevant process of advancement knowledge in architecture.We believe that PhD syllabus will contribute to demystify and implement the concept of advanced studies in architecture, based on architectural research. This paper will share some of the ideas, doubts, and results of our PhD program.
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    Knowledge and studio culture in Portuguese architectural schools since Bologna
    (Edições Universitárias Lusófonas, 2014) Pinto, Pedro da Luz; Escola de Comunicação, Arquitetura, Artes e Tecnologias da Informação
    The curricular harmonization of the European courses, the Bologna Process (1999-2009), relocated an emphasis in the specificity of architectural education inside auniversity environment. Nowadays, the architect’s basic training embraces a Master’sdegree and compromises research as an educational purpose. Furthermore, doctoralcourses and research centres are associated, framing funding and evaluation, andpressing an overall urge for professional academic production, which can move theschools away from the construction site into the library and the laboratory, turningthe learning programs into extensions of the research ones. Therefore, in the halls ofthe design studio arise the researcher-teacher-designer, professor Clark Kent (Figueira,2013). Within this scenario, the article exposes both the organizational, curricular anddidactical evolutions in Portuguese schools, and inquires the models and theknowledge, transmitted and produced, trying to foresee any paradoxes requiring an epistemological clarification.