Collaborative Design Practice as Pedagogy

Collaborative design practice provides opportunities for architectural education to disavow the trope of the hero architect, flip the power dynamic of client and designer, and engage with complex social and ecological challenges. At the same time, questions of impact, relevance, equity, design quality, and efficacy abound when considering these models. Focused on the “why”, but grounded in both the “how” and “now”, this paper explores the complexity of community-engaged collaborative design practice with a bias towards action. The authors explore existing efforts and identify new ways for collaborative design practice to serve as a critical component of architectural education at their respective institutions. The keywords which shape this paper — co-creation, collaboration, and coalition and capacity building — also frame the work of the two community design centers which serve as the grounding case studies. The paper represents and reflects on collective lessons learned, burning questions and current challenges and existing models of collaborative practice.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.FALL.19.31

Volume Editors
Amy Larimer, Deborah Berke, Diana Lin, Drew Krafcik, John Barton & Sunil Bald

ISBN
978-1-944214-24-1