Facts and Figments. Imagination and Reality in Design-Build Education

Conventional architectural pedagogies have evolved to fit the design studio model. With the increasing use of DesignBuild / Live Projects in contemporary architectural education, we need to develop a theory of learning and teaching appropriate to the particular contexts and opportunities of DesignBuild education. Design studio projects are ostensibly (although rarely entirely) freed from the constraints of reality. DesignBuild projects are ostensibly totally immersed and engaged with reality. One possible critique of DesignBuild projects is that the difficulty in realising the design can limit the imagination and ambition of the project. This paper draws upon the author’s observations that suggest that DesignBuild / live projects are not as real as they are perceived to be (Anderson, forthcoming 2014).This paper takes the position that any portrayal of design studio and DesignBuild projects as a dichotomy is misleading. Both are predictive pursuits that use imagination to engage with the reality of the future context that they hope to occupy. Through analysis of two case studies carried out at Oxford Brookes School of Architecture for a community archaeological group and The Story Museum, Oxford (Anderson and Priest, 2012), the paper discusses the particular relationship between reality and imagination that is stimulated by a live project design process and the benefits to learning that emerge when the thresholds between imagination and reality are articulated. This is related to learning theory via Vygotsky’s (1996) insights into human development of concrete and abstract thought within a social world.Students are highly motivated by live projects (Morrow, Parnell and Torrington, 2004). The paper hypothesises that students are stimulated by the immersive experience of the authentic context in which they are active. Although the context is certainly authentic, the paper analyses the component parts of a DesignBuild project to demonstrate how it differs from both professional practice and the design studio. With reference to Lave and Wenger’s (1995, p. 54) writing on the “sociocultural character” of learning, the paper describes the significance of what the author terms the Dual Context of Live Project Pedagogy. This dual context consists of the educational institution and the world. It shapes the experience of DesignBuild projects and alters the relationship between reality and imagination that exists in each context when they are separated.The significance of experience and the ways that students are able to access it to develop their learning and creativity is discussed in relation to John Hejduk’s (1987) subtle reflections on imagination and reality and the manifestation of this in his students’ DesignBuild projects. A Dual-context and Experience-led design process is proposed that makes explicit the interaction between imagination and reality within architectural DesignBuild and live project pedagogy.

Volume Editors
Sergio Palleroni, Ted Cavanagh & Ursula Hartig

ISBN
978-0-935502-94-7