Critical Spatial Practices: A Trans-Scalar Study of Chinese \u3ci\u3eHutongs\u3c/i\u3e and American Alleyways

Across time and cultures, the built environment has been fundamentally shaped by forces of occupancy, obsolescence, and change. In an era of increasing political uncertainty and ecological decline, contemporary design practices must respond with critical actions that envision more collaborative and sustainable futures. The concept of critical spatial practice, introduced by architectural historian Jane Rendell, builds on Walter Benjamin and the late 20th century theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau to propose multi-disciplinary design practices that more effectively address contemporary spatial complexities. These theoretical frameworks operate through trans-scalar means to resituate the built environment as a nexus of flows, atmospheres, and narratives (Rendell, 2010). Assuming an analogous relationship to the contemporary city, critical spatial practices traverse space and time to engage issues of migration, informality, globalisation, heterotopia, and ecology. This essay documents an interdisciplinary academic design studio that employed critical spatial practices to study correspondences between Chinese and American cities. Here, the notions of urban and interior are relational. Urbanism and interior spaces are viewed as intertwined aspects in the historical development of Beijing hutongs and Cincinnati alleyways. These hybrid exterior-interior civic spaces create sheltered public worlds and socio-spatial conditions that nurture people and culture

Measurement of Self-Efficacy, Predisposition for Collaboration, and Project Scores in Architectural Design Studios

The design of high-performance, sustainable, built environments in architectural practice is becoming more collaborative, and the demands on architectural education to provide measurable learning outcomes that more successfully prepare students to contribute in a practice setting are increasing. Since educational experts assert that self-efficacy is a key attribute of successful students and architectural education relies heavily upon project-based learning in design studios, it is a reasonable expectation that the character and quality of architectural design studio courses may affect the development of Design Self-Efficacy. This research has developed instruments by which instructional methods, self-efficacy, and student projects may be measured and scored, enabling reliable and valid investigation of the relationships among these factors. This dissertation has three primary foci: (1) developing an instrument to measure student Design Self-Efficacy and predisposition to collaboration in design studios; (2) developing a framework for better understanding how studio type and project type impact Design Self-Efficacy, and (3) developing an instrument employing an assessment rubric to measure student learning outcomes through end results of a Project Score. Data was collected from Texas A&M University, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Kansas via content analysis of studio syllabi; focus groups and interviews with faculty; electronic surveys of students enrolled in architectural design studios; and the assessment of projects using a validated rubric. This research included the development and calibration of measurement instruments to determine if correlation exists between Design Self-Efficacy (DSE), disposition for collaboration (PD), studio-type (ST), project-type (PT), and project score (PS). Research revealed that PD is sensitive to different students and different moments in time. The DSE instrument produced results that aligned to self-efficacy theory and data analysis revealed increased self-efficacy from undergraduate through graduate studies, and theoretical groupings that parallel the processes of design studio problem solving, project development, iteration, evaluation, and communication. The PS data analysis revealed gaps in architectural design studio evaluations that can be addressed with an assessment rubric. The results of this dissertation serve as a foundation for a future research agenda to improve design education, inform the accreditation process of professional architecture programs in North America and by extension, impact the practice of architecture

Formative Pathways: Changing Systems of Design - From Heuristics to Applications, Pedagogies, and Processes

This special issue of International Journal of Architecture Computing (IJAC)is entitled Formative Pathways and explores the changing face of the profession and the academy as a means to capture the influence of computational methods on architecture and design.The selected papers describe the integration of those approaches into pedagogies and practices and demonstrate their transformative and disruptive effect on the norms and traditions of design, discourse, design education, and practices, and how this knowledge exchange continues to shape today’s theory and practice of architecture.The ideas discussed by the authors are characterized by procedures that expand beyond the techniques of crafting things to include broader design knowledge of heuristics, applications, pedagogies, and their often simultaneous influence on design processes and practices in the academic and professional realms

Reframing Interdisciplinary Approaches to Systems Thinking For Sustainability

<p>This paper examines the evolution of an NSF-funded Transforming Undergraduate Experiences in STEM (TUES) research project entitled Systems Thinking for Sustainability (STFS): Envisioning Trans-disciplinary Transformations in STEM Education, specifically, detailing how the project team iteratively translated the course structure and lesson plans from year one to year two.</p