Architecture Pedagogies for Professional Advancement, Mobility and Exchange

Principal Investigator: Dr Harriet Harriss

Year: 2017

Type: Research Knowledge Exchange Development

Theme: Professional Pedagogies in Architecture / European Consortium 

Architecture pedagogies for professional advancement, mobility and exchange: an EU consortium enquiry.

Models of architectural education across Europe are often mutated by regional proclivities. These forms of pedagogic differentiation have problematised the disciplinary and professional parity needed to graduate students with equal expertise, which has inevitably impacted upon the practice sector. This concern became the catalyst for the formation of multi-school consortium that seeks to address perennial pedagogic-professional challenges. These include: (i) whether professional practice experience should be mandatory (ii) the duration of training needed to qualify – and by implication the cost, and (iii) what a professional ‘core curriculum’ could be agreed in order to make awarding the title ‘architect’ of equal status between the regions, and the challenge of developing curricula that graduates students not only capable of supporting the profession as it is, but able to advance its purpose and relevance in future. Despite the collective longing to work collaboratively toward developing mobility and exchange pedagogies for architecture, no mechanisms exist to support this endeavour, and there have been no attempts to meaningfully research whether such ambitions are important, achievable or even desirable. 41% of London’s architectural workforce is a EU member, illustrating the extent to which a professional qualification in architecture is seen as a global passport. Subsequently, research that enables forms of professional mobility that transcend and endure beyond national re-partitioning will become of real value to the profession, both in the UK and abroad.

The consortium workshops will involve bid mentoring and member presentations. Research tasks will be assigned to consortium members outside of the workshops, based on collectively agreed deliverables. Adopting a qualitative approach based upon key ESRC bid criteria, a methological outcome of consortium is the creation of a (classification and evaluation) database of pan-European, pedagogic benchmark ‘scenarios’ where architectural education and training transcend regional boundaries and maintain channels of exchange and mobility between regions. This database will be used as a resource platform for additional bids to other major research awards.

Consortium members:

Gabor Nemes, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary

Nadia Charalambous, University of Cyprus

Sinisa Justic & Mia Roth, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Don Gray, Head of SCHOSA & School Kent School of Architecture

Michela Barosio, Assistant Professor Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Paula Trigueiros, Universidade do Minho, Portugal

Carla Sentieri Omarrementeria, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain

Bernard Kormoss, Faculté d'Architecture Université de Liège, Belgium

Oya Atalay Franck, ZHAW - Zurich University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Dag Boutsen, KU Leuven, Ghent, Belgium

Riva Lava, NTUA, Athens, Greece

Anna María Bogadóttir, Iceland Academy of the Arts; Iceland

Johan De Walsche, University of Antwerp, Belgium