Transformative Pedagogy in Architecture and Urbanism

The book includes a Preface by Nikos A. Salingaros and a Foreword by Henry Sanoff.

Preface by Nikos A. Salingaros 

Professor Salingaros welcomes the return of this classic book, describing it as one of the few serious in-depth examinations of the studio method of architectural education. He argues that several generations of architecture students and teachers have been formed by a methodology that has undergone scarce scrutiny, resulting in graduates who are insufficiently trained for the real world. He warns that architecture schools often lack the cohesive logical structure of an educational system, making the studio resistant to change and vulnerable to the promotion of fashionable images over genuine learning. He calls for a rigorous examination of what the design studio actually teaches, and identifies in this book an exhaustive and impartial comparative analysis that offers options and solutions capable of leading architectural education a significant step forward toward greater relevance.

Foreword by Henry Sanoff 

Professor Sanoff traces the historical roots of architectural education from the Beaux-Arts to the Bauhaus, arguing that while formal education alone cannot cure the ills of the profession, the growing gap between students’ educational experiences and their effectiveness in practice demands urgent reform. He contends that architects must assume greater social, environmental, and democratic responsibilities, and that schools of architecture need to define a new code of professional ethics. Writing as a long-standing colleague and mentor of Professor Salama, Sanoff praises the book for placing a mirror before design educators and probing the motivations that underlie studio teaching. He commends its call for expanding the knowledge base in the design studio, describing it as a new paradigm that delineates the shift in design pedagogy needed for a more responsive architectural education.

Click here to visit the book page on Routledge website or here on Taylor & Francis Site. For a review by Amira Elnokaly in Archnet-IJAR and a review by Smita Khan in Archnet-IJAR.

Research developed over the past two decades indicates that many problems that exist in the built environment have their roots in the current educational system of architecture and urbanism. Since architectural and urban education is the backbone for the practice of producing meaningful environments, and since architectural and urban design is the main concern of educators, it is essential to encounter their pedagogical aspects while dealing with the subject as a rich field of research whose contents, methods, techniques, and tools should be examined and questioned.

This book introduces a new form of pedagogy in architecture and urbanism: transformative pedagogy — a term that refers to interactional processes and dialogues between educators and students that invigorate the collaborative creation and distribution of power. As a concept, it is based on the fact that the interaction between educators and students reflects and fosters the broader societal pattern. Transformative pedagogy in architecture and urbanism is about balancing the creative act required for successful design and the social and environmental responsibilities that should be embedded in this act. While transformative pedagogy as a concept is not confined to a static definition, it builds on the perspectives of critical pedagogy and its underlying hidden curriculum concept.

Critical pedagogy aims at reconfiguring the traditional student/teacher relationship, where the teacher is the active agent — the knowledge provider — and the students are the passive recipients of the teacher’s knowledge. Grounded on the experiences of both students and teachers, new knowledge is produced through the dialogical process of learning. The hidden curriculum concept is thus concerned with questions that pertain to the ideology of knowledge and the social practices that structure the experiences of educators and students. Adopting transformative pedagogy enhances the capability of educators in architecture and urbanism to interpret the relationship between knowledge and power. In this respect, one should recognize that educational settings — whether studios or classrooms — are not neutral sites; they are integral to social, cultural, and political relations that characterize real life conditions.

The broad goal of this book is to establish methods and approaches for ameliorating the current design studio pedagogy. The overall argument is based on the importance of internalizing relevant social and ethical approaches to the design studio that elucidate the role of the architect-planner or urbanist in society and that form a basis for future professional judgment. The argument conceives the present value system imbibed in the design studio, based on self-expression and the exclusion of many other important factors, as inappropriate to the present professional milieu, which, in turn, results in the reduction of the influence of the architect-planner in shaping the built environment and of the effectiveness of the profession in society.

As a new round of pedagogical dialogue on architecture and urbanism, it resets the stage for debating future visions of transformative pedagogy and its impact on design education. This is a forward-looking effort that comes to amalgamate concerns, concepts, and practices that Ashraf M. Salama has explored and introduced over a period of two decades. Structured in five chapters, the book presents a wide range of innovative and practical methodologies for teaching architectural and urban design. It traces the roots of architectural education and offers several contrasting ideas and strategies of design teaching practices.