Pixel International Conferences

The recent urban and architectural development in Mexico has evidenced extreme contrast between public planning policy aiming at creating imaginaries and images of global cities as icons of vigorous economic and technological development, and vast peri-urban territories with great socio-urban problems but also with strong cultural traditions. Besides that, Mexico possesses an invaluable architectural patrimony from both pre-Hispanic as colonial times also triggering economic and political interests impacting historical socio-spatial structures now facing the emergence of processes of gentrification threatening their identity and cultural landscape. What kind of answers could the architectural education give to this kind of problematics? Through dynamics of “experiential learning”, the Department of Architecture of the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), Mexico, is introducing architectural practices widening the stance of architectural education beyond the construction technologies and canonical aesthetics to the understanding of new forms of meaningful socio-spatial organizations. Facing these challenges, place-sourced workshop projects informed by Semiotics of Habitable Space [1] and Critical Realism [2] have recently been carried out in order to trigger the re-thinking of the architectural teaching and learning. The educational focus is put on the regenerative social design to analyze the socio-spatial and socio-material management of design projects considering local identities and cultural meanings as exposed in the coursework presented in this paper [1]. Following Halliday’s ideas [3], design workshops introduced students to experiential perception of the context as a narrative of its socio-human environment. Thus, semiotic approaches to teaching, learning and assessment in architecture through “experiential learning” enhanced learning skills in the frameworks of creative and critical thinking, decision-making, problem-solving and planning beyond the narrow canonical, theoretical, technological or political limits [2].

Keywords: Architectural education, experiential learning, Critical Realism, Semiotics of Habitable Space;

References:

[1] O’Toole, M. (1990). A systemic-functional semiotics of art, Semiotica. 82:3–4, pgs. 185–210. Available at https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1990.82.3-4.185. Accessed 24/1/2019.
[2] Sipos, Y., Battisti, B. and Grimm, K. (2008). Achieving transformative sustainability learning: engaging head, hands and heart, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. 9:1, pgs. 68–86. Available at https://doi.org/10.1108/14676370810842193. Accessed 24/1/2019.
[3] Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.