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Publication

Expanding Architecture through Education

Book Contribution - Book Chapter Conference Contribution

To discuss the future of architectural education it is important to point out the wide meaning of architecture today through looking at a series of innovative contemporary practices. Besides the tendency of architectural offices to design buildings including technologically complex 3D structures, more and more young architects tend to include social aspects into our discipline by realizing urban installations, relational performances and public events. Beyond physical interventions some of these spatial agencies even explore the dematerialization of our discipline through testing new media as participatory blogs as a means of making architecture. Even though this innovative way of approaching our profession is becoming increasingly relevant in architectural practices, education in many European institutions remains limited to the design and building technology of edifices with walls, doors, windows, terraces, roofs, often designed with the latest 3D modeling and rendering programs. Those projects are an important part of the studies for many students and should not be eliminated from the educational agenda. Anyhow the production of documents, models and renders is often ending up in the student‘s folder, contributing in the best case to the making of his or her portfolio. This paper claims that architectural education should be expanded beyond architecture as an object/building towards integrating socially engaged approaches between the built and the lived. On one side it supports the production of innovative future agencies that experiment through practice the limits of our profession. On the other side those simple structures or virtual contributions can be realized with low budgets and have therefore the potential to become live projects with a real impact on the public realm of our cities.
Book: Educating the Future
Pages: 164 - 173
Publication year:2013
Accessibility:Open