Interdisciplinary Design Thinking in Architecture Education 1032283378, 9781032283371

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INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN THINKING IN ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION

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INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN THINKING IN ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION

This book explores the creative potential for architecture curricula to integrate solid interdisciplinary thinking in design studio education. Annotated case studies, both from academic institutions and from professional practices, provide examples of interdisciplinary engagement in creative design work, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of this approach. Cases are from a diverse selection of international collaborators, featuring projects from the United States, Australia, Mexico, Germany, and Italy, and cover a range of project types and scales. Chapters by invited experts offer speculations on current and future models, situating examples within the broader context, and encouraging dialogue between practice and pedagogy. The collection of voices in this book offers critical and provocative lenses, learning from history while forging inventive and creative roles for the architect as practitioner, entrepreneur, strategist, choreographer, activist, facilitator, leader, and teacher. Interdisciplinary Design Thinking provides insights into the potential of interdisciplinary engagement at the level of foundational undergraduate education, making it ideal for faculty in architecture schools. It will also be of interest to design professionals concerned with interdisciplinary collaboration and how to incorporate similar efforts in their own practices. Julie Ju-Youn Kim, AIA is an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, where she founded and currently directs the Flourishing Communities Collaborative, an interdisciplinary research and design lab. Incorporating goals of equity and inclusion in scholarship and design pedagogy, Julie received the 2023 AIA Georgia Educator of the Year and the 2023 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award, for connecting the academy and architectural practice by creating replicable models of engagement to expand equity through access. With support from the New Venture Fund/Public Interest Technology-University Network and Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, Julie’s teaching and research leverages data-driven and quantitative methodologies to solving social and cultural problems in the built environment. Julie is a licensed architect whose publications link her leadership and teaching in pursuit of interdisciplinarity in architecture education, research, and practice. She holds a M. Arch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and BA from Wellesley College.

INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN THINKING IN ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION

Edited by Julie Ju-Youn Kim

Cover designer: Julie Ju-Youn Kim Cover image credits (upper left clockwise): Courtesy of Julie Ju-Youn Kim, Georgia Institute of Technology. Installation. Courtesy of UC Berkeley, from graduate studio in Kennedy Town with instructors, Tomas McKay and Renee Chow. Image courtesy of Mingzi Ye, University of New South Wales. Digital Collaboration Studio. Courtesy of Julie Ju-Youn Kim, Georgia Institute of Technology. Personal Sketchbook. Courtesy of Billie Faircloth, KieranTimberlake. Courtesy of Foivos Geralis from elective seminar with instructor, Lydia Kallipoliti, The Cooper Union Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture, Collier Memorial. Courtesy of Julian Palacio. Photo by ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzman + Rocío Romero) First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Julie Ju-Youn Kim; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Julie Ju-Youn Kim to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-28337-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-28324-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-29635-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355 Typeset in ITC Galliard Pro by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

CONTENTS

List of Contributors ix Preface xxi Acknowledgments xxii PART 0 

Introduction1 1 Setting the Table 3 Julie Ju-Youn Kim PART I 

Expanding Disciplinary Fields: Speculations across Past, Current, and Future Models in the Academy7 2 Re-thinking Architecture Education 9 Julie Ju-Youn Kim Provocations14 3 Questioning “Best” Practices in Architectural Education 15 Renée Cheng 4 From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges: Shifting the Focus of Architectural Education 24 Iñaki Alday

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5 Integrative Technologies in Architecture: Toward an Interdisciplinary and Future-Proof Research Culture 38 Achim Menges Case Studies from the Academy42 6 Which Comes First? 43 Renee Chow 7 Interdisciplinary Transition 50 Erika Zekos 8 The Yamuna River Project: Interdisciplinarity across and beyond the Fields of the Built Environment in Architectural Education 54 Iñaki Alday and Pankaj Vir Gupta 9 Building Innovation at Arizona State University 62 Philip Horton and Marc Neveu 10 Data Augmented Design Intelligence: Enabling Interdisciplinarity 65 Matthias (Hank) Haeusler and Nicole Gardner 11 Out of Scope: How Megaliths Challenge Architecture’s Role 72 Brandon Clifford 12 Perform: Making a Case for Expanded Structural Dialogues in Architecture Education 76 Julian Palacio 13 Aqueous Landscapes: Teaching and Learning in the Intertidal Zone in Second Year Architectural Design Studio 85 Ainslie Murray 14 Building Beloved Community through the University of Washington’s Nehemiah Interdisciplinary Studio 93 Rachel Berney, Branden Born, and Donald King 15 Integrated Studio: Trade-offs as a Mechanism for Collaboration 99 Ann Marie Borys and Carrie Sturts Dossick 16 The Story of a Semi-Scientist 106 Lydia Kallipoliti

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PART II

Integrating Disciplines: Speculations across Past, Current, and Future Models in Practice115 17 Learning from Practice – Or Practice Learning from Education 117 Julie Ju-Youn Kim Provocation 01

122

18 Meandering Transdisciplinary Lands 123 Billie Faircloth Case Studies from Practice148 19 Crosscoding Cultures: Design and Data across Disciplines 149 Andrew Witt 20 The Architectural Incongruities between Speculation and Practice 155 Max Kuo 21 Practice beyond the Digital Bubble 162 Maya Alam 22 The Unexpected Solution: How Multidisciplinary Enriches the Design Process 173 Stefan Rier and Lukas Rungger 23 Learning by Doing 181 Rozana Montiel Provocation 02

192

24 Pedagogical Practices 193 Nader Tehrani PART III

Experimenting in Interdisciplinarity: Speculations across Past, Current, and Future Models in the Academy and Practice215 25 Shameless Experimentation: Making Space for Interdisciplinary Exchange 217 Gretchen Wilkins

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26 Expanding Interdisciplinary Fields: Reflections on the Science of Design 228 Julie Ju-Youn Kim 27 Interdisciplinary Dialogues: What are the Boundaries of Design (or Design as a Mode of Inquiry) 238 J. Meejin Yoon 28 Walking the Boundaries of the Built Environment 257 Alan Organschi Index

278

CONTRIBUTORS

Alam, Maya. A/P Practice, Florence, Italy

Maya Alam is a designer, architect, and educator of Indian and German descent. She focuses on the entanglements of architecture and visuality and their relationship to constructs of power. Alam holds the title of Dipl. Ing. of Interior Architecture from the Peter Behrens School of Architecture in Düsseldorf and a Master of Architecture with Distinction from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. She was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Certificate and a Selected Best Thesis Award at SCI-Arc. She was the inaugural recipient of the 2016/17 Boghosian Fellowship, the 2022 Dekoloniale Berlin Architecture Residency, and the 2022-24 Schloss Solitude Fellowship. She has worked in Germany, India, Switzerland, China, Italy, and the United States, amongst others, with P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, NMDA, UNStudio, and Studio Fuksas. In addition, she has taught bachelor & graduate-level architecture design studios and seminars at several universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Syracuse University & the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Alam is currently the chair of “Theory and Discourse in Design” at the department of architecture and engineering at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, and is a founding partner of A/P practice. Their work has been exhibited most recently at Yale University, Kent University, the Smithsonian Institution, and the A+D Museum, where they experiment with contemporary imaging & surveying technologies to recalibrate our agency across physical and digital spaces. Alday, Iñaki. Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

Iñaki Alday is a registered architect, landscape architect and urbanist graduated from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1992. Together with Margarita Jover, he founded aldayjover architecture and landscape in 1996 in Barcelona. The multidisciplinary, research-based practice focuses on innovation and is particularly renowned for its leadership in a new approach to the relation between cities and rivers, in which the natural dynamics of flooding become part of the public space and the buildings, eliminating the idea of “catastrophe.”

x Contributors

Alday is the Dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture since 2018. After teaching as Associate Professor at the Valles School of Architecture (UPC) since 1998, in 2011 he was appointed as Quesada Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Virginia. Both in academic research and in practice, Alday promotes a new attitude towards the transformation of our environment and how architecture can contribute to the inhabitation of the most challenged areas of the planet. The role of architecture and the architects, the integration of disciplines and scales, the non-traditional programs as the hybridized infrastructures, or the social and environmental ethics are some of the challenges to confront with a global vision. Berney, Rachel. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Rachel Berney, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, where she studies how public spaces can support belonging, health, and mobility. Her work addresses just urban design, equitable development, and community engagement. Her books include Learning from Bogotá: Pedagogical Urbanism and the Reshaping of Public Space and Bicycle Urbanism: Re-imagining Bicycle Friendly Cities. Her work also appears in Planning Theory, Journal of Urban Design, the New Urban Design Companion, Just Urban Design, and other volumes. Berney works at multiple scales on equitable development, including teaching several iterations of the Nehemiah Interdisciplinary Studio as part of the UW College of Built Environments’ effort to support Black Churches in Seattle’s Central District combat displacement. She researches anti-displacement policies approaches for planners. Recently, she also co-authored an equity framework for Washington State Parks capital investment. Rachel is the Faculty Director of Urban@UW, is a university-wide initiative helping to build urban scholars and scholarship. In her director role, she co-leads Urban@UW’s Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC). The RAC serves as a catalyst for research teams, building their transformational collaborative capacity to address today’s most pressing urban challenges. She is also a part of the Journal of Urban Design editorial team and the EDRA Knowledge Network co-chair for public space. Born, Branden. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Branden Born, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, where he studies planning processes and social justice, primarily through examining community governance models and food systems. He also works in the areas of land use planning, regionalism, and community engagement. Born has worked with stakeholders from around Washington State to review and develop land use regulations concerning environmental sustainability and agricultural viability. He has also worked with citizens and elected officials to propose state and local food policy and helped found a quasi-governmental body, the Puget Sound Regional Council’s Food Policy Council. His past collaborations include several healthy community initiatives with Seattle and King County Public Health researchers and community members. Most recently, he has been working with communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, to understand the impacts of globalization, migration, and US foreign policy on the communities, food systems, and economies of rural Oaxaca. He is also working with other faculty in the College

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of Built Environments in support of Black Churches in Seattle’s Central District in their efforts to push back against gentrification-based displacement. Born is the Director of the Center for Livable Communities, a “think-do” tank in the Department of Urban Design and Planning. He also co-directs the UW’s Livable City Year program, a university-wide community partnership effort that pairs university classes with city staff to complete research and design projects in service to community needs. He sits on the international board of the EPIC-Network of schools participating in similar partnerships. Borys, Ann Marie. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Ann Marie Borys, PhD, AIA is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington. In addition to the undergraduate integrated design studio, she teaches courses in history and theory, and in professional practice. Cheng, Renée. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Renée Cheng joined the College of Built Environments as dean on January 1, 2019. Dean Cheng comes from the University of Minnesota where she was a professor, associate dean of research, head of the school of architecture, and directed an innovative graduate program linking research with practice and licensure. Prior to UMN, she taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona. She is a graduate of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and Harvard College. A licensed architect, her professional experience includes work for Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners, and Richard Meier, and Partners before founding Cheng-Olson Design. Dean Cheng has been honored twice as one of the top 25 most admired design educators in the United States by Design Intelligence. She has received numerous honors and awards including the 2017 Lean Construction Institute Faculty Award and was named to the American Institute of Architect’s College of Fellows in 2017. Cheng is a leader in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and advocates for equity in the field of architecture and in the practices related to the built environment. Recently, Cheng led the research effort for the AIA guides for equitable practice in the workplace. Cheng has pioneered research surrounding the intersection of design and emerging technologies, including work on industry adoption of Integrated Project Delivery, Building Information Modeling and Lean. Chow, Renee. University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Renee Y. Chow is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at University of California Berkeley as well as founding principal of Studio URBIS. She currently serves as the William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design. Her work addresses the metropolitan challenges of the 21st century — water scarcities, resource reductions, and sustainable places. She is author of Suburban Space: The Fabric of Dwelling (2005) and Changing Chinese Cities: The Potentials of Field Urbanism (2015). Chow has been honored as a ACSA Distinguished Professor, the Eva Li Chair in Design Ethics, “Ten Top Architectural Educators” by Architecture, as well as received research and project awards from the American Institute of Architects. She received her B.S.AD and M.Arch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she also taught before joining Berkeley.

xii Contributors

Clifford, Brandon. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

Brandon Clifford is a time-traveler who develops creative approaches to the world’s most pressing problems. He identifies contemporary blind-spots by mining ancient knowledge that holds resonance with topics of today. He is best known for bringing megalithic sculptures to life to perform tasks. Clifford is the director and co-founder of Matter Design and an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Clifford received his Master of Architecture from Princeton University and his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Georgia Tech. He has also served as the LeFevre Fellow at The Ohio State University and the John G. Williams Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas. Clifford is a designer and researcher who has received recognition with prizes such as the American Academy in Rome Prize, a TED Fellowship, the SOM Prize, the Design Biennial Boston Award, and the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects & Designers. His most recent authored work “The Cannibal’s Cookbook: Mining Myths of Cyclopean Constructions” demonstrates his dedication to bringing ancient knowledge into contemporary practice with theatrical captivation. His work at Matter Design is focused on re-directing architectural research through spectacle and mysticism by re-posing a series of ancient, but hauntingly relevant questions. For instance, could walking massive statues help us design for transportation and assembly? Is the key to recycling our building materials locked inside the cryptic walls suspected of being built by primordial giants? His speculative built works continue to disrupt common practices and challenge default solutions. Dossick, Carrie Sturts. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Carrie Sturts Dossick, Ph.D. P.E. is a Professor of Construction Management and the Associate Dean of Research in the College of Built Environments, University of Washington. Dr. Dossick co-directs the Communication, Technology, and Organizational Practices lab in the Center for Education and Research in Construction (CERC). Dr. Dossick has over two decades of research and teaching experience focused on emerging collaboration methods and technologies such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). Faircloth, Billie. KieranTimberlake, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Billie Faircloth is a design leader and educator who has transformed practice-based research and earned a national and international reputation for demonstrating its value, methods, and outcomes. As partner and research director at the Philadelphia-based architectural practice KieranTimberlake, Faircloth leads the firm’s Research Group, a transdisciplinary team recognized for applying research, design, and problem-solving processes from fields as diverse as environmental management, industrial ecology, chemical physics, materials science, and sculpture. Faircloth is an Adjunct Professor at the Weitzman School of Design in the Environmental Building Design program and the Robotics and Autonomous Systems program. Faircloth’s present work in practice and academy focuses on sociotechnical interactions between building culture and the environment and architecture’s outcomes as critical grounds for innovation. Gardner, Nicole. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Dr. Nicole Gardner is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Built Environment, Faculty of Arts, Design, and Architecture (ADA) at UNSW, Sydney, and a Registered Architect

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(NSW ARB 7921) with over twelve years of project experience in Australia and the United Kingdom. Gardner’s teaching and research investigates the history and theory of architectural and urban technologies, and digital transformation in the architecture sector through the lenses of organizational learning, labor, and gender. She has co-authored 3 book publications, and over forty peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers on digital technologies in design practice. Gardner is an active member of the Computer Aided Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) community and was a co-editor of the CAADRIA “Post-Carbon” conference proceedings in 2022. She is also the soleauthor of the forthcoming book Scaling the Smart City: The design and ethics of urban technology (Elsevier). Gardner has won and led Commonwealth grants for projects on design technology innovation and digital heritage and was awarded a Faculty Research Fellowship in 2021. Haeusler, Matthias (Hank). University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Dr. M. Hank Haeusler Dipl.-Ing. (Fh)/PhD (SIAL/RMIT) is ARC Centre for Next-Gen Architectural Manufacturing Director, a A$9 million federal government funded research center transforming the architecture, engineering and construction sector; Discipline Director of Computational Design (CoDe) and Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney; Head of Research, Foresight and Innovation Giraffe Technology, a Sydney-based urban analytics start-up; board member of the Media Architecture Institute board member of the Media Architecture Institute, a non-profit organization designed to complement the work of established universities and research institutions; and former Professor at the Visual Art Innovation Institute at Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. Previous to his role at UNSW, Haeusler was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UTS, Sydney. Haeusler is known as a researcher, educator, entrepreneur and designer in media architecture, computational design, and second machine age technologies and author of nine books listing publications such as “Media Facades – History, Technology, Content” (avedition, 2009), “Computational Design – from promise to practice (Avedition, 2019); and over 140 book chapters and conference papers. He has lectured in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia in universities such as SciArc Los Angeles, ETH Zurich, RCA London, or University of Hong Kong. Horton, Philip M. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Philip Horton is a Clinical Associate Professor of Architecture, a Senior Global Futures Scientist, and he is one of the founding Co-Directors of the Center of Building Innovation (CoBI) at ASU. Horton is currently participating in an international partnership with An-Najah National University in Palestine, and recently completed a transdisciplinary research initiative with the Global Futures Laboratory (GFL), the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO), Studio MA, and other units within ASU. In Academic Year 2020/21 Horton served as the Interim Director for The Design School. Horton previously acted as faculty advisor to Team ASUNM (Arizona State University and the University of New Mexico) on the SHADE house (Solar Homes Adapting for Desert Equilibrium) for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, and as the studio professor for the Waimea Nui Community Development Initiative with the Native Hawaiian Homesteaders’ Association.

xiv Contributors

Kallipoliti, Lydia. The Cooper Union, New York City, NY, USA

Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer, and scholar whose research focuses on the intersections of architecture, technology, and environmental politics. She is an Associate Professor at the Cooper Union in New York. Previously, she taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she directed the Master of Science Program, at Syracuse University, Columbia University [GSAPP] and Pratt Institute; she was also a visiting fellow at the University of Queensland and a visiting professor at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia. Her work has been published and exhibited widely including the Venice Biennial, the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Shenzhen Biennial, the Oslo Architecture Trienalle, the Onassis Cultural Center, the Lisbon Triennale, the Royal Academy of British Architects, and the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York and the London Design Museum. She is the author of the awarded book The Architecture of Closed Worlds, Or, What is the Power of Shit (Lars Muller Publishers, 2018), the History of Ecological Design for Oxford English Encyclopedia of Environmental Science and the editor of EcoRedux, a special issue of Architectural Design magazine (AD, 2010). Kallipoliti holds a Diploma in Architecture and Engineering from the AUTh in Greece, a SMArchS in design and building technology from MIT and a PhD in history and theory of architecture from Princeton University. She is the principal of ANAcycle thinktank and the Head Co-Curator of the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale. Kim, Julie Ju-Youn. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

Julie Ju-Youn Kim, AIA, is an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, where she founded and currently directs the Flourishing Communities Collaborative, an interdisciplinary research and design lab. Incorporating goals of equity and inclusion in scholarship and design pedagogy, Kim received the 2023 AIA Georgia Educator of the Year and the 2023 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award, for connecting the academy and architectural practice by creating replicable models of engagement to expand equity through access. With support from the New Venture Fund/Public Interest Technology-University Network and Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, Kim’s teaching and research leverages data-driven and quantitative methodologies to solving social and cultural problems in the built environment. Kim is a licensed architect whose publications link her leadership and teaching in pursuit of interdisciplinarity in architecture education, research, and practice. She holds a M.Arch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and BA from Wellesley College. King, Donald. Nehemiah Initiative, Seattle, WA, USA

Donald I King, FAIA, NOMA, RA, is an architect, planner, and educator with over 50 years of professional experience in the practice areas of community planning, design, and project management. He has specialized expertise in urban design and planning, design and management of community-based projects, healthcare facilities, educational facilities, affordable family housing and special needs housing. King founded the firm DKA in 1985 and served as its President and CEO. For over 30 years, he led the firm in the planning and design of over 400 successful community projects. King currently splits his time between the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle, the UW Department of Architecture, and Mimar Studio. King serves as the President and CEO of

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the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle. The Nehemiah Initiative seeks to empower the African American community in the Seattle region and beyond to support the retention of historically Black institutions by advocating for development of real property assets owned by those historically Black institutions. King teaches seminars and studios in the Department of Architecture, and he is the founder and principal architect of Mimar Studio. The studio is a pre-development planning and design consultancy that specializes in land use code research, site capacity studies and concept design of community facilities and housing. King’s writings on planning, design, and practice, as well as articles on his previous firm DKA Architecture, have been published in numerous books, journals, and periodicals. Kuo, Max. ALLTHATISSOLID, Kuala Lumpur/Los Angeles CA, USA

Max Kuo is a founding partner of the studio ALLTHATISSOLID and a Lecturer at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. As an architectural educator, Kuo has been a Visiting Critic at Syracuse University, MIT, Tongji University, Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as several universities in Seoul. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally and has been notably recognized by Architect Magazine’s: Next Progressives (2023), Boston Design Biennial (2021), Heinz Fellowship in Architecture at MacDowell (2016), and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellow (2016). In 2003, Kuo was an artist-in-residence at the Whitney Museum, Independent Studies Program. He has previously practiced in the offices of Reiser + Umemoto and Fernando Romero Enterprise. Kuo’s recent writings and design practice explore the creative and paradoxical effects of digital networks on architecture and urban culture. His most recent article in Log explores new spatio-temporal frameworks of post-digital culture where architectural novelty springs from the unpredictable behaviors of familiar forms. Kuo’s works have appeared in architectural publications such as Log, Pidgin (Princeton), Thresholds (MIT), Mas Context (Chicago), Pool (UCLA), Dwell, and Archinect. Menges, Achim. Institute of Computational Design, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

Achim Menges is a registered architect in Frankfurt and full professor at Stuttgart University, where he is the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and the director of the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC). In addition, he has been Visiting Professor in Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and held multiple other visiting professorships in Europe and the United States. He graduated with honors from the Architectural Association, AA School of Architecture in London, where he subsequently taught as Studio Master and Unit Master in the AA Graduate School and the AA Diploma School. Achim Menges’ practice and research focuses integrative computational design methods, robotic fabrication and construction processes, as well as advanced material and building systems for architecture. His work is based on an interdisciplinary approach in collaboration with structural engineering, systems and production engineering, computer science, material science, as well as the humanities and social science. His projects and design research have received many international awards, have been published and exhibited worldwide, and form part of several renowned museum collections, among others,

xvi Contributors

the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Montiel, Rozana. Rozana Montiel estudio, Mexico City, Mexico

Rozana Montiel is the founder of the firm Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura (REA) focused on architectural design, artistic re-conceptualizations of space and the public domain. The studio works on a variety of projects at different scales and layers ranging from the city to the book, the artifact, and other micro-objects. Her trajectory has been recognized by different awards including her nominations for the Royal Academy Dorfman Award (2023) and for the Swiss Architectural Award (20212022). She was awarded the International Women Architects Prize (2022) granted by ARVHA; the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2019) by the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine; the MCHAP Emerging Architecture Prize (2018); the Overall Award (2017) in the Miami Archmarathon Awards, the Moira Gemmill Award (2017); and the Emerging Voices Award (2016) granted by The Architectural League of New York. A compilation of her work was presented in her exhibition Blank in Three Acts which was displayed at the Museo de San Ildefonso (Mexico City, 2021–2022). In 2022, she presented her installation Stand Up for the Seas! for the BAP!2022 in Versailles. In 2016 she participated in the 15th. Venice Architecture Biennale and in 2018 she presented her installation Stand Ground at the 16th Venice Biennale along with the publication of her book UH: Common Spaces in Housing Units. Montiel is an architect from the Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City, 1998) with a Master in Architecture, Criticism and Project from the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya UPC (Barcelona, 2000). Murray, Ainslie. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Dr. Ainslie Murray is an interdisciplinary artist and academic based in the Faculty Arts, Design and Architecture at UNSW Sydney, Australia. Her undergraduate and postgraduate teaching is focused around public and participatory art and architecture practices, and she leads a diverse range of research, design and communications studios. Her creative research explores the formation and inhabitation of architectural space through attention to climate, mobility and landscape. Her installation, film and environmental works have been exhibited globally in Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK. Neveu, Marc. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Marc J. Neveu is a professor of architecture and is a founding Co-Director of the Center of Building Innovation (CoBI) at Arizona State University. Prior to that appointment, Neveu was head of the architecture program at ASU as well as the chair and Associate Dean of Architecture at Woodbury University in Los Angeles. In both institutions, Neveu has worked with faculty to rethink and develop curricula intended to improve student learning and outcomes. As co-Director of CoBI, he is developing K-12 outreach to help diversify the pipeline of students entering into the disciplines of the built environment. More specifically, he is working with Girls Can Build, a local non-profit organization, and the Girl Scouts Arizona Cactus Pine Council to develop a badge program for the Girl Scouts. Through CoBI, Neveu is working with the Herberger Young Scholars

Contributors  xvii

Academy and ASU Preparatory Academy to raise awareness of careers in the built environment. Neveu is also the past Executive Editor of the Journal of Architectural Education. Organschi, Alan. Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven, CT, USA

Alan Organschi is a principal and partner at Gray Organschi Architecture (www. grayorganschi.com), an architectural practice in New Haven, Connecticut recognized internationally for its integration of design, construction, and environmental research. In April 2021, Organschi was appointed Director of the Innovation Labs at the Bauhaus Earth – (www.bauhauserde.org) a global interdisciplinary initiative that seeks to transform the building sector from a major source of anthropogenic environmental and social impact into a regenerative and ecologically sensitive means to meet the housing and infrastructural needs of an urbanizing global population. Organschi continues as a Senior member of the faculty at the Yale School of Architecture where he has taught architectural design and building technology for two decades. Organschi has written and lectured extensively on the carbon storage benefits of biogenic material substitution in urban building. He is a co-author of the recently published book Carbon: A Field Manual For Building Designers and the scientific paper “Buildings as a Global Carbon Sink” published in the journal Nature Sustainability in January 2020. In 2012, Organschi and his partner Elizabeth Gray were honored for their work with an Arts and Letters Award in Architecture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Palacio, Julian. The Cooper Union, New York City, NY, USA

Julian Palacio is a practicing architect, researcher and educator. He is an Assistant Professor Adjunct at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union and founder of JPAS, a New York-based design studio that operates as a creative platform for the realization of projects across types, scales and geographies. Palacio is a MacDowell Fellow, and a recipient of the Deborah J. Norden Fellowship from The Architectural League of New York for a proposal to investigate the innovative ceramic structures of the Uruguayan engineer Eladio Dieste. Through his research, and work, he continues to explore the intersections of structure, form, and space. As part of his teaching at The Cooper Union, he has led the design and fabrication of several interdisciplinary installation projects, including Ibeji and Manifold. Ibeji was installed at the dieFirma Gallery in New York City, and Manifold was installed on the grounds of the Festival des Architectures Vives, in Montpellier, France. Before joining The Cooper Union, he taught at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania. Palacio holds a Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University in New York, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the School of Architecture and Design at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. Pankaj Vir Gupta. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Pankaj Vir Gupta is a founding partner of vir.mueller architects, in New Delhi. He is a licensed architect in the United States, and a registered member of the Council of Architecture in India. Since 2012, he has been a Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he is the Co-Founder and Director of the Yamuna River Project, a pan-university research project. This project has achieved international recognition for the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

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Rier, Stefan. *noa network of architecture, Bolzano, Italy Rungger, Lukas.*noa network of architecture, Bolzano, Italy noa* is a collective of architects and interior designers founded in 2011 by Stefan Rier and Lukas Rungger. Through its ten years of experience, the studio has established itself as an industry standard for hospitality architecture and design, with completed projects scattered across the Alps and new concepts being put into motion in the Netherlands, Croatia, USA, and the Caribbean. Following an always curious and never conventional approach, noa* has expanded its portfolio over the past three years with its creation of novel architectural typologies. These include the Ötzi Peak viewing platform on the Val Senales glacier, the Transsensorial Gateway installation for Creative Connections exhibition at the 2021 edition of Milan Design Week, and the competition proposal for the new European Library in Milan. noa* has been published in magazines and on digital platforms of international prominence such as Interni, Domus, dezeen, baunetz, ioArch, AD, and Baumeister. Among the projects most widely receiving attention in the press are the Messner House, the Zallinger alpine village, and Hotel Hubertus with its impressive Hub of Huts wellness platform and cantilevered pool. The firm’s core philosophy revolves around seeing the project as a path to knowledge, and as a tool to tell stories; bringing an additional value to the places where noa* architectural works become embedded. noa* has 32 creatives in its network. The main noa* headquarters are located in Bolzano, with additional offices opened in Berlin (2018), Turin (2021), and Milan (2023). Tehrani, Nader. NADAAA, Boston, MA, USA

Nader Tehrani is Founding Principal of NADAAA, a practice dedicated to the advancement of design innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and an intensive dialogue with the construction industry. He is also former Dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union where he served from 2015 to 2022. For his contributions to architecture as an art, Nader Tehrani is the recipient of the 2020 Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, to which he was also elected as a member in 2021, the highest form of recognition of artistic merit in the United States. Tehrani’s work has been recognized with notable awards, including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Visionary Award and the United States Artists Fellowship in Architecture and Design. He has also received the Harleston Parker Award multiple Hobson Awards, and a Holcim Award. Throughout his career, Tehrani has received nineteen Progressive Architecture Awards as well as numerous national and international design awards. He served as the Frank O. Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at the University of Toronto. He has also recently served as the William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence at the American Academy in Rome. His office, NADAAA, for the past seven years in a row, has ranked in the top eleven US design firms in Architect Magazine’s annual listing, ranking as first three years in a row.

Contributors  xix

Wilkins, Gretchen. Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, USA

Gretchen Wilkins is Head of Architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. She began this role in 2018 and served as Interim Dean of the Academy from 2021 to 2022. She was previously an Associate Professor at RMIT University, acting as Head of the Design Department at RMIT Vietnam and Program Director for the Master of Urban Design based in Melbourne, Barcelona and Ho Chi Minh City. Before arriving at RMIT she was an Assistant Professor in Architecture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her practice explores new models for density, manufacturing and mobility in rapidly transforming cities, with particular interest in Ho Chi Minh City and Detroit. Related projects include the Future Factory, the World Architecture Workshop, and Distributed Urbanism: Cities after Google Earth (Routledge, 2010). She is the guest editor of an upcoming issue of Architectural Design (AD) entitled Cranbrook Architecture: a Legacy of Latitude (Wiley, 2023) She received her Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan and her PhD in Architecture from RMIT University. Witt, Andrew. Certain Measures, Boston, MA, USA

Andrew Witt is an Associate Professor in Practice in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, teaching and researching on the relationship of geometry and machines to perception, design, construction, and culture. Trained as both an architect and mathematician, he has a particular interest in a technically synthetic and logically rigorous approach to form. Witt is also co-founder, with Tobias Nolte, of Certain Measures, a Boston/Berlin-based design and technology studio that combines imagination and evidence for systemic and scalable approaches to spatial problems. Their clients include large manufacturers, material fabricators, government agencies, infrastructure companies, investment funds, medical startups, and cultural institutions. The work of Certain Measures is in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou, and has been exhibited at the Pompidou, the Barbican Centre, Futurium, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and the Museum of the Future, among others. Witt has a longstanding research interest in the disciplinary exchanges between design and science, particularly through the media and visualizations of mathematics. He is the author of Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture (MIT Press, 2022), an expansive examination of the visual, methodological, and epistemic connections between design, mathematics, and the broader sciences. He is a fellow of the Canadian Centre for Architecture and Macdowell, a Graham Foundation and Harvard Data Science Initiative grantee, a World Frontiers Forum Pioneer (2018) and Young Pioneer (2017). He has been awarded a number of patents, including for geometric rationalizations of complex geometry and large-scale collaborative software systems. Yoon, J. Meejin. Höweler + Yoon, Boston, MA, USA

J. Meejin Yoon, AIA, FAAR, is currently the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) at Cornell University and co-founding partner of Höweler + Yoon, an award-winning design studio engaged in projects across the U.S. and around the world. Prior to joining Cornell, Yoon was a member of the faculty in the

xx Contributors

Department of Architecture at MIT and served as head of the department from 2014-2018. An architect, designer, and educator, Yoon is committed to advancing pedagogy, research, and practice to expand new knowledge and imaginaries across fields and disciplines to address the challenges facing our cities and communities. Yoon’s professional projects and creative work include cultural buildings, infrastructural landscapes, public spaces, and memorials. She is the co-author of Verify In Field: Projects and Conversations, Höweler + Yoon (Park Books, 2021) and Expanded Practice (Princeton Architectural Press 2009), as well as Public Works, Unsolicited Small Projects for the Big Dig with Meredith Miller (MAP Book Publishers, 2009); and 1001 Skyscrapers (Princeton Architectural Press, 2000). Yoon received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Zekos, Erika. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

Erika Zekos (she/her) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Architecture at University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she serves as the Undergraduate Program Director and teaches design studios and seminars. She earned her B.Arch and BS in Building Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is pursuing a M.Ed in Higher Education and a graduate certificate in Social Justice Education from UMass Amherst. She has served as a program director with Learning By Design in Massachusetts, a non-profit K-12 design education program, and taught Rhode Island School of Design Summer Pre-College and architecture design studios at Boston Architectural College, Roger Williams University, and Hampshire College. In addition to design education, Zekos is an award-winning designer and artist with experience in private practice. She has completed numerous site-specific public art installations in Boston and western Massachusetts, and has practiced residential, institutional, and educational design. An interest in community-engaged praxis connects all her work. Her research interests center on participatory action pedagogies and her teaching and design work consider and connect with their communities, both tangible and imagined, inviting collaboration and rethinking of the world around us. She is particularly interested in the relationship between design and placemaking, as well as strategies for meaningful community engagement and was recognized with a UMass Distinguished Community-Engaged Teaching Award in 2022.

PREFACE

In my work as educator and architect, I believe an opportunity sits in education and in practice to offer a platform to engage in interdisciplinary problem solving in the pursuit of seeking one of many possible solutions. This space between the academy and practice is a wonderful world of the in-between that allows one to operate in a fluid and flexible arena. I have been invested in this space for more than twenty-five years. From my early days as a young practitioner who was also fortunate to be able to teach, I found a fertile, productive, and challenging territory as I have worked to advance these critical connections between the academy and practice. As the inquiry behind this book began to take shape, I saw the opportunity to frame a broad and inclusive conversation positioning interdisciplinarity in education with the adjacent lens of practice. Alongside reflections from invited contributors in education and practice, I, too, share my own assumptions, wondering if by remaining “in our lane” or in our discipline, we impose false narrow limits on our capacity for radical thinking to re-think the role of the architect to address increasingly multifaceted and complex problems.The collection of voices in this book offers critical and provocative lenses, learning from history while forging inventive and creative roles for the architect as practitioner, entrepreneur, strategist, choreographer, activist, facilitator, leader, and teacher. This publication underscores the power of exposing students to experience and live first-hand collaborative conversations and engagement across disciplines as a critical piece of foundational thinking, providing them the basis to steer the future transformation of our profession.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is made possible by the many voices included in these pages and the countless conversations had since I started the interdisciplinary design studio experiment at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture. There are many people I need to thank. I want to thank all of my colleagues in the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech for their curricular engagement in framing and offering such provocative and relevant design studios for our undergraduate seniors. The work from 2016-2022 interdisciplinary design studios framed the underpinnings for this book project. I am grateful to the students and faculty who willingly and enthusiastically participated in these studios – you are all my inspiration as you help me sharpen my own perspectives of the value of such an endeavor. One might wonder why invite such a broad and diverse set of voices to participate in this book project. Likewise, there may be a question about why invite academics and practitioners into the same intellectual space interrogating interdisciplinarity. There was, however, never any question in my mind. Architecture, itself, is not a solo exercise – ours is a collaborative enterprise that cuts across both the academy and practice. For all the brilliant contributors in these spheres of academy and practice, thank you for your generosity and patience throughout the editorial process. I am most grateful for the sharp external perspectives each of you offers – I remain inspired by your work as you embody the elasticity required to smartly assess a situation and then determine how best to leverage the best possible outcomes. As this book came to life, I continue to be impressed with my colleagues’ abilities to shape interdisciplinary processes with such ease, elegance, and skill. Their voices extend the discussion in the most interesting ways and, through their examples, show us we have many lessons yet to learn. I hope our conversations will continue on. It does not end here and I look forward to seeing where it goes. I want to acknowledge Francis Ford, Lydia Kessell, and Jake Millicheap at Routledge for their support and generous assistance. I am grateful you saw the benefit in this subject and have been my champions to help make this book project happen.

Acknowledgments  xxiii

I am grateful for the dedication and energetic participation of my incredibly talented research assistant, Marianna Godfrey (Georgia Tech, BS Arch 2022) for her steadfast followthrough and thoughtful eye. I want to expressly thank my friend and colleague, John Peponis, for the many discussions, critique, and support since I started this effort called interdisciplinary design studios. If it were not for his prompting and continued engagement, the first book project may not have happened – and this one would not have followed. Finally, and especially, for their love and support for me always, Paul and Max – my cornerstones and my balance in life.

PART 0

Introduction

1 SETTING THE TABLE Julie Ju-Youn Kim

Expanding, integrating, and experimenting – these are actions that can describe possible operations within practice and education. As an educator, I consider how these ideas might permeate all aspects of a curriculum. As a practitioner, I, likewise, consider how these same ideas might affect how we practice. The actions we take in a design process can be described as ones that expand, integrate, and experiment (test) iterations in exploring possible solutions to a problem across scales. Design and design thinking are the foundation of what we do – yet it remains elusive and difficult to define. Let’s start with the technology between our ears.1 In Howard Gardner’s 5 Minds for the Future, he suggests there are five minds: disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful, and ethical. Expanding on Gardner’s (2009) lexicon, these five minds could embody the cultural ethos of design thinking – and this could permeate all aspects of a curriculum or of a practice. Within the context of this book, expanding, integrating, and experimenting can be seen as ways to make explicit the relationship between design thinking and, by extension, connecting across disciplines. Design thinking is the core of architectural education, evidenced primarily but not limited to the design studio. We will see a range of examples shared in this book. Throughout these pages, I expand on other lines of inquiry that offer fertile space for imagining the future of interdisciplinary design thinking in architecture education and in architecture practice. Let’s start with architectural education. The integration of interdisciplinary design studios into undergraduate curricula carries the potential to contribute to a broader dialogue about pedagogy and practice at both a national and international level. An aspirational endeavor certainly – however, the difficulty inherent in bringing diverse, at times opposing, perspectives together in the design studio setting emerges nearly from the outset. Differences in pedagogy, in methods of working, and in approaches to the design process all come sharply into focus. Learning to effectively bring together and collaborate with people with expertise in other specialties – including engineering, construction, real estate development, building technology, and other allied disciplines – is essential to the success of the next generation of architects. As important, their ability to respond to sophisticated clients and DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-2

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their programmatic visions also require architects to understand, interpret, and synthesize inputs from multiple perspectives and disciplines. Teaching and practicing modes of collaboration that look outward, inward, and across are fundamental to the work educators do in preparing our students to be effective members and leaders of teams. Ultimately, this is one of the core visions of interdisciplinary studios and, by extension, to interdisciplinary approaches to architectural design and inquiry at the undergraduate level played out in the design studio. Students negotiate with one another as they work toward a possible solution to the design problem. Levels of success – and, indeed, failure – emerge. Students learn by doing, by making mistakes, and by doing again. Unconstrained and not limited by external accreditation requirements in pre-professional degree programs, undergraduate programs are empowered to entertain broad definitions of design inquiry and experiences for our students. I like to say that the practice of architecture is naturally optimistic. Architects are always looking forward as we consider opportunities to improve our current circumstance. Even as we postulate other futures for existing conditions, we are equally committed to the synthesis of histories – cultural, social, economic, political, and technological – and how all of these leverage the myriad of endless possibilities. We are – among other things – facilitators, choreographers, strategists, researchers, teachers, and makers. Design, therefore, must be understood as a collaborative and distributed effort. Architects do not merely direct others to implement a design but work with others to develop and advance it to execution. Successful design outcomes depend on the ability of interdisciplinary teams to address diverse requirements and problems within a shared, or, at a minimum, compatible methodology, or approach. Yet, returning to a question posited at the outset of this chapter, how do we describe what we do when we design? In The Sciences of the Artificial, Herbert Simon suggests that the act of design occurs when we thoughtfully devise a course of action aimed at changing the existing situation into a preferred one. According to Simon, “Design like science is a tool for understanding as well as for acting.” (Simon, 164) I will argue that Simon’s assertions are applicable to what we do as practitioners and academics in our discipline of architecture. Let’s return to these questions. What is the future of architectural education? What are future models of architectural practice? How do our considerations of future models impact strategic thinking about curricular structures? And of practice models? How might we craft an alternative model for education and practice that advances the relationship between them, establishing an interdisciplinary framework? From these initial questions, other considerations emerge. One is that I wonder the ways in which architectural education may engage culture and society in a more significant way, outside skills preparation. Another is this: successfully positioning architecture more broadly between the arts, sciences, and humanities yields an expansive notion of architecture that engages in discourse beyond itself. This kind of positioning, then, suggests other kinds of curricula and/or practice models may emerge. The collection of chapters following will offer various lenses through which to consider these positions.

Setting the Table  5

Expand – Integrate – Experiment

Sophisticated technologies and knowledge in the right hands and minds can empower designers to make better and smarter design choices. Technological advancements including artificial intelligence, augmented reality, mixed reality, and more all equally test our capacities as they hypothesize and make claims to the future of design. We know that these tools are not prescriptive, yet they can open up new and exciting possibilities for great architectural work. As educators, then, we must teach both knowledge and skills as well as the sensibility and mind to use them. We (the academy and practice) want educated users with visionary dreams – we (as academics and practitioners) want to equally impact future models of practice and education. What does this mean for the role we may conventionally understand for the architect? And for the role education plays in shaping the next leaders of our built environment? Let us start by stating the following givens. There have been publications and papers reflecting on the value of interdisciplinary design education – some have been focused on schools of architecture while others speak more broadly to general pedagogy. There have been studies and white papers on the value of interdisciplinary teams in practice, focusing on such models as Integrated Project Delivery, networked practices, and development inception finance management, among others. Certainly, interdisciplinary partnerships in practice are increasingly becoming the standard; we could even state it is the status quo. Likewise, such interdisciplinary practices in education are evident across many universities; we see this in offered curricula designed to prepare students for practice. Interdisciplinarity as a teaching tool – both mechanism and methodology – is fundamentally well-established. In my mind, however, these set the floor – or, in other words, where we might start this next conversation, that is, the one on the introduction of practice into the educational conversation around interdisciplinarity. I have assembled a diverse range of examples as an opportunity to comparatively reflect on the ambitions set forth, critique the outcomes, and offer perspectives on undergraduate education via the specific lens of interdisciplinarity. This book is organized into three main parts. In some ways, parts or sections are a dissatisfying way to organize the rich set of contributions, especially as the aim of this book seeks to dispel the idea of “this” or “that” – the “either/or” – in pursuit of a hybrid common space of “both/and.” Yet, arranging into these parts serves a necessary purpose to present similar types of projects or themes in alignment with each other. Part I, Expanding Disciplinary Fields, examines the opportunity to reconsider the current frameworks and methodologies in architecture education while simultaneously speculating on possible future models. Provocations by leaders in the academy set the platform, followed by case studies from the academy. There are propositions at the scales of programs, studios, and adjacent coursework. The contributors represent a range of institutions of higher education – public, private, R1, and liberal arts are among them. All seek to explore the operations of interdisciplinarity, sharing lessons learned and outlining ambitions for future engagements. Part II, Integrating Disciplines, turns our focus on practice. Similar to the first section, this one also includes provocations from thought leaders, offering speculations on current and future models of practice. Case studies from emerging and experimental practices shed a spotlight on diverse efforts, each with a unique perspective on interdisciplinarity and its impact on their own work. Finally, Part III, Experimenting in Interdisciplinarity, expressly interrogates the shared space between practice and education,

6  Julie Ju-Youn Kim

challenging boundaries – real or perceived – speculating on current and future modes of engagement. The collection of essays and case studies in this publication are broad. They offer a snapshot of selected emerging and more established practices as it also provides a lens into selected academic programs of diverse scales, public and private. It is not comprehensive as this was not the intention behind this book project. The motivation here is to contribute to a broader dialogue at national or international level, as to what are the proper aspirations for integrating interdisciplinary (or transdisciplinary) frameworks in practice and in the academy. I am struck by the robust and provocative inquiries encompassing scales of landscape, cities, buildings, and objects. Common lessons of communication and collaboration thread all such engagements together. To be clear, the aim of this book is not limited to the celebration of the successes the contributors have had. Rather, it is an opportunity to reflect on the ambitions set forth, critique the outcomes, and offer sharp and insightful perspectives on education and practice via the specific lens of interdisciplinarity and, as it turned out, transdisciplinarity. Bringing together voices from the academy and from practice into a common conversation in the shared space of this book, I deliberately position lessons learned by practice from the interdisciplinary practices in the academic setting. I, likewise, offer a platform for thought leaders – emerging and established – to share reflections on the intersection between these two cultures, revealing fertile gaps for hybrid modes of practice. This book seeks to offer a unique lens, illuminating the productive spaces in the relationship between practice and education set within an interdisciplinary framework. I am interested in examining the role we conventionally understand for the architect – and to reconsider how we may frame inventive and creative pedagogies to support a radical new future of practitioners, leaders, designers, and collaborators. Basarab Nicolescu suggests acts of design includes the “acceptance of the unknown – the unexpected and unpredictable … acknowledgement of other ideas and truths” (Nicolescu 151, italics added). Likewise, I ask you to read this book with an open mind – ready to accept the unknown, the unexpected, and the unpredictable. Prepare to be provoked and inspired to import similar models of engagement into your own practices and pedagogies. Note 1 This statement was shared by several speakers in describing the role of technology at a studiorelated symposium at Georgia Tech. I regret I cannot recall who started the comment; however, it was emphatically embraced by the faculty leaders and invited guests across disciplines.

Works Cited Gardner, Howard. 5 Minds for the Future. Cambridge: Harvard Business Review Press, 2009. Nicolescu, Basarab. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial, third edition. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1998.

PART I

Expanding Disciplinary Fields: Speculations across Past, Current, and Future Models in the Academy

2 RE-THINKING ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION Julie Ju-Youn Kim

“The strength of all things comes from the in-between.” Sanskrit saying

In my own work as educator and architect, I remain intent on building capacity in critical thinking, thinking across disciplines – even as I continue, today, to refine my own clarity on what constitutes disciplinary thinking. I believe a productive opportunity sits in education – one that offers students a platform to engage in interdisciplinary problem solving in the pursuit of seeking one of many possible solutions. We know that in a truly interdisciplinary project each participant has a different perspective on the problem. Each of the participants brings their own respective disciplinary expertise to the conversation. Although each expert may not challenge their own assumptions about their disciplines, they negotiate through these differences to work toward a collective shared approach. Established approaches in schools of architecture curricula tend to model interdisciplinary exercises in the design studio. In the interdisciplinary design studio, we bring together students from different schools to collaborate on shared problems. We imagine optimal outcomes – that exposing students to this methodology early on will pay off later on as they become leaders in practice. As they engage in learning by doing, they will build a fundamental understanding of the critical role the architect plays in this process of collaborating and seeking solutions. Is this a fiction in my own mind? Allow me to elaborate. In the academic arena, students and faculty are traditionally defined by their disciplines. In other words, we have a School of Architecture, a School of Mechanical Engineering, a School of Biology, and so on. However, we recognize that in practice, we will collaborate with a wide range of disciplinary experts. So, in the academy, we set up the aforementioned interdisciplinary studios, a fictional collaborative framework, where we imagine students will bring their own relevant disciplinary expertise to bear, and we imagine that one plus one will equal something more than two. The truth is that we are fortunate when one plus one actually equals two. The terms multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary are often used interchangeably. They, however, each describe very different modalities of engagement, DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-4

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even as they are all connected by the actions of producing, expanding, and advancing the knowledge – in our case, architectural knowledge. As architects, we are familiar with modes of interdisciplinary engagement, conventionally played out in the project team structures that include architects, engineers, and other consultants, all collaborating on a single project with a shared aim. In my own past experiences, at Georgia Tech, as Program Director of the Bachelor of Science in Architecture from 2015 to 2022, I was explicitly interested in testing ideas of interdisciplinarity and collaboration across the curriculum. In 2016, I introduced a new curricular model1 for interdisciplinary design studios in the undergraduate program in the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech. Establishing annual engagement with the Capstone Design Expo – a hallmark at Georgia Tech with a long tradition in engineering – I expanded and nurtured cross-campus relationships to include interdisciplinary architecture teams in this culminating experience, opening the conversation across disciplines to extend the social structures of collaboration between divergent voices. What drives me is that I am fundamentally invested in the emphasis on design as a creative pursuit that requires integrated knowledge from various disciplines organized by structured collaborative teamwork. I see the intersection of students collaborating in the design studio as a platform for our future leaders in practice to build critical life-long skills. I imagine then that our students are prepared to address increasingly multifaceted and complex problems, expanding the role of an architect – as a facilitator, choreographer, strategist, director, and leader. Yet, I recognize I have not truly questioned the role the architects play or the disciplinary expertise they offer. I find myself wondering if by remaining “in our lane” or in our discipline, we impose false narrow limits on our capacity for radical thinking. In the academy, we can agree on shared aims to build the capacity of our students in critical thinking and to encourage strategic and smart thinking across disciplines. Clear design thinking through structured methodologies grounds such collaborative engagement. Faculty and related stakeholder partners offer the exploratory questions within a structured pedagogical framework to help prepare our students to critically confront relevant contemporary challenges. In response to an initial set of defined provocations, faculty carry an embedded expectation for the students to take initiative to search available literature, evidence, and relevant precedents so they may develop their own lens to understand the problem. As schools continue to redefine and re-describe the nature of architectural education, we must also ask other questions about the possibility for the discipline of architecture itself to engage culture and society in a more significant way, outside skills preparation. And, in order for architecture to maintain its relevance, establish its placement more broadly between the arts, sciences, and humanities – engaging in discourse beyond itself. Interdisciplinarity or Transdisciplinarity?

In his Manifesto for Transdisciplinarity (2002), Basarab Nicolescu asserts, “today, even two specialists in the same discipline must make a serious effort to understand their respective results” (41). He goes on to state, …[and] even a group comprised of the best specialists from all the various disciplines would only be able to develop a generalized incompetence, for the simple reason that the sum of total competencies is not competence: on a technical level, the intersection between different domains of knowledge is an empty ensemble. (42)

Re-thinking Architecture Education  11

This sounds dire: intersections between different domains of knowledge are an empty ensemble. But we also know that the intersections between different domains of knowledge can be pregnant with potential. We know that diverse sets of voices and perspectives can impact the outcome of a project. We, also, recognize, even within our own discipline, there may be misalignments in approach, methodology, and general competence. This is all true; however, I see this as a call to action. Learning to effectively collaborate with people who hold expertise in one’s own discipline as well as other specialties – including engineering, construction, real estate development, building technology, and other allied disciplines – is essential to the success of the next generation of architects. As important, the architect’s ability to external pressures of clients’ desires and stated aims will also require them to understand, interpret, and synthesize inputs from multiple perspectives and disciplines. We – the architects – hold the potential to operate between and across disciplines. Modes of working between and across, in fact, describe both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary modalities. Preparing our students to be leaders in this regard is one of the core visions of interdisciplinary (and transdisciplinary) approaches to architectural design and inquiry in schools of architecture. While the pressures of such integrated discussions are more prevalent in advanced graduate studies, the purpose of sharing case study models in the undergraduate experience2 reveals the range of experiences offered to students at the beginning of their careers with a common shared focus toward the resolution of a design project. By establishing an interdisciplinary curriculum in degree programs, we offer opportunities for architecture students to deliberately build and foster partnerships with others outside their own conceptual space. By doing so, we extend creative and intellectual capacity for the students. We offer the scaffold for building leadership skills, supporting students to strengthen their ability to communicate and collaborate effectively. We help sharpen their agility as design thinkers. We emphasize design as a creative pursuit that requires integrated knowledge from various disciplines. But, why include undergraduates? Undergraduate students are arguably only just beginning to shape their leadership skills. We start the process by framing opportunities for students to flex and stretch this capacity, building the foundations for many different possible futures. Several of the contributing authors muse whether an inexperienced – a beginning – student is ready to engage in interdisciplinary exercises when they are only just learning their own discipline. From the start of the first year, the tendency of architecture programs immerses students in the world of design and introduces them to the field, to material culture, and to creative approaches to problem finding and problem solving. For our undergraduate students, we are able to entertain broad definitions of design inquiry and experiences precisely because we are not constrained nor limited by accreditation requirements overlaid on professional degree programs. Free of such constraints, undergraduate programs can enjoy greater flexibility in a design-focused curriculum to leverage the critical creative thinking of our students. But wait – should we not also apply the same revolutionary thinking to our professional degree programs? Could future-forward educational thinking possibly impact the future of practice? We will touch on this in the next section of this book. The collection of essays and case-studies in this section is robust and proves the rich territory in which we can establish new models of educational frameworks across scales. The authors touch on issues of equity, history, disciplinary expertise within the lens of

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interdisciplinarity in architecture education. Renée Cheng challenges the status quo of architectural education – emphasizing the inextricable link between equity and best practices in interdisciplinarity, even beyond more conventional shared classroom experiences. She connects inclusivity within practice and bridging cultural differences as interrelated means toward an optimistic future for architecture education. The Design School at Arizona State University shares a proposal for an innovative model, grounded in part by similar questions of equity, establishing robust linkages between the architecture community with the full academic community at the University. Iñaki Alday offers smart and precise thoughts on our responsibility to learn from history – not to remain looking backward – but to imagine an audacious future for architecture education. Alday urges a call to action – to leverage disciplinary expertise to address big challenges through an interdisciplinary lens. We will see a similar sentiment vigorously echoed in Alan Organschi’s essay later in this book. Drawing from his own interdisciplinary exercise, Alday shares an ambitious case study from a multi-year, multi-institutional project that stretches between the academy and practice through the lenses of multiple disciplines. We see an example of other kinds of entrepreneurial thinking in the contribution of Achim Menges. I admire the clear direction and vision for the future of architectural education and practice set by Menges as he artfully and skillfully negotiates the narrow seam between institutional rhetoric with his own inspired approach to interdisciplinary work. Renee Chow, Ainslie Murray, and Erika Zekos share critical insights on the integration of interdisciplinary thinking into early education in undergraduate programs. While the examples in each of their three respective institutions explore the integration in differing ways, the overarching collective aim leverages the skills offered by different student perspectives from different areas of focused studies. Brandon Clifford crafts a bold platform for more advanced architecture students blending physics, logistics, and efficiencies in equivalent measures to culture, perception and imagination. Through an interdisciplinary experiment that looks to history, he urges us to question our default assumptions and approaches to architecture. Clifford argues this questioning will lead to more fruitful and unexpected outcomes. Julian Palacio introduces similar themes from the perspective of structural technical thinking. He fosters bridges between the academy and practice – deliberately setting creative collaborations designed to expand students’ collective agency. Similarly magnifying students’ capacities as thinkers and makers, Matthias (Hank) Haeusler and Nicole Gardner share an overview of the University of New South Wales computational design program, celebrating the nexus of architecture, design, computing, and computation. We see a similar perspective from Andrew Witt in his essay, Cross-coding Cultures: Design and Data across Disciplines, in the next section. Two examples from the University of Washington share diverse approaches of bringing interdisciplinarity into architecture pedagogy – one shares the efforts of a community-based studio since 2019, also highlighted in Cheng’s essay, and the other offers reflection on a decade-long partnership between construction management and architecture. What is evident in these and the other case-study examples is the necessity for continuity, but, perhaps more importantly, a willingness to be risky – to test and continue to test the boundaries of disciplinary expertise. Finally, Lydia Kallipoliti’s story of the semi-scientist reminds us that we must delve simultaneously into diverse areas of expertise. She suggests we must embrace differing modalities of thought in pursuit of technical solutions through the discipline of architecture – this carries the capacity for impactful change in architecture pedagogy.

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Interdisciplinarity embraces the space of operating between and among disciplines. Trans-, the prefix in transdisciplinary, means across, beyond, or through. Nuanced, yet significant – across disciplines; beyond disciplines; through disciplines. Does transdisciplinarity actually allow for more expansive thinking? The contributions in this section and across the full book offer varying perspectives – some calls to action, others case-study models – to inspire possible models we might incorporate into our own practices in education and the profession. We can all agree that architectural practice requires the integration of different kinds of knowledge and expertise to succeed. As design teams address increasingly multifaceted and complex problems, the role of architects – as facilitators, choreographers, directors, and leaders – has never been more important. The academy sets the table, so to speak, to prepare students to be the transformative leaders of profession. As Herbert Simon so aptly describes, The real subjects of the new intellectual free trade among the many cultures are our own thought processes, our processes of judging, deciding, choosing, and creating. We are importing and exporting from one intellectual discipline to another ideas about how…a human being…solves problems and achieves goals in outer environments of great complexity. (Simon 138) It is these actions, precisely, of importing and exporting ideas that summarizes the actions we exercise daily in our academic and professional pursuits – in this discipline of architecture. Hence, in the fictions we set in our interdisciplinary design studios, we deliberately position diverse viewpoints in relationships devised to prompt energetic and productive development toward a design solution – with the expectation that we build the capacity of our students in critical design thinking, encouraging strategic and smart thinking across disciplines. Counter to the position offered by Nicolescu shared earlier in this chapter, we envision that productive intersections between different domains of knowledge hold the potential to be a full, not empty, ensemble. We expect misalignments and miscues – yet this is how we learn by failing forward. Ultimately, practicing effective collaboration is essential to the success of the next generation of architects, redefining, and redescribing our roles as interdisciplinary thinkers and agents. In this future-forward world, one plus one will, indeed, equal more than two. Notes 1 I describe this initiative in greater detail in a later chapter, Expanding interdisciplinary fields: Reflections on the science of design. 2 There is a diverse range of examples in this collection, yet there are many more who also engage in equally compelling work. The examples shared here offer a broad cross-section of the kind of interdisciplinary work occurring in academic programs, most nationally and a few internationally.

Works Cited Nicolescu, Basarab. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial, third edition. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1998.

Provocations

3 QUESTIONING “BEST” PRACTICES IN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION Renée Cheng

I love architecture and I love teaching design. Yet I am willing to lose quite a bit of what we currently believe makes architectural education special because I yearn for what we are missing: the energy, innovation, and creativity that come from a student body and professional cohort that reflect the full range of those who are impacted by the built environment. For this essay, I define culture as the patterns and behaviors that are assumed to be the right way of doing things in a particular group. I’ll go farther and define dominant groups as those who generally tend to do better in that culture when considering measures of success like higher salaries, leadership positions, better health, and generally having more choices and opportunities.1 Using these definitions, I assert that there is a culture of architectural practice and a related culture of architectural education. While we might not agree on a single definition of culture and we might diverge on how to characterize it, I hope that readers accept the premise that there is a culture and that it has profound impacts, both positive and negative. Aspects of the culture of architecture practice relevant to this essay include placing an extremely high value on formal composition, acceptance of long hours for low pay, and the emphasis on a singular design leader. Relevant aspects of the architectural educational culture include a canon of buildings we reference, specific words and jargon, long hours, and overly valuing those who “draw like angels.” There are positive outcomes from being inculcated into the culture of practice and education – camaraderie forged while sharing food, music, and pranks during late nights and deep engagement among peers debating the meaning of a cryptic comment during a jury review or an ambiguous image shown in a lecture. Undeniably, these cultural norms and expectations have supported generations of architects so they could produce fantastic buildings and urban environments. Explaining design thinking can be maddeningly elusive; teaching design can be slow, non-linear, and unpredictable; and design exploration in practice can feel antithetical to efficient solution-oriented business practices. Despite these challenges (or perhaps because of them), we love design, and those who teach and/or do design well are venerated. Having DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-6

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worked so hard to earn our professional degrees, qualify for our licenses, and deliver our projects, it’s reasonable for individual architects to be proud. Celebrating buildings that elevate our spirits and make lives better, we can collectively be proud of the positive impact of architecture on society. Yet if we believe that architecture has the power to elevate and inspire, we also must believe that it can depress and discourage. Similarly, if we believe architectural education can forge a cohort of talented designers, we must acknowledge that we are missing talented individuals who never even consider architecture as an educational or career path. Can we keep all that we value about architectural education while expanding the range of prospective students? I believe the answer is no. This is not easy or comfortable for me to say; however, after dozens of interviews and hundreds of hours of reading, writing, and thinking to develop the AIA Guide supplement on Equity and Architectural Education, it is the only possible conclusion I can reach (Cheng et al.). Architecture education, like many cultures in higher education, is excellent at perpetuating itself. Therefore it works best at fostering great outcomes for students and graduates who are of the dominant culture; on the other hand, it can actively discourage or exclude those from non-dominant groups. In architectural education, there are two aspects of the dominant culture that affect how we support students. One has to do with the race and gender of the dominant culture, in which white men are most often seen in positions of power. While demographics have changed over the past decade, there are still relatively few role models and mentors who share the identity of BIPOC and women students. We know the important roles mentorship and role models play in attracting and retaining students; it takes time to develop leaders who can serve in those roles, leaving us with gaps that need to be filled.2 Another aspect of the cultural profile of a “typical” successful architecture student is not based on any particular racial identity but includes upper middle-class socio-economic status, those not living with a disability, and those free from care-giving responsibilities. The students who fit this profile are more likely to be able to spend long hours on a flexible schedule, to travel for field trips or study abroad, and to have the financial resilience to absorb unexpected expenses. Build a Pathway

If we hope to increase the relevance of the discipline so as to benefit communities who have the most to gain from the design of spaces and places that support prosperity, it’s important to consider expanding the range of prospective students to include those who do not currently consider architecture as a viable career path. Attracting and retaining these students and ensuring they thrive in architectural education is a lofty goal, but it’s not the only goal. Changing the demographics of architecture students also means being open to the different points of view and approaches based on lived experiences that are currently underrepresented in our schools. For example, students who have experienced housing insecurity or living in a food desert would bring a point of view in a housing studio that may not have been considered by dominant culture classmates or instructors. Discussions of land and land use could be significantly different for students from Tribal communities who consider stewardship and ownership in distinct ways. While we can’t predict exactly what would change, it seems likely that conversations for all students would be enriched, and gaps and opportunities for research and pedagogy would be revealed.

Questioning “Best” Practices in Architectural Education  17

Some of the barriers to reaching our goals are logistical, yet they exist due to cultural expectations that have gone unquestioned for too long. For example, consider a scenario in which a studio critic offers to shift the deadline for an interim review. The instructor means to give students more time to develop their work so that the review is productive. For the students who fit the normative dominant model of an architecture student, additional days are welcome and will improve the outcomes in both their interim review and, based on more substantive interim feedback, for the final review. For a student from the non-dominant group, if they have caregiving responsibilities or are employed in jobs that have no flexibility, additional days can have a negative impact. Having planned their schedule for an interim review at the original time, shifting dates forces a choice: honor their non-academic commitments, thus falling behind their classmates who use the additional time to further develop their studio work, or use the additional studio time and take a financial hit in lost wages or paying others to take their responsibilities. In our interviews with students, this scenario was cited as the cause of two students in a studio cohort being forced to quit their jobs in order to change their schedules. Cultural assumptions underlie this situation. The studio instructor certainly had positive intentions: to support good work by students and to give them the opportunity for the best outcomes. The instructor may be assuming that studio is the most important activity for the student; that non-studio activities are lower priority and flexible; and that any student who has a conflict will either resolve it on their own or ask for help if they cannot easily do so. These assumptions about students’ ability to put time into studio work are often implicit or are brought up in indirect ways, such as jokes about staying up all night or bringing in a coffee machine and sofa. As more attention has been paid to studio culture, work/life balance, and mental health, overt expectations of all-nighters are less accepted.3 However, even if we no longer expect students to sacrifice sleep, there remains an unspoken expectation that studio demands take precedence over non-studio commitments. The cultural perceptions of time and time management are also prominent in the culture of architectural education. Take the example of a studio instructor who believes desk crits should take as much or as little time as needed. As a result, the instructor often falls behind schedule, and studio hours are insufficient to cover all the students who have signed up for that day. The instructor is generous with their time, letting desk crits run after hours and offering weekend time slots for those students who were not seen. The intent of the instructor is to support all the students for whatever amount of time they need. The positive side is that the instructor invests additional time beyond the scheduled class hours and demonstrates flexibility in support of their students. But it also has negatives. The instructor is modeling poor time management skills, sending the message that design time is unpredictable and unbounded – which underpins the cultural message that long hours and low pay in the profession are expected. It is possible this instructor may also have a pattern of spending more time with students for whom they have an affinity (affinity bias being one of the many types of implicit biases) due to the style of communication, lived experiences, or intellectual similarities.4 The students who receive the longer desk crits may not be aware that their additional time came at the expense of their classmates who then needed to stay after hours or come in on the weekend to receive their feedback. The students who were not seen during the scheduled time may face choices such as described in the first scenario.

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In another example, assumptions about culture creates financial inequities: a few weeks into the term, the instructor has come to believe that an analog site model is essential for the success of the students and their community partner. The instructor introduces a requirement for a large group model which has fixed costs (materials and fabrication), as well as an investment of students’ time. Dividing the costs and work equally between students seems fair, but it may not be equitable. Some students may have expected there would be some expenses for studio materials and budgeted funds. These students may have little motivation to keep the costs low and be willing to pay a bit more for material that is easier to work with or for a fabrication method that will result in a better-crafted result. For the students who were unaware of these potential costs and/or with little financial buffer, even if costs are modest, adding this requirement could be a hardship. In our research, we heard of students dropping out of an architecture program when they were unable to afford a $300 per student share of a group model. Even regardless of students’ differing financial capacity, there is a broader cultural context. Students who are familiar with the culture of architecture might already know—from architects they know, peer students already in the program, or other informal sources—to anticipate expenses such as books, materials, or software. Many schools communicate about these costs in advance, and some provide financial aid for the expenses. One can argue that the student is responsible for reading the communication, planning for expenses, asking for help, expressing concerns, and/or choosing a different studio. But the individual-responsibility view assumes that all students are aware of their responsibility, even if it’s not spelled out, and, more importantly, that they feel comfortable speaking up if they are unprepared to meet these expectations. Among the many reasons why some students are not well positioned to do this include power dynamics where the students who are most negatively affected may not speak up, especially if most of their classmates seem to be on board with the cultural norms or if they come from a culture where the authority of a professor is not to be questioned. Our research and others showed that many students who identify with non-dominant groups (such as those who are first generation college students, are unfamiliar with architecture, or both) perceived that their experiences were much different and greatly more challenging than peers who were familiar with architecture.5 The students from nondominant groups reported that their dominant-culture peers were able to effortlessly understand what was expected of them, even if the expectations were unstated. At the same time, the dominant culture students may not believe they had an easy time and prefer to attribute their success to hard work and talent. This is the crux of much of the conflict in equity, diversity, and inclusion training around the recognition of privilege. In this scenario, privilege does not discount the very real work that the dominant culture student has invested to be successful, nor does it imply they sought an advantage. Yet it illustrates the many ways that the culture of architectural education perpetuates advantages for those from the dominant culture and raises the question of what are we, as faculty and administrators, willing to jettison to disrupt that cycle and benefit students? A similar set of questions is relevant to faculty from non-dominant identities. Commitments by schools to increase demographic diversity in their student body typically run in parallel with goals to increase faculty diversity. This makes sense since students of color who see people who look like them among the faculty—role models—are more likely to

Questioning “Best” Practices in Architectural Education  19

be drawn to and retained in higher education in general.6 Faculty of color and those who are the first generation to attend college face cultural challenges in general; architecture and other fields occupied predominantly by white men can be extra challenging.7 In these fields, supporting and retaining faculty may be more successful when schools and departments focus intentionally on explaining and/or eliminating the opaque cultural norms around tenure, promotion, teaching, research, and service.8 Connecting Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Work

The future architectural education that I imagine is not only more attractive and more inclusive in its internal practices, it is also more able to connect with other disciplines. If we achieve goals for architects, architecture students, and architectural educators to become individually and collectively more adept at bridging cultural differences, this will increase equity in how we work within our discipline and also be better partners when working with others. In the examples above, I describe how architecture culture can create unintended barriers to students from non-dominant groups, leading to their exclusion. Architecture culture can feel exclusionary to those who don’t know it, including people who come from other disciplines. It’s helpful to first look at relatively simple barriers to interdisciplinary studios such as time schedule: studio classes typically meet for twelve contact hours per week, which provides ample time for an assortment of interactive exercises, field trips, site visits, reviews, desk crits, and work time. While there are other studio-based disciplines that use this format, most non-studio disciplines do not. The class format of studio-based education allows for a wide range of interaction and nimble content that can shift as needed. This format has enormous positive implications for the creativity of the teacher and agency of the student and has supported incredible outcomes for centuries. It also can be perceived as the deal breaker for collaborative teaching for non-studio based faculty and students, since the number of class hours or credits is atypical. There are successful examples, including those described in this book, of interdisciplinary studios where these issues have been surmounted. Nonetheless the misalignment of studio contact hours is the foundation of other administrative barriers that must be negotiated such as compensation, credit load, grading, and class support. Even more challenging can be value misalignments communicated when there is a mix of studio and non-studio students. While studio students are spending more time and doing the open-ended design work, expectations of workload and output might be vastly different for their non-studio classmates. In an example close to my experience, we set up the Nehemiah Studio to meet the needs of a community in the Central District of Seattle where gentrification and declining population of the Black community are threatening the viability of the historically Black churches in the district. The churches collectively formed a working group, the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle, to study the potential for them to develop their land in ways consistent with their central social role in “beloved community.” Programmatically, this meant to create housing that would be affordable to their congregants and to serve communitybased and commercial activities. Faculty and church leaders worked together to understand church needs and students’ expertise, leading to a series of interdisciplinary studios with graduate students from urban design and planning, landscape architecture, architecture, and real estate. There was also a single studio with undergraduate construction

20  Renée Cheng

management and architecture students. In four years, we have run five studios and seven seminars, partnering with ten churches. This coursework has engaged approximately 100 students, 20 professionals, and 100 church leaders and members. The students and professionals have given to churches important items including: proformas, massing plans, unit layouts, phasing analysis, transit analysis, and renderings. In addition to the value of these deliverables, the communities learned more about what it meant to develop and uncovered important differences of opinion around issues like parking while articulating commonly held values. Involvement of key city planning officials allowed the students to model a variety of densities that were actively being considered. The student scenarios in the first three years contributed to changes to zoning ordinances that supported density and self-funded development by faith-based communities. A multi-year commitment has been critical to the success of this initiative. It took several years for faculty to fully understand how each church had specific yet overlapping needs and for the church leaders to understand what the students could and could not do. Over time, the body of work grew in depth and breadth, covering more of the Central District and revealing potential synergies and phasing nuances if several churches developed land simultaneously or in sequence. As the faculty and core church leaders established mutually trusting and respectful relationships, new student cohorts and church community members entered and added to the culture of the initiative. Another critical component of the initiative’s success was the intentional work around building culture and increasing skills for students’ intercultural fluency. Based on our student demographics, we knew that it would be uncommon for students to have experience with either faith-based communities or Black communities, and rare for them to have experience with both. We also knew that these students would be studying controversial options such as demolition of church buildings and relatively unfamiliar financial structures such as land trusts. Without a basic understanding of Black church culture, decisionmaking, the role of the buildings, and the history of the Black church as an institution, the students were at risk. The risk of failure, not by academic standards but based on success measures of the community was real. We spent time understanding differences in cultural communication styles as well as differences in how power is perceived in decision making in different cultures. We revealed insights that seem obvious in hindsight, such as that while the western idea of sacred space is light soaring space such as Notre Dame, the Black church tends to value sacred space more like theater stages with excellent light control and acoustics equally suitable for speaking or singing. Originally our work in intercultural fluency was focused on supporting students for their work with the community. While that was helpful, students found great value and profound insights when applying intercultural principles in their own project teams to navigate disciplinary differences. For example, training exercises to notice and name differences formed the basis for discussions on the disciplinary-based perception of time. Students came to understand patterns within their teams, such as many architecture students’ tolerance for unpredictable schedules compared to most real estate students who were frustrated when internal deadlines were missed. Framing the discussion as differences in the disciplinary cultures, rather than personal preferences or styles, was productive. When instructors talked about time management, we presented it as an opportunity to practice shifting to a different cultural mindset. Adapting to or at least empathizing with peer classmates from another discipline led to better understanding by everyone about the strengths

Questioning “Best” Practices in Architectural Education  21

and weaknesses of each approach. In this framing, the group could work without judging which approach was “right or wrong” and instead look at which approach was effective for specific situations. We also discussed how to ensure that the same people were not habitually asked to work outside their comfort zone, committing to spreading discomfort equitably (Rock et al.).9 Location and timing of group interaction were also noted as a difference since architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture students had established cultures that treated their studio desks as their home base while on campus between other classes and after hours. For the students immersed in design culture, informal in-person interactions were common as well as posting and marking up visual reference material. Real estate students had very different assumptions about how peer interaction would occur. For example, non-studio students might treat class contact time as individual work time and resent the “lost” time for meetings, reviews, or presentations. During the pandemic when remote learning was the norm and no in-person interactions were occurring, the teaching team noted that since schedules and interactions had to be formally arranged via Zoom, culturally based differences were neutralized, probably due to the clearer communication and alignment of expectations around meetings and schedules. Race and ethnicity were also discussed as culturally significant in communication, not only in how students worked with the community members, but also with each other. Using a research-validated instrument called the Intercultural Conflict Styles Assessment,10 students learned about predominant axes of cultural patterns of communication, direct or indirect, expressive or restrained (Hammer 219–232). As in the disciplinary discussions of time, discussions about communication differences were framed as non-judgmental and based in cultures rather than personal preferences, and looked at as generalizations rather than stereotypes. For example, students connected the research that showed culturally based styles of navigating difficult situations to conflicts that arose over planning deadlines or establishing quality standards in their groups. The success of this initiative underscores the power of culture and the need for intentional discussions around differing perceptions of abstract terms such as time or space when working with interdisciplinary community-based studios. This insight complements my research on equity in architectural education. While I believe any set of disciplines working with any community group would benefit from addressing culture and teaching skills. Conclusion

Early in the pandemic, the shift to remote learning revealed aspects of the personal situations of our students that poignantly, and sometimes shockingly, illustrated inequality. While most every student faced challenges, there were some for whom access to wireless connections, computers, workstations, and acoustical privacy were limited. When inperson jobs were put on hold, some student employees had no financial cushion. During this time, faculty, advisors, and department leaders made decisions based on their resources and what they understood worked best for most students. They also took the time to reach and provide accommodations and additional support for those students who were disproportionately negatively affected by those decisions. While the chaos of the pandemic upended more than just pedagogical practices and school culture, lessons learned can be applied in the post-pandemic educational environment. We saw how “best practices,”

22  Renée Cheng

“expedient practices,” and “equitable practices” could not always be aligned, despite best intentions. But more importantly, we learned that best practices that work for the majority may not be the right path to reach equity. In particular, students from dominant culture groups have more resilience compared to peers from non-dominant groups, so setting up rules and practices that optimize their experience does not make sense if our goal is to attract and retain those from non-dominant groups. Simply noticing and naming times where we are doing what works for most is a powerful first step to identifying biases and assumptions in our culture. Once identified, the question of how to mitigate the negative impacts of these practices includes asking ourselves what we are willing to give up and who are we willing to privilege. There are times when privilege can be eliminated, but there are times when it cannot, and one group will be advantaged over others. Simply moving privilege from one group to another may not be equitable. However, if we notice the patterns of those identity groups that have been disadvantaged, in our immediate timeframe and/or historically, we can contribute to equity in a larger context even if there are immediate negative consequences for some folks. Many of the intentional choices that promote equity also facilitate interdisciplinary work. This is particularly true when the goal is to increase diversity and the definition of diversity includes differences in disciplinary field as well as race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic class, ability, and neurodiversity. If framed in this way, uncomfortable discussions on substantive differences can be made, if not more comfortable, more substantive and effective. Those with more skill in navigating cultural differences will be more effective in working across differences, no matter how those differences are defined. Changing architectural education to be more inclusive and interdisciplinary will have an enormous payoff. I predict that if we increase the size and diversity of our pool of prospective students, faculty, staff, and partners, we will build a culture of architectural education that we love as much or more than the one we have now.11 Notes 1 For more on the concept of dominant culture, see Okun, Tema. “Teaching about Race and Racism: Preparing Future Generations.” In Race in America: How a Pseudoscientific Concept Shaped Human Interaction (pp. 225–242). 2017. 2 See Mentorship and Sponsorship, AIA Guides for Equitable Practice. 3 AIAS studio culture cites financial burden and lack of sleep as highest priority to change in order to improve studio culture. See AIAS, Faculty & Student Studio Culture Survey Results (Washington, DC: AIAS, 2020), http://www.aias.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/LTCPP-2020Survey-Results-1.pdf. 4 There are more than 180 identified unconscious biases. John Manoogian III and Buster Benson, “Cognitive Bias Codex,” 2017, accessed September 15, 2020, https://upload.wikimedia.org/ wikipedia/commons/6/65/Cognitive_bias_codex_en.svg; and Andrea Choate, “Neuroleadership Lessons.” 5 For example, interviewees in the Designing in Color (DCo) podcast described the stark contrast between their educational experience and those of students with advantages, such as architects as parents or greater financial resources. Melissa Daniel, “Designing in Color (DCo),” April 25, 2022, https://www.archispolly.online/episodes/dnc. 6 For a discussion of research on how lacking peers or faculty from same communities can affect a sense of belonging and academic outcomes, see Shweta Mishra, “Social Networks, Social Capital, Social Support and Academic Success in Higher Education: A Systematic Review with a Special Focus on ‘Underrepresented’ Students,” Educational Research Review 29 (February 2020): 100307-1-24, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2019.100307.

Questioning “Best” Practices in Architectural Education  23

7 A study of more than seven thousand tenure-track faculty showed that they are more than 25 times more likely to have a parent with a PhD than the general population. See Cathleen O’Grady, “Academia Is Often a Family Business. That’s a Barrier for Increasing Diversity,” Science, April 1, 2021, https://www.science.org/content/article/academia-often-family-businesss-barrier-increasing-diversity. 8 For more information, see Cheng et al, “Equity in Architectural Education” supplement to AIA Guides for Equitable Practice, 2nd ed. The American Institute of Architects, 2022. 9 David Rock, Heidi Grant, and Jacqui Grey, “Diverse Teams Feel Less Comfortable—and That’s Why They Perform Better,” Harvard Business Review, September 22, 2016, https:// hbr.org/2016/09/diverse-teams-feel-less-comfortable-and-thats-why-they-perform-better. The phrase “spreading discomfort evenly” is used in describing fairness in thermal comfort and has also been used in addressing inclusive practices for universal design. Kathy New, Alexandra Gormally, Adrian Friday, and Mike Hazas. “‘We Can Send a Man to the Moon But We Can’t Control the Temperature in Our Office’; A Considerate Approach to Workplace Thermal Comfort by Older Women.” In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’21), May 08–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 15 pages. https://doi. org/10.1145/3411764.3445127. 10 Hammer, M.R.. “Solving Problems and Resolving Conflict Using the Intercultural Conflict Style Model and Inventory.” In M.A. Moodian (Editor). Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence (chapter 17, pp. 219-232). Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2009. 11 Recognizing and Mitigating Unconscious Bias in the Workplace,” SHRM Blog, December 3, 2016, https://blog.shrm.org/blog/neuroleadership-lessons-recognizing-and-mitigating-unconsciousbias-in-the.

Works Cited Cheng, Renée, Alexander, Nancy, Osburn, Laura, & Williams, Karen, “Equity in Architectural Education” supplement to AIA Guides for Equitable Practice, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: The American Institute of Architects, 2022. Hammer, M.R., Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence. Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2009. Rock, David, Grant, Heidi, & Grey, Jacqui, “Diverse Teams Feel Less Comfortable—and That’s Why They Perform Better,” Harvard Business Review, September 22, 2016, https://hbr. org/2016/09/diverse-teams-feel-less-comfortable-and-thats-why-they-perform-better.

4 FROM DISCIPLINARY FIELDS TO INTERDISCIPLINARY CHALLENGES Shifting the Focus of Architectural Education Iñaki Alday

General Context

The digital revolution, globalization, or the availability of information and data have transformed architecture and practically any human activity. Humanity faces a combination of economic, political, and ecological crises that demand a profound change in the way we inhabit the planet and the physical and non-physical structures that organize life on it (Purdy). We have finally discovered the limitation of planetary resources, and we are beginning to bear the cost of the damages produced since the industrial age. And we have reached the moment to inverse the rationale of shaping the territory through the logics of the built environment to start following the living systems’ organizational logics in our design of the built environment. Architecture solves problems – starting with providing shelter – but challenges have grown in scale and are often the product of past and present ways of inhabiting the planet. Environmental and social crises have been fueled by the development of cities and regions oblivious to territorial metabolisms, including ecological and social dynamics. The urgency of rethinking our urbanized habitat requires an attitude of conscious innovation, on a scale and at a pace alien to what has been the traditional evolution of architecture. To this extent, we need a complete reformulation of the disciplinarian field of the built environment and its relationship with the fields of humanities and sciences. On Disciplinarity

When focusing on the built environment, its complexity cannot be effectively addressed within the boundaries of any of its traditional disciplines. The architecture of objects does not usually go much beyond serving the market by providing the demanded product. The traditional urbanism of the master plan does not allow us to address the regional and metropolitan dimensions of the city of metabolisms across multiple scales. Architecture, urban planning, and engineering have perpetuated the logic of industrial specialization, designing mono-functional infrastructures that tend to solve one problem while generating DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-7

From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges  25

several additional ones. As an example, the single pursuit of fast transportation through urban highways has destroyed neighborhoods and livelihoods – typically the most vulnerable. Similarly, rivers have been canalized and treated as drains, and devoid of ecology and adaptability. Any of the allied fields in the built environment themselves have multiplied their complexity and the depth required in each knowledge niche, with the emergence of specialties and sub-specialties – traffic or water engineering, facades specialists, etc. The disciplines have lost the clarity of their limits and their differences by and between neighboring areas of knowledge to become fields of variable geometries that generally overlap unintentionally. Indeed, conflict detection between fields of practice is a practice specialty in its own. In Retrospect

However, before discussing the potential of disciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches, it is opportune to reflect on the historical condition of the field of architecture. Pier Vittorio Aureli argues that Vitruvio invented architecture as a discernable discipline through his encyclopedia “De Architectura” (or Ten Books on Architecture) (Aureli 19). In this seminal work, the most relevant contribution to the subject at hand is the breadth of the disciplinary field: buildings, cities, infrastructures, machinery, and war artifacts and constructions. Partially recovered during the Renaissance, Vitruvius’ formulation persisted over the next few centuries with the building – often legitimated through its monumentality – as the main focus of architecture, with his treaty mostly remembered for its taxonomy of styles and orders. The Modern Movement, which reached its apogee in the mid-20th century, contributed to developing a practically global consciousness about the role and potential of architecture and urbanism, with enriching variants in different regions of the planet. The architecture and urbanism of the early 20th century avant-garde is not only an aesthetic and material alternative proposal to past practices but also a sociopolitical proposal. Architects embraced social housing and the construction of the city as major leitmotivs. Palaces or temples stopped being objects of disciplinary pursuit to be replaced by the search for new types of collective housing to shelter a working class that architecture had never served before. Modern architecture is understood to be inescapably committed to social transformation, including the recovery of the cities of a continent devastated by successive world wars. With its economic and cultural heyday as the victor of the world’s greatest conflagration, reinforced by the immigration of European architects, town planners, and designers, postwar America took the global leadership in the practice and education of architecture and urbanism. Figures such as Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, or Josep Lluis Sert redefined architectural education through schools that shifted away from two main previous models: the Beaux Arts and the apprenticeship models. The Modernist material, technical, aesthetic, and social agenda reached a brief golden age in the optimistic and fast-developing United States, until entering into crisis in the second half of the 1960s of the last century. The public breakthrough at the 1953 CIAM IX of the revisions of the Modern Movement, drew into crisis the purity of the canons and the abstract homogeneity of rationalist architecture and urbanism, reaffirming the differences between different regions of the

26  Iñaki Alday

world and their priorities (among them, Italian historicism, Dutch structuralism, Spanish realism, or Japanese metabolism) (Frampton 271). However, these revisions were not enough to effectively correct the path of thinking and practice to prevent the end of the 1960s explosion on the hands of architecture’s populist embracement of the market and the parallel revolutionary backlash, as discussed by Frampton and Benevolo. While the rape of the historic city, with the legitimization of urban renewal and the dislocation of the poor, can be traced to the CIAM VIII, most of Team X members preferred to ignore the urban destruction in the name of speculation, with Archigram anticipating architecture as mass consumption product and entertaining part of pop culture, free of technical, social or ecological concerns (Frampton 279; Benevolo 994). The postmodern movement bore fruit on this crisis in the 70s and 80s in parallel to large general dynamics: social, cultural, and economic, especially with the institutionalization of neoliberalism in the mechanics of the production of the built environment. Consistent with its global role, the North American scene led architecture’s plunge into postmodernity. From the only partially fulfilled transformative ambition of the first half of the twentieth century, architecture withdrew toward perceived safer positions, is it of service to capital or of passive resistance – intellectual or social (Figures 4.1–4.5). The acceptance of the market economy as the fact that shapes the urban phenomenon led architects to assume their inability to project the city. As Pier Vittorio Aureli states, “the more architects have celebrated the urban condition as ungovernable, the more they created the perfect alibi for themselves to retreat in their professional mandate, to pretend that their work consists of pragmatically answering the demands of their clients” (Aureli 14–15). In the same text, Aureli cites the cynical assertion of Robert Venturi: “the

FIGURE 4.1 From

transformation to decoration: from public to commercial space. (Continued)

Part A (A. Van Eyck, Playground and streetscape re-envisioning, Rotterdam, Netherlands Ch. Moore, Piazza d’Italia, 1978. A failed commercial mall in New Orleans, US.)

From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges  27

FIGURE 4.1 (Continued)

Part B (L. Lefaivre and I. de Roode, Eds., Aldo Van Eyck The Playgrounds and The City, 2002; The Piazza d’Italia photograph is authored by me, I. Alday.)

28  Iñaki Alday

FIGURE 4.2  Complexity

of the ecological, socioeconomics, and political challenges. (K. Orff and Richard Misrach, Petrochemical America, 2012.)

architect’s ever diminishing power and his growing ineffectualness in shaping the whole environment can perhaps be reversed, ironically, by narrowing his concerns and concentrating on his own work” (Aureli 17). The early 20th century disciplinarian breath, already reduced from the original Vitruvian formulation, reaches its narrowest by focusing on the architectural object – Venturi’s formulation of the architect’s work – as the sole component of the field of architecture. The postmodern reduction of the field and renunciation to the transformative aspiration of modern architecture breaks 20th century architecture in three basic threads. First, uncritical service to the market fosters the growth of architectural corporations whose efficiency depends on eliminating superfluous concerns: the cultural and social-political missions of the recent tradition of modern architecture. Second, following Venturi’s suggestion, the autonomy of the architectural object as a work of art in itself – often a work of visual arts, with its own language and codes incomprehensible to the uninitiated – meant the renounce of architecture to respond to the social, political, economic, or ecological complexity of the environment. The cultural ambition of architecture, especially in the leading market after the Second World War, took refuge in the academic realm, protected by impenetrable and retro-alimentary scholarly discourses. Starting in the end of the 1950s and consolidated in postmodernity, architectural excellence is decoupled for the first time since modernity from a rational commitment and from a valid program for a broad public (Benevolo 1003). The distance between

From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges  29

FIGURE 4.3 

Anatomy of City habitat. (Vicente Guallart, City protocol and IAAC.)

society and culturally legitimate architecture has grown during the last five decades, with the proliferation of the star architect being anything other than the confirmation of this rupture and the demonstration that the practice of architecture, when in the public sphere, is fundamentally an object of media consumption. Finally, after the crises of the late 1960s and 1970s, the ambition for social transformation was structured through activist movements based on grassroots initiatives (McLeod 164). Activist architecture substitutes specialist knowledge for consensual design or direct service to the dispossessed citizen. In some way, it constitutes the symmetrical response to serving the market, equally uncritical, trivializing the architect’s intellectual, and purposeful capacity. This focus on service generally refuses to work with a perspective beyond the direct project, and to review its parameters in terms of the common good on a larger scale of social and environmental welfare. The loss of power of the public sector in favor of private commercial interests has reinforced mistrust toward government initiative and generated a progressive loss of the concept of the common good (the commons), especially in the regions where Ronald Reagan and Margaret Tatcher’s conservative and neoliberal revolution prevailed more forcefully. Ironically, it could be interpreted as the unintentional return of the suffering inflicted to the colonized territories. Today, the curse of the loss of the sense of the common good in postcolonial megalopolises (Alday et al. 160) has been reproduced in many contemporary

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FIGURE 4.4 aldayjover

2008.

architecture and landscape, power plant and video art center, Zaragoza

Western societies under the preponderance of the neoliberal market, the decrease in the executive capacity of the public sector, and the people’s loss of trust in administrations. The inability to agree in appropriate public investment in infrastructures in the United States is one of the many examples of a trend that affects also social infrastructures such as education or health. These three trends have developed with variations in the different regions of the planet. Corporate architecture has dominated the market for large and medium size commissions in the United States and for many of the most visible works internationally – with notable impact in the Middle East – and it is being translated to the Chinese context in interesting ways by emergent “institutes”. A significant part of the most representative architecture has mutated from its traditional role as a demonstration of power toward a consumer product and the branding of cities, countries, and large corporations. The architectural commitment to the city has often shifted to a public relations or commercial operation through eccentric sculptural buildings. Some media stars that emerged with powerful cultural proposals are now multinational corporations with hundreds or thousands of workers. Experimental practices that have produced singular and disruptive buildings – arguably changing the recent history of architecture – are now global brands, applying very recognizable formal recipes. In some cases, even the property of the firm has moved from the hands of

From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges  31

FIGURE 4.5  The

expanded discipline of architecture. (A. Jones, The wheel of “know-what, know-how”, RIBA Journal, January 2020.)

the founders to investment funds. However, new generations of architects, urban planners, landscape architects and engineers continue to propose alternatives, design transformative interventions, and advance new solutions. A Changing Landscape for the Disciplinary Field

Sixty years after the revisions of the modern movement, the social crises of the late 60s of the last century, and the fragmentation of Western architecture between activism, the autonomous object, and the service to an unchecked global capitalism, the planet and architecture – and related fields – confront significantly different conditions. Among many others, it is worth highlighting five aspects that suggest the possibility

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of correcting the reductive trajectory followed during the last decades, and which allows us to reformulate meaning, values, and aspirations for architecture, updating the Vitruvian integral vision of the discipline to our contemporary equivalent: the field of the built environment. Complexity and Interdependency

Perhaps one of the characteristics that best defines the contemporary condition is the increasing complexity of the ecological, socioeconomic, and political challenges that affect our daily life and the construction of our physical space. The architecture and the construction of the environment impact the ecological balance; social, cultural, and religious coexistence; distribution of economic and environmental resources; and all the other interrelated aspects that are part of our life on the planet. Complexity and interdependency are not new. What is new is the emerging awareness of this complexity and the recognition of being on a planet where there is no backyard to dump the unwanted, expecting an infinite natural sink to make it disappear. The complexity also extends to the conditions of professional practice: methods and tools of design, legal requirements, insurable limitations, technical requirements, economic feasibility, and so on. The development and application of systems thinking as a method of structuring complexity in the second half of the 20th century, starts the deconstruction of some of the hard disciplinarian silos, especially across the fields of landscape architecture and the natural sciences, very much in the opposite direction to the postmodern retreat of normative architecture. McHarg’s ecological planning formulation and application, and his layered cake precursor of Geographical Information Systems integrate landscape architecture, planning, and ecology and environmental sciences (Design with Nature). Global Scope and Regional Specificity

Not only environmental and inequality challenges span the entire planet. Also, the idea of architecture and its references, focused for centuries on the western countries of the northern hemisphere, has been expanding. Forty years after Frampton’s formulation and after a period of disregard of the context – ranging from intellectual provocation to ubiquitous standard practice – regionalism is undergoing resurgence in both ecological and vernacular terms (Frampton; Koolhaas). Some of the most interesting phenomena are occurring outside the United States and Western Europe. Influences no longer travel in one direction – from the “developed” core to the rest of the world – but in multiple and crossed paths. Alejandro Aravena or Francois Kere exemplifies the impact that practices and ideas generated in Latin America or Central Africa have on the highly regarded schools in the United States and Europe. Urbanization

The process of urbanization of the planet continues its uncharted consumption and expansion (“United Nations…”). It is a social reality that goes beyond the clichés wielded in the circles of architecture to justify its retreat and the renouncing to the project of the city. It is shaping the planet and is the working context of architecture,

From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges  33

urban planning, and the rest of the fields of the built environment. This context is very diverse, ranging from extreme densities to continuous urban areas of very low density, with ex novo cities, with the networked city, with empty historical towns, or with urban agglomerations that have multiplied the size of their physical footprint several times in recent decades. But urban reality is not just a passive object of alien and ungovernable dynamics. Architects’ decisions on how to build and for whom to build cities, buildings, public spaces, and infrastructure play a critical role in reducing or exacerbating social and environmental issues. Multi-scalar Metabolism

Whatever the dimensions and morphology of the various urban contexts across the globe, we are beginning to recognize their multi-scalar reality and their metabolic character. Although urban governance beyond the conventional idea of city’s footprint is not resolved, the physical reality is unequivocal. The metabolic flows of urban regions have a variety of scopes, alien to the traditional limit of the fabric. The boundaries are fuzzy and changing, the city extends far beyond the last building, if such a building exists. The cycles of garbage, drinking water, wastewater, food, energy, commerce, or movement of workers need to be balanced without waiting for a higher administrative power to solve those problems. The management of each of these cycles and their combinations occurs at very different scales, many of them being the building, the public space, the neighborhood, or the landscape. They open up new possibilities for architecture and the rest of the fields of the built environment: new themes, new scales, and new typological explorations. Even more important, they open the possibility of hybrid fields of knowledge, developed to address these new complex challenges. Infrastructures

Historically and currently, infrastructures are the main tools in the transformation of the territory and focus of major investment around the world, especially since the second quarter of the 20th century. Even now, infrastructure is seen as the key to advancement in developing countries and to the competitive leadership of rich countries (Cho et al.). In economic terms, investment in infrastructure is several folds higher than investment in buildings, public spaces, or landscapes, often planned at the level of the country or international investment organizations. Large-scale infrastructures transform territories of regional and even transnational dimensions. In this context, architecture and urban planning have traditionally been far removed from the design and integration of urban and territorial infrastructures, losing opportunities for impact and improvement of implemented solutions. The capacity of architecture and the fields of the built environment to synthesize complexity and to holistically address the transformations derived from the insertion of infrastructures should serve to change the usual practice of responding to single logics, isolated from their context (transportation, sanitation, water, mobility, energy, etc.). The magnitude of our contemporary challenges and the complexity of the built environment are often imposing for educators and professionals in our fields, especially in architecture, often victim of the dethroned prince syndrome. Robert Venturi’s argument

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for disciplinary reduction goes often hand and hand with the derogatory coda about the ridiculousness of aspiring to save the world. Attempting to address major societal concerns from architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, or engineering is described by certain academic circles as a naive and futile effort, far from true architecture. In parallel, the movements that consider the architect as a social activist, widely spread especially since the economic crisis of 2007, tend to focus on the resolution of urgent social issues, emancipated from the architectural project and underestimating the potential of architecture to affect the reality of the urban condition (Aureli). The formulation of architecture as activism tends to renounce to the field’s knowledge, deny the value of the project, and reduce the potential for action to a grassroots work limited in scale and impact. The result gives arguments that prove the futility of the transformative effort to those in favor of the reduction of the disciplinary scope. Both reductionist positions – of the scope or the focus of action – lead to the irrelevance of the fields of the built environment in the definition of urban models and the habitation of the territory. The wide space between these two positions, based on the commitment from knowledge, constitutes the place from which to review the role of the professionals and academics of the fields of the built environment. A Proposal on Expanded Disciplinarity

The concept of discipline as a finite and defined field of knowledge has proven to be obsolete and useless to deal with the complexity of the themes and the production of contemporary architecture itself. Buildings, public spaces, or infrastructures require a breath and a depth of knowledge that the designer cannot face alone as an individual creator. In parallel, the limits between the building, the public space, the infrastructure or the landscape dissolve from the moment we accept that the built environment responds to different interrelated systems of different scope. The issues to be resolved are no longer confined to a single traditional domain. Consequently, disciplinary compartments are little more than an illusion that can hardly reassure us or give even fictitious stability. Refocusing the activity on the issues to be addressed, rather than on the issues that a discipline knows how to solve, immediately introduces fluidity in the disciplinary understanding and allows the overlaps between the various fields to be intentionally planned. For example, to solve pressing housing problems, new typologies should introduce flexibility, incremental capacity, hybridization of uses, but also construction systems and materials with low environmental impact, energy efficiency, recyclability, and closed water and garbage cycles. But it is also essential to introduce economics, urban development, the creation of public space, preservation, and cultural and social adaptation. Thus, tackling the issue of housing requires not only architecture and other fields of the built environment but also economics, anthropology, or sociology, to name a few. When translating this approach to architectural education, it is necessary to start by questioning the disciplinary vision of architecture and the rest of the fields of the built environment and overcome the classic delimitation of areas in which to acquire a list of competencies. The scope – each scope – is not clearly and statically defined as expanded concepts proposed by gremial organizations are already proposing (Jones). Overlaps are

From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges  35

not only inevitable but necessary, and they constitute the most productive areas for innovation. In parallel to this hypothesis, it is worth questioning the idea of a disciplinarian core. Historically, the Beaux Arts and polytechnic traditions have proposed disciplinary nuclei based on a different conception of architecture that oscillates between the aesthetic composition by the author and the physicality of the construction. The focus on vegetation in the French and American landscape traditions contrasts with the prevalence of water, infrastructure, and agriculture in the Dutch, or on the management of soil and water resources in the Middle Eastern traditions. I propose to discard the image of our current normative disciplines as rigid geometries of concentric circles – like fried eggs – fighting for territorial competencies, and to replace it with the idea of diffuse fields, variable geometries and overlapping areas – like clouds – that construct the expanded field of the built environment. These clouds are made up of multiple units of knowledge and application, sometimes overlapping and shared between different normative practices. As example, which of the current disciplines owns the public space? And the street? No traditional disciplinary response is satisfactory. Can we still think that a specialist in energy modeling should continue focused only on traditional or innovative building materials and systems? Or should we imagine that such specialist should incorporate knowledge on botanics and water, for instance, to address climate comfort, energy production and consumption, or life cycle? The professional, starting as student, would be bound to acquire a certain specialized deep knowledge while maintaining the global perspective of the expanded field of the built environment and the relationships with other nearby fields. Architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, architectural preservation, and the different engineering specialties that constructs our environment overlap with each other depending on specific, temporal, and geographical-cultural circumstances. This logic of disciplinary fluidity suggests expanding relationships beyond the fields of the built environment to understand and interact with the social, environmental, and economic forces in the shaping of the built environment. Formulating the ambition of architecture and the rest of the fields of the built environment – addressing climate change and the social and ecological crisis – can be understood as the main agenda of professional schools. Beyond technical knowledge, the most important baggage for new graduates to start their professional career is the conviction and security about the capacity of their tools to physically transform their surroundings. Preparing the agents for this urgent positive transformation should be based on the understanding of the complexity of contemporary reality – environmental, cultural, and social – as opposed to individualistic volition, getting them ready to be accountable to the broad societal project of a revised planetarian arthropodization. Shifting the Focus from Disciplinarian Fields to Challenges

At the risk of stating the obvious, the instrument of architecture and allied fields is the project. Regardless of the scale, the budget, or the legal powers, the project is the instrument to plan a transformation – from the Latin Projectum, “something thrown forward.” And that “something” is intentionally launched with a direction and scope to transform reality: it is designed.

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“Design” can be defined as the creative management of complexity. Design synthesizes and overcomes conflicts. There is no design without conflict. To build is to beat gravity, be it by designing a chair or a tower. A steel instrument to contain liquids and introduce them in the mouth ceases to be a potential element of torture to become an essential and pleasant tool through design: the spoon. Against the disquisitions on disciplinary territories, designing shifts the focus from object (building, landscape, and infrastructure) to action: transforming a reality, and creatively managing complexity. Problems to be solved, as opposed to territories of practice or education. With this shift, the property limit of each professional territory loses relevance. The focus shifts to synthesizing a complex response to the need of the place and its people. In the context of climate change and the urgency of its design challenges, Pedro Gadanho argues that it can trigger new design responses and even new formal findings, very much parallel to the aesthetic and spatial revolution of Modernism (16–18). Spatial design and form are not compromised by addressing today’s existential questions but very much the opposite, as in the early 20th century. After so much consideration about the digital revolution, we may now consider that, after the industrial revolution, it is the climate revolution that dramatically changes the conditions and unveils new potentials for architecture and the built environment. The challenges are unprecedented, and they demand more from future professionals: more imagination, more commitment, and more innovation. Creativity is even more necessary today. It is not an added value of the professional but an essential quality. However, when creativity is a mere occurrence – anecdotal newness, like the daily deluge of images in digital publications – it is not enough. The challenges and complexity of the contemporary scene require confronting the project – and the education of future professionals of the built environment – with the search for innovation as a common thread. Increasing the ambition of the impact and relevance of the project demands more from the creative methods of individuals and groups, with contributions from every expertise. Architectural innovation has often been linked to technical advances. The availability and development of materials are at the base of traditional architectural cultures, but also of modern revolutions in steel, glass, and concrete. The current digital revolution has placed us in moment of disruption, with potentials still to be seen. But while technology and materiality will probably play a critical role, one can argue that real innovation is to come from the shift of focus and ambitions (from permanent growth and satisfaction of immediate needs to addressing climate change and obtain a longterm balanced existence) and the broadening of the stakeholders (from the human to the urban and planetary ecologies). A shift that has certain parallelism with the industrial revolution and the formulation of modernist ideals – back then with humans and growth as main drivers – and which requires a new approach to solving problems – far from narrow disciplinary understandings but with expansive ways of seeing and managing complexity – starting in our pedagogical methodologies. The studios taught around the Yamuna River Project1, a shared research initiative between the University of Virginia and Tulane University schools of architecture – together with other studios that have emerged in both schools – is an attempt to test in the academic milieu the arguments predicated above.

From Disciplinary Fields to Interdisciplinary Challenges  37

Note 1 Alday Iñaki, Gupta, Pankaj Vir, Yamuna River Project. New Delhi Urban Ecology, Barcelona 2018, ACTAR. See also https://yamunariverproject.wp.tulane.edu/researchers/, accessed on September 5, 2022. The YRP studio is currently led at UVA by Pankaj Vir Gupta and Maria Gonzalez Aranguren; and Tulane by Iñaki Alday, Pankaj Vir Gupta (as Visiting Professor) and Andrea Bardon de Tena.

Works Cited Alday, Iñaki, et al. Yamuna River Project New Delhi Urban Ecology. Actar, 2018. Aureli, Pier Vittorio. Means to an End, The Raise and Fall of the Architectural Project of the City. Ruby Press, 2013. Benevolo, Leonardo. Historia De La Arquitectura Moderna. 6th ed., Gustavo Gili, 1994. Cho, Moonkyoung, et al. Hitting the Trillion Mark: A Look at How Much Countries Are Spending on Infrastructure. The World Bank Group, 2019. Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture a Critical History. Thames & Hudson, 2020. Gadanho, Pedro. Climax Change!: How Architecture Must Transform in the Age of Ecological Emergency. Actar Publishers, 2022. Jones, Allan. The Expanded Discipline of Architecture. RIBA, 2021. Jover, Margarita. Ecologies of Prosperity by Means of Socioecological Urbanism. 2019. Koolhaas, Rem, et al. Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large: Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Monacelli Press, 1998. McLeod, Mary. The End of Innocence: From Political Activism to Postmodernism. In Joan Oackman, Architecture School: Three Centuries Educating Architects in North America. MIT Press, 2012. Purdy, Jedediah. After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. Harvard University Press, 2018. Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture: With an Introduction by Vincent Scully. Doubleday, 1966. “World Population Prospects 2018: Summary of Results | Population Division.” United Nations, https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/ files/documents/2020/Feb/un_2018_wup_highlights.pdf.

5 INTEGRATIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN ARCHITECTURE Toward an Interdisciplinary and Future-Proof Research Culture Achim Menges

Technological progress has always been a catalyst for design innovation in architecture. Today, technological advancements across multiple disciplines suggest a profound transformation of the way the future built environment is conceived, designed, and materialized. The increasing ubiquity of computational processes, the erosion of established disciplinary hierarchies of design, and the rapid change of industrial logics of production have forged new alliances between the fields of design, engineering, and natural sciences, leading to novel interdisciplinary and multifaceted research cultures. Design plays a critical role in this transformation: here, the notion of design is extended beyond the design of space, surface, and structure to the design of processes, systems, and reciprocities. At the same time, disciplines involved in the creation of our built environment face severe ecological, socioeconomic, and sociocultural challenges. Without radical changes to the way we design and construct buildings and cities, it will be impossible to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Addressing climate change and global warming has become such a pressing and all-encompassing issue involving multifaceted technical, social, and political aspects that it appears no longer thinkable to disentangle ecological and cultural concerns in architecture. Instead, it calls for a highly integrative approach across various disciplines including architecture, civil engineering, mechanical and production engineering, computer science and robotics, as well as the social science and humanities. Our research and educational programs are open to scholars from all these disciplines to jointly investigate the realm of integrative technological advancements as novel ecological, spatial, structural, and aesthetic and potentials in architecture. We seek to prepare students and researchers for the complex contemporary conditions of architecture, which is facing the aforementioned ecological, economic, and sociocultural challenges, while at the same time experiencing the emergence of new technological opportunities at a previously unknown speed. Thus, we foster an academic environment that is inquiry-oriented, experiment-based, and shaped around contemporary aspects of design research. We engage not only with the integration of cutting-edge computational architectural design, structural and climate engineering, as well as advanced fabrication and construction technologies but also collaborate with natural scientists to study functional morphological DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-8

Integrative Technologies in Architecture  39

and morphogenetic principles in biology and their transfer to architecture. In this way, biomimetics serves as a vehicle for scientific lateral thinking that drives systematic design innovation. The interrelation of architecture, natural sciences, and engineering sciences is understood as both a technical and intellectual venture. We strive for a conjoining conception of technological progress, design innovation, and cultural production, emphasizing rigorous investigation, creative engagement, and critical reflection on the implications and potentials of technological advances for architectural design. Demonstrator buildings provide an important point of convergence of these multifaceted lines of enquiry and, in our eyes, constitute a key component of what we consider to be fundamental architectural research. Two examples are introduced below. They show how our integrative and interdisciplinary research approach enables genuine design innovation and technical advancements for a great palette of different materials, ranging from one of the most common and arguably oldest construction materials there is, wood, to bio-based materials that have no widespread use in architecture yet, as, for example, flax fibers. The BUGA Wood Pavilion (Figure 5.1) celebrates a new approach to digital timber construction. Its segmented wood shell is based on biological principles found in the plate skeleton of sea urchins, which we have studied for almost a decade. The pavilion builds on the biomimetic principle of using “less material” by having “more form”, both on the level of the overall shell and its individual segments. In order to minimize material consumption and weight, each wood segment is built up from two thin plates that plank a ring of edge-beams on top and bottom, forming large-scale hollow wooden cases with polygonal forms. The lightweight building elements are connected by finger joints, which follow the morphological principles of anatomic features found on the edge of sea urchins’ plates. In the assembled state, the shell works as a form-active structure through its expressive

FIGURE 5.1 Buga

Wood Pavilion at the Bundesgartenschau in Heilbronn, Germany. (Photo: R. Halbe.)

40  Achim Menges

FIGURE 5.2  LivMatS

Pavilion at the Botanical Garden of Freiburg, Germany. (Photo: C. Zechmeister.)

doubly-curved geometry. As part of the project, a robotic manufacturing platform was developed for the automated assembly and milling of the pavilion’s 376 bespoke hollow wood segments. This fabrication process ensures that all segments fit together with submillimeter precision like a big, three-dimensional puzzle. The stunning wooden roof spans 30 meters over one of BUGA’s main event and concert venues, using a minimum amount of material while also generating a unique architectural space. Located in the Botanical Garden of Freiburg, the livMatS Pavilion (Figure 5.2) offers a viable, resource-efficient alternative to conventional construction methods and therefore questions established methods and materials in the construction industry, which has become one of the most resource-intensive and environmentally detrimental human activities over the past century. Enabled by a novel combination of natural materials and advanced digital technologies, the pavilion constitutes the first building with a load-bearing structure that is entirely made of robotically wound flax fiber, a material that is fully naturally renewable, biodegradable, and regionally available in Central Europe. It showcases how novel co-design processes that account concurrently for spatial, material, structural, productional, environmental, and aesthetic requirements, together with advanced robotic fabrication techniques applied to natural materials, are capable to contribute to an alternative, future-proof material culture architecture. The distinctive, intricate surface appearance of the structural flax elements is evocative of both vernacular examples of latticework and biological systems. The livMatS Pavilion serves as an outdoor lecture room for the University of Freiburg. The Urbach Tower Figure 5.3 is a unique wood structure. The design of the tower emerges from a new self-shaping process of the curved wood components, which is based on the principles of self-shaping found in biology, for example, in the movement of the scales of plant cones. This pioneering development constitutes a paradigm shift in timber manufacturing from elaborate and energy-intensive mechanical forming processes that

Integrative Technologies in Architecture  41

FIGURE 5.3 

Urbach Tower at the Remstal Gartenschau, Germany. (Photo: R. Faulkner.)

require heavy machinery to a process where the material shapes entirely by itself. This shape change is driven only by the wood’s characteristic shrinking during a decrease in moisture content. Components for the 14-m-tall tower are designed and manufactured in a flat state and transform autonomously into the final, programmed curved shapes during industry-standard technical drying. This opens up new and unexpected architectural possibilities for high-performance and elegant structures, using sustainable, renewable, and locally sourced building material. The Urbach Tower constitutes the very first structure worldwide made from self-shaped, building-scale components. It not only showcases this innovative manufacturing approach and the resultant novel timber structure; it also intensifies the visitors’ spatial involvement and landscape experience by providing a striking landmark for the City of Urbach.

Case Studies from the Academy

6 WHICH COMES FIRST? Renee Chow

Design Is an Inherently Interdisciplinary Way of Operating

Design is an iterative, problem-defining way of thinking that provides solutions to complex challenges with divergent goals. Thus, design is inherently useful for interdisciplinary tasks. Rooted in integrating sciences and technologies with humanities and social sciences, the practice of design in architecture is also interdisciplinary. This is why “schools of design” have looked to architectural education to understand the nature of open-ended inquiry for problems without immediately apparent or single solutions. While interdisciplinarity is inherent in architectural education, our students benefit from highlighting the contributions of other disciplines in forming environments. Thus, in our M.Arch graduate studios at UC Berkeley, we have studios that are cotaught by an architectural designer with an instructor of another disciplinary area that typically would serve as a consultant to practice, such as a structural engineer, a water engineer, a lighting engineer, and so on. Working with a variety of environmental systems as lenses for building designs has produced architectural proposals with new potential (see Figures 6.1–6.3). Likewise, we offer a two-semester post-professional degree with interdisciplinary foci – for the last two years on materials engineering and architecture (see Figures 6.4 and 6.5). In 2022, three interdisciplinary degrees were moved into one unit within our college: real estate development + design, urban design, and sustainable environmental design (SED). While the first two degrees are post-professional, the latter is an undergraduate, liberal arts degree. Of the three, the undergraduate program in SED poses unique challenges and opportunities. Expanding “design” in a Time of Climate and Equity Crises

These three degree programs are identified as interdisciplinary, yet I have just argued that architecture education is also interdisciplinary. What sets these three design programs apart is the nature of the design mission. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-10

44  Renee Chow

FIGURE 6.1 Graduate

studio in Kennedy Town (Hong Kong) addressing water issues from site to building. Instructors: Tomas McKay and Renee Chow. Support by Nan Fung group; Blake’s; Chun Wo construction; Farron, Augustine & Alexander; and the Luk Hoi Tong co.

Climate crises and resulting inequities are this century’s primary environmental challenges. Climate impacts are worsening, affecting well-being, and creating instability from floods, droughts, and fires. The redesign of the physical fabrics of our regions, cities, neighborhoods, and buildings is urgently needed to make them more adaptable to environmental change while proactively addressing historical social inequities. While architecture is and must be part of the solution, its ability to rapidly change appears limited by regulations and development proformas that are necessarily risk averse. Architectural education is tied to accreditation which in turn is linked to professional licensure that is slow to accommodate new paradigms. Architectural educators

Which Comes First?  45

FIGURE 6.2  Kennedy

town site section with new water storage and filtering at the podium. (Credit: Safia Dziri [M.Arch] + Cari Hartigan [M.Arch], Virginia Wong [M.LA] + Anqi Zhao [M.LA].)

are caught between teaching for the profession and teaching to address our current crises. As a result, even in the academy, we change the environment excruciatingly slowly. While we have had decades to address the climate crisis and other environmental inequities, the recent construction boom shows little progress in reforming our cities and metropolises. Climate and equity are the epitome of “wicked problems” that require open-ended processes that define problems in parallel with solving them. So, while design continues to be a critical tool, shifts in the what and the who are needed. The discipline of architecture and its design pedagogy is focused on the emergence of building and environmental forms. For interdisciplinary students, the what of design is focused instead on the generation of strategic frameworks and processes that change environmental systems, preferably considering several time scales. Likewise, the three programs reconsider the who of design collaboration. In architectural design, our practices still hold the “architect” – whether an individual or a small group – as the synthesizer of the multiple disciplines. In multidisciplinary design, many voices participate in the design outcome. Which Comes First?

Which comes first, disciplinarity or interdisciplinarity? This is the question we faced when considering the undergraduate curriculum for the SED major. In the traditions of multidisciplinary education, one needs to be immersed in a discipline and then combine that knowledge with others. Thus, multidisciplinarity is taught later in a curriculum and more commonly at the graduate and post-graduate levels. For undergraduates, how does one collaborate with other disciplines if you are not yet proficient in one? For SED, we have

46  Renee Chow

FIGURE 6.3 Kennedy town building elevation with water treatment and storage throughout the

building. (Credit: Xinwei Chen [M.Arch].)

posited that students learn to design frameworks that synthesize and ask questions of the environmental disciplines as part of design. Thus, we offer two undergraduate routes toward interdisciplinarity. More traditionally, we have a disciplinary, pre-professional undergraduate major in architecture that teaches the design of environmental forms and integrates the sub-disciplines. We also have a multi-disciplinary undergraduate major (SED) that teaches the design of environmental strategies. In the former, students learn interdisciplinarity that is inherent in architectural pedagogy, with three additional upper-division courses that are required to be taken inside the college but outside their major. Thus, architecture undergrads are required to take upper-division courses in city planning, landscape architecture, or any of our curated interdisciplinary courses. In SED, students begin by taking an introductory design course

Which Comes First?  47

graduate design studio in architecture + material science focused on abiotic-biotic processes for indoor health. Instructor: Maria Paz Gutierrez. Support by HOK. (Paul Woolford and Clair Moore.)

FIGURE 6.4 Post-professional

(all college undergraduates share this) and then take a variety of disciplinary courses in all three departments, thus in architecture as well as in planning and landscape. In parallel, they take non-studio-based design courses that use collaborative design exercises to build observational skills, site, data and systems analyses, as well as systems thinking. They learn to frame questions, interpret the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the built environment, and bring together collaborators to develop processes toward sustainable futures. The two graduate and undergraduate multidisciplinary programs share a goal: to develop overarching frameworks for the environment that mesh multiple goals and visions for what a resilient future should be (see Figures 6.6 and 6.7). For our students who want to make a change now, the paths tend to be in interdisciplinary design. About half of the SED graduates go on to get professional degrees. The other half work in public agencies, building industries, consultancies, or corporations – all places where they help to make a change toward sustainable practices. Interestingly, our architecture undergraduates have a similar trajectory, suggesting that there is no need to decide – design supports both the chicken and the egg!

48  Renee Chow

FIGURE 6.5 Post-professional

graduate studio final group project. (Credit: Anastasis Dimokas, Olivier Gennart, Jingyi He, Anson Jacob, Sourabh Maheshwary, Geoffrey Nyakiongora, Ellina Poltavtseva, Ioanna Spyridi, Shida Wang, Wentao Zeng, Zeming Zhang [All M.AAD].)

Which Comes First?  49

FIGURE 6.6 

SED undergraduate capstone: Data analysis. Instructor: Eric cesal.

FIGURE 6.7 SED

undergraduate capstone: Design framework. (Credit: Terra Clark, Ali Ongpin, Anjing Li, and Karen Liu [All b.A.SED].)

7 INTERDISCIPLINARY TRANSITION Erika Zekos

The Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a small program of approximately 140 Bachelor of Science in Architecture majors and 40 Master of Architecture and Master of Design/Historic Preservation candidates on a large public university campus of nearly 32,000 students. Part of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, the program originally emerged as an interior design project of the Department of Art and evolved over the decades into its own department focused on architectural design. Today the program celebrates architecture as a discipline that operates at the intersection of art and science, and we teach the creative process that will enable students to tackle complex interdisciplinary problems of varying scales. Our program was designed as an interdepartmental ensemble, in part as a recognition of architecture’s interconnectedness with the topics of art, history, and engineering, and in part as a way to build a department by capitalizing on the strengths of a large university. The Department of Architecture, housed in the Olver Design Building (pictured below), (Figure 7.1) has 13 full-time faculty (two with joint appointments in other colleges) and a small corps of adjunct and affiliate faculty. Because of the department’s interdisciplinary nature, many core courses – e.g., visual studies, architecture history, and building science – are taught in other departments. Thus, the architecture faculty teach primarily architecture studios, and our capacity to deliver high-quality undergraduate and graduate curriculum is expanded through collaboration with other departments that provide core and elective courses. However, the strengths of this interdisciplinary practice are being challenged by several pedagogical, curricular, and administrative pressures. We are working toward a transformation of our interdisciplinary foundation’s course sequence, taught primarily by the Department of Art in the coming years. Though it might appear paradoxical at first glance, we anticipate that our transition away from a collaboration with Art in the first year will enhance our ability to address architecture’s interdisciplinarity with more relevance to today’s students. We will gain the capacity for flexibility and responsiveness to disciplinary innovation, the technological demands of the profession, and the capacity to enact our values that are hampered when we do not have direct management of the foundational curriculum. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-11

Interdisciplinary Transition  51

FIGURE 7.1 

The Olver Design Building at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

From an operational perspective, as the goals of the individual departments have evolved and budget pressures increase, continued coordination of student enrollment, and adequate funding and staffing for the number of small class sections has become challenging. In addition, messaging the value of an entirely analog, pre-architectural first-year curriculum is a constant effort as changing expectations about preparedness for graduate education and professional practice have increased interest in earlier integration and application of digital skills. Students also express interest in engaging architectural design issues earlier in their college experience. It is clear, however, that evolving a shared curriculum for the benefit of only one major does not serve interdepartmental collaboration. In response to these pressures, we are transitioning away from the current foundation year to one that replaces several beginning art and basic design studios with architecturespecific courses. We have conceived these courses to maintain an interdisciplinary approach even as they have a more focused architectural lens. As such, they will introduce architecture as an expansive, engaged discipline. Three courses are proposed: Architectural Drawing, Architectural Investigations, and Introduction to Architecture. Introduction to Architecture is conceived as an introduction to the discipline and profession of architecture from multiple and diverse perspectives. It is being designed as a team-taught course that will present the breadth of the field through a series of lectures by architecture faculty on their areas of research and creative practice in architectural theory and history, community engagement, collaborative practice, high-performance design, and landscape and infrastructure design, among others. We will also engage colleagues in other university fields with related built environment interests such as regional planning, building construction, engineering, public history, and public art. This approach will present architecture as an inherently inclusive, complex, and diverse domain. Students will build

52  Erika Zekos

a familiarity with the range of architecture design practice pathways and understand the role of the architect as someone who engages in a multidisciplinary practice and engages a variety of entities, individuals, and groups. The picture of architecture’s interdisciplinarity and capacity to address complexity will build throughout the semester as students recognize architecture as a field that has shared interests with the sciences, humanities, and arts, but has also other mandates that emerge at its intersection with socio-political, cultural, physical, historical, and other forces. The new Architectural Investigations course is being developed to introduce a variety of research and design methodologies to evaluate issues critical to architectural design and establish and apply connections between the discipline of architecture and the social and environmental contexts within which the field interacts. Here interdisciplinary research methods will be both explored and employed through a series of investigations shaped by an overriding theme that will address issues of both cultural and climate literacy (particularly those that engage equity, diversity, justice, and environmental sustainability). Themes will be explored through a series of case studies of personal experiences, global approaches to complex problems, and investigation of a local campus issue to engage social and physical dynamics that affect the built environment, such as transportation, waste, food, etc. Students will begin at the scale of the individual, by first reflecting on their own relationship to the theme through an autoethnographic mapping exercise. This personal case study will invite students to engage members of their own community and to document the ways in which the built environment impacts their experience. Then, through an analytical case study of contemporary precedents from around the globe, student teams will understand how architecture draws upon multiple knowledge to address complex human issues. Students will be presented with design projects and asked to interrogate how the problem was defined, researched, and addressed; who participated in the process, and what strategies were employed. The final third of the semester will be to identify, define, and propose a solution to a campus issue relevant to the course’s theme. This case study will result in the integration and application of interdisciplinary thinking as students design solutions to the issues they raise. As a foundations-level course, a primary objective of Architectural Investigations will be to recognize that architecture is an engaged discipline that relies on the collaborative participation of other fields and users of space. In other words, students will be introduced to both the ways of understanding and methods of making that shape architectural design. While not intended to be a traditional design studio, it will build literacy in design thinking strategies and analog and digital communication skills that will serve as a bridge between the first-semester architectural drawing course and the digital modeling technologies introduced in the sophomore year, as well as be applied in more complex architectural design projects in the following semesters. While we anticipate a transition away from an interdepartmental foundations course sequence in the coming years, we will continue to value and maintain the interdisciplinary focus that has shaped the Department of Architecture from its beginning. An historical feature of our program has been that it introduces students to the art of architecture through a sequence of pre-architectural foundations courses that celebrate conceptual development and communication. This will remain a critical foundational principle, but it is crucial to recognize a wider, more interdisciplinary context to respond to contemporary concerns.

Interdisciplinary Transition  53

Effectiveness of this new approach will be seen in the richness of design language students apply to problem-solving, the range of precedents that they refer to in their work, and their ability to adopt complexity more readily. Historically the undergraduate architecture program has trusted that the relevance of the connection between art and architecture would emerge over time through the application of visual arts concepts in later architecture design studios. We have also trusted that increasing the complexity of design problems by layering in additional expectations (for site response, building systems and structures, envelope efficiency, etc.) would not result in the loss of earlier perspectives. While this is the case, we know that students’ capacity for applying interdisciplinary lenses to their own design processes can continue to be strengthened. The shift away from an arts-only foundations year to one that integrates a fuller conception of interdisciplinarity, and which explores architecture’s multiple contexts will enable our students to better integrate their own artistic concepts within the network of perspectives learned from their study of the discipline’s many frameworks and the ways in which those come to bear on design issues. We anticipate that students will learn to move fluidly between multiple lenses of investigation and modes of communication and maintain this multivalent approach even as the complexity of design problems increases to address innovative, functional, and just spaces at multiple scales, the demands of building materiality, structures, and physical, historical, and cultural contexts.

8 THE YAMUNA RIVER PROJECT Interdisciplinarity across and beyond the Fields of the Built Environment in Architectural Education Iñaki Alday and Pankaj Vir Gupta

Schools of architecture that incorporate the whole spectrum of the built environment have the potential of reconsidering disciplinary education in the expanded field, as argued in a previous chapter1. Courses and design studios that combine students from different programs addressing hybrid prompts are found relatively often, but problemsolving frameworks outside design studio are scarce and hardly visible2. However, a renewed disciplinary approach still requires the contribution of other fields that operate and inform the shaping of the built environment. Is it possible to bring to the design table, as equal partners, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political scientists, economists, engineers, and lawyers – just to name a few – in the compressed 15 weeks of a semester? And get a clear, defined enough design proposal informed by everyone? Then, if just getting everyone at the table is not a feasible methodology, the appropriate question is about finding models to educate in interdisciplinary knowledge, advance students’ capacities to diagnose the multifaceted dilemmas of urban inhabitation, and propose potential solutions to complex situations. The Yamuna River Project (YRP) is a multidisciplinary research initiative initiated at UVa School of Architecture in 2013–14, developed fundamentally through a series of successive design research studios and master’s thesis. The fundamental research question of this project sought an understanding of why (and how?) billions of dollars had been invested in cleaning the Yamuna River in New Delhi with no apparent results and then about which would be the strategies to recover one of the most polluted urban rivers on the planet – the Yamuna, in New Delhi, India, the capital of the largest democracy in the world (Figure 8.1). From its inception, the work was framed as a research project with three objectives. First, the project aspires and manages to have an impact on the urban reality in physical infrastructure, planning, and governance. Second, the project has an educational commitment as part of the professional programs. Finally, the ambition of impact and the project’s academic environment require the development of novel disciplinary research methodologies around the interaction of architecture with the enormous intellectual wealth anchored across the university campus. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-12

The Yamuna River Project  55

FIGURE 8.1 R.

Singh, Taimoor down the Nallah, New Delhi, 2015. Published in the Yamuna River project.

(I. Alday, P.V. Gupta, edited by ACTAR, 2018.)

The YRP was one of the research projects initiated at UVa with the new model of research studios3, each working iteratively for several years on the same topic and place. The studio developed a methodology that is represented in the index of the book published after four iterations (Alday, et al. ii and iii). Successive teams of students built in the previous body of work, starting by checking and completing the information gathered and mapped by previous generations about the multiple layers of the city, structured in six main areas: history and evolution, waters, socioeconomics, ecologies, mobility, and governance. Students embarked on deep investigations, organized in small teams, despite their lack of formal training in each of those subjects but with the skill and ability to spatialize the information and synthesize it graphically. While semester dynamics are not conducive to formal interactions with courses related to those areas across the university, the project gathered a coalition of experts from the University of Virginia either in the region or in topics less site-specific (environmental sciences, engineering, history, political sciences [Figure 8.2], religious studies or entrepreneurship). In Delhi, the studio developed a network of local experts in political sciences, environment and pollution, history and humanities, urban planning, and water who interacted regularly during the site visits and through remote technology

56

Iñaki Alday and Pankaj Vir Gupta

FIGURE 8.2 Dr.

John Echeverri-Gent, professor of political sciences, and Benjamin DiNapoli, BsArch, University of Virginia. Diagram of the governance of the Yamuna River and the built environment related. One of the most impactful graphics of the project incentivized the consolidation of the major state agencies under one single ministry.

(Figure 8.3). The YRP expanded faculty body interacts in studio discussions, pinups, and reviews. Final presentations are a one-day symposium with multiple interventions of an audience of experts posing hard questions. This is a far more generous and engaging assessment protocol perhaps, than a typical architecture review, with its first row of opinionated jurors, sanctioning the work with thumbs up or down. The studio dynamic is designed as a looping process of a) search for information and spatially mapping it; b) diagnosis exercise about the relevant issues; c) development of a vision; d) test of implementation of the vision. This is not a linear process but a loop that iterates several times in the semester on each step. There is no design phase per se; rather, the whole process is one single design methodology. The YRP also confronted the insufficiently defined concept of design research. I argue that doing research for later design is not only a misunderstanding of the processes and methods for the advance of the discipline (of the built environment). It also hinders, diminishes, and banalizes that the capacity of architecture to generate knowledge,

The Yamuna River Project  57

FIGURE 8.3 The

Yamuna River Project research team in collaboration with Mr. Tyagi, Delhi Jal Board. Comprehensive diagram of the water supply sources for Delhi, mapped for the first time.

58

Iñaki Alday and Pankaj Vir Gupta

portraying design as individualistic mission. When the information exists, students search for and process it spatially. The studio research through the design process in the continuous feedback loop described above, with the objective of generating new knowledge, is further prompted by the apparently insurmountable challenges confronted with and supported by the interdisciplinarian exchange. The dialectical relation between design and the rest of the disciplines (history, art, economics, sociology, engineering, environmental sciences, political sciences) critically informs the diagnosis and the potential solutions. Additionally, students acknowledge the essential roles of all these other fields in order to understand in depth the issues and to inform relevant solutions. Through this education, we expect that future professionals will be able to gather broad teams, establish productive exchanges, and ultimately be effective in addressing complex dilemmas in unfamiliar cultural contexts. A critical component of the methodology is the idea of accountability, through internal discussions and external exposure. After one semester, the work was exhibited at the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi, with opening and closing symposiums that brought the general public, administrators, and additional experts. The interaction with local agencies and politicians (cabinet ministers, state ministers, and municipal administrators, including the Spanish Embassy as a diplomatic partner) is part not only of an advocacy strategy but also another layer of accountability for the studio work. Soon, the University of Virginia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Delhi Water Authority (Delhi Jal Board), which started a formal collaboration of exchange of information and sharing of the findings, through which some of the initial recommendations started to be implemented in the ground (Figure 8.4). The success of the initial three years as a school of architecture research project, involving faculty across several departments on campus4, with its open framework for research initiatives from every field on campus, prompted the central administration to elevate the YRP as a pan-university research project in 2016. Today, The YRP is a shared endeavor between UVa and Tulane, exploring water and urban ecologies crises in Jaipur (Figure 8.5) and Delhi (Figure 8.6). For the last three years, studios at UVa and at Tulane have worked in parallel, sharing materials and site travels, attending reviews, and exchanging the booklets compiling the results. The YRP has expanded its focus to Jaipur, the state capital of Rajasthan – India’s largest state – with three million inhabitants under severe water stress. Professor of Architecture Pankaj Vir Gupta and Assistant Professor Maria Gonzalez Aranguren are leading the work at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, while Professor Iñaki Alday, with Pankaj Vir Gupta as Visiting Professor and Monisha Nasa and Andrea Bardon de Tena (Research Assistant Professors) are leading Tulane’s contribution. The role of Professor Gupta is critical in the connection of both studios despite the unavoidable institutional challenges.

The Yamuna River Project  59

FIGURE 8.4  The

Yamuna River Project research team in collaboration with Delhi Jal Board. Diagram of the process of sewage layout designed by the Delhi Jal Board, and recommendation of inserting public space once seasonal subdrains are freed of sewage water to avoid collapsing due to trash accumulation.

60   Iñaki Alday and Pankaj Vir Gupta

FIGURE 8.5  Eliott

Moreau, BArch, Tulane University. Hybrid neighborhood infrastructures (sewage, trash) with basic civic programs (health, education) with the insertion of public space in informal settlements.

FIGURE 8.6 Joseph

Brookover, MArch, University of Virginia. India Gate, and the connection of the Rajpath with the banks of the Yamuna.

The Yamuna River Project  61

Notes 1 Alday, From disciplinary fields to interdisciplinary challenges: shifting the focus of architectural education. Tulane School of Architecture and the University of Virginia School of Architecture are examples schools focused on the built environment, https://architecture.tulane.edu, accessed September 4, 2022, https://www.arch.virginia.edu, accessed September 4, 2022. 2 A radical experiment on collaboration among students of different programs in solving a design challenge was the Vortex workshop and competition at the University of Virginia, from 2012 to 2016. Every January, students from all fields, graduate and undergraduate, were randomly organized in teams. Two weeks of intense work, with a guest director and the support of a faculty member for each team, ended in a final exhibition in a community space in Charlottesville. Each year’s prompt focused on a local urban dilemma that required multiple expertise. 3 Iñaki Alday was appointed as Quesada Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Virginia in July of 2011. As part of a general curricular revision, the research studio model was implemented in 2012-13. In 2018, Alday was appointed as Professor and Dean at Tulane School of Architecture. 4 https://yamunariverproject.wp.tulane.edu/researchers/, accessed on September 5, 2022.

Works Cited Alday, Iñaki, et al. Yamuna River Project New Delhi Urban Ecology. Actar, 2018.

9 BUILDING INNOVATION AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Philip Horton and Marc Neveu

The Architecture Program at Arizona State University sits within the Design School (TDS), which is in the Herberger Institute for the Design and Arts (HIDA). Our program is a “4+2”, meaning the undergraduate coursework leads to a non-professional degree and the two-year graduate M. Arch is our accredited degree. In the past three years, we have grown from around 400 students and will have over 1100 in AY22/23. This growth is the result of a complete redesign of the program to align more closely with the mission of ASU: ASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom we exclude, but rather by whom we include and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves. There is not a single architecture program in the US that is not in some way exclusive. Be it barriers to entry into the program based on GPA or portfolio, a milestone that redirects or rejects students after one or two years, or hurdles related to cost and technology, all programs set barriers to acceptance. It is unfortunate, but the most highly rated programs are often the programs with the lowest acceptance rates. To follow ASU’s mission to be radically inclusive means that we need to rethink how we enroll students, organize studios, schedule classes, use technology, and how we build the culture of our academic discipline. There is the often-repeated story of a dean standing in front of a first-year class who asks the students to “look to your left, look to your right”. The dean then continues to say, “they will not be here when you graduate”. At ASU, we have shifted this message of failure, to be one of support, at scale. In our first-year lecture, ARC 111, over 300 students are again asked to look to their colleagues but are now asked to help them to be there when they graduate. We removed a milestone at the end of the first year that would reduce the class size from around 200 to 45 students. This counterintuitively increased our firstyear retention rate dramatically. Not only do more students matriculate into the second year, fewer students are changing majors after the first semester for fear of not getting through the milestone. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-13

Building Innovation at Arizona State University  63

Teaching to scale in the undergraduate program has required that we rethink many of our assumptions about what a studio should be. And, in many ways, the pandemic has played a positive role in all of this. Our undergraduate studio faculty-to-student ratio is 1:100, and we are currently running three studios per semester. Each studio has four graduate teaching assistants who help deliver content and assess outcomes across multiple modalities – a number of which were developed over the previous two year in response to the pandemic. We rely heavily on peer-to-peer learning and, although the studio is highly coordinated, there is still an opportunity for individual experimentation. In addition to general studies, the undergraduate curriculum includes a series of elective courses that explore how we think about architecture in all of its definitions. Our goal is to have students and faculty from other majors participate in the architecture curriculum to see the value of architectural thinking. All of this change has taken a lot of work and has occurred amidst massive change. We are, of course, on the other end of a global pandemic. This has forced us to rethink how we teach, and as a silver lining, allowed us to discover new ways of teaching and collaborating. We are also experiencing the “great resignation”, which has led to even more change in general at the university. The institutional location of the Architecture Program, in TDS, which is in HIDA brings with structural boundaries that prevent our students and faculty from working with others who are operating in disciplines related to the built environment. To paraphrase Buckminster Fuller, rather than fighting the existing reality, build a better model and make the old one obsolete. Over the past two years, we have begun to reimagine how the Architecture Program works within the university as a whole and how we can best prepare our students for an ever-changing professional landscape. We have met with hundreds of faculty members, directors, deans, staff, students, professionals, and, in AY 22/23 will launch the Center of Building Innovation (CoBI). The guiding north star of CoBI is the inter-related issues of social and climate justice in the built environment. To affect change, CoBI will bring together faculty and students from all disciplinary units related to the built environment at Arizona State University into one center to work across all three enterprises. This organizational structure supersedes the program/school/institute framework and connects interested architecture students and faculty to others around the entire university. As a model of the New American University, ASU operates across three enterprises: the Knowledge Enterprise, the Academic Enterprise, and the Learning Enterprise. The first has a focus on research, the second includes all students enrolled in degree conferring programs, and the third is focused on informal and life-long learners (K-12, and continuing education) not matriculating towards a degree. Our first research project – Embassy 2050 – was done in collaboration with the Office of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) and a team of faculty from around the university including construction, risk management, urban planning, sustainability, and the Global Futures Laboratory. In spring 2022, we ran a studio to determine environmental risk and mitigation strategies for sixteen cities around the globe as related to the building portfolio of OBO. The results of the studio became a part of the final research report. Within the Academic Enterprise, we continue to develop strategies for teaching at scale and have begun to map out a joint undergraduate degree between the School of Construction and the Architecture Program. The Learning Enterprise offers the biggest opportunity for impact. We are developing coursework for K-12 outreach to under-represented students, transdisciplinary content for continuing

64  Philip Horton and Marc Neveu

professional education, and an executive education program for professionals in the entire built environment. The profession of architecture and all of the allied disciplines are changing to meet the demands of our planet and society. The way we finance, plan, design, build, and maintain our built environment is not the same as it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago. To better prepare our students, we must begin to rethink the means of teaching and learning. If successful, CoBI will transform the pipeline of students entering into the disciplines of the built environment to be more representative; our students will model professional relationships across the building environment prior to graduation; and the research we undertake will have an impact locally and globally.

FIGURE 9.1 

Center of Building Innovation constellation of partners.

10 DATA AUGMENTED DESIGN INTELLIGENCE Enabling Interdisciplinarity Matthias (Hank) Haeusler and Nicole Gardner

According to cybernetician Gordon Pask, architects have always designed systems but have generally been expected to create buildings (Pask 495). Adopting a system’s perspective, Pask saw the architect’s role as the systemic integration of multiple data inputs to meet design goals. In this way, he understood that architects interact with a wide range of knowledge that traverses creative, scientific, technical, and regulatory domains. Still, coordinating different domains of knowledge does not inherently make architectural design an interdisciplinary practice. Equally, collaborating closely with aligned built environment disciplines such as architecture, urban design, and construction management is better described as “narrow” or “lite” interdisciplinarity (Repko and Szostack; Kelly 95–113). By contrast, “expansive”, “big” or “deep” interdisciplinarity occurs where disciplines built on different epistemic foundations begin to influence each other. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s concept of the “diagonal access”, architectural scholar Jane Rendell asserts that interdisciplinarity is a practice of radical thinking that occurs at the edge of, across, and in-between disciplines. In a liminal sense, interdisciplinarity for established design professionals can be a transformative act that involves modes of “unsettling” to catalyze reinvention and innovation (Bock von Wülfingen). For entry-level students without learned and socialized disciplinary-based notions of organization, rules, claims, agreements, and assumptions, practicing interdisciplinarity necessitates understanding why, and how to engage with and purposefully integrate a diverse range of knowledge, techniques, and methods. In the Bachelor of Computational Design (CoDe) in the School of Built Environment at the University of New South Wales, an overarching objective is to leverage digital technologies and computational methods to innovate design processes to create more sustainable built and urban environments (Gardner et al.). It is well recognized that the complexity of sustainability issues related to the design of the built environment, such as waste, and energy and material resource utilization are not problems that can be solved by singular disciplinary methods and knowledge. In this context, computational thinking, computational techniques, and big data are a framework, a set of processes and resources that can enable an interdisciplinary approach to design framing and problem-solving. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-14

66  Matthias (Hank) Haeusler and Nicole Gardner

Accordingly, interdisciplinarity in the CoDe program is fostered in two interrelated ways. First, students are introduced to a diverse range of disciplinary knowledge, theories, and methods from architecture, engineering, biology, mathematics, and computer science. For example, CoDe students explore alternate approaches to design such as biomimicry (Benyus; Pawlyn). The theory of biomimicry reasons that as natural systems are morphologically optimized, a principle-based understanding of their form, structure, and performance can be translated to inform built environment design solutions that are structurally efficient and less resource-intensive and thus aligned to sustainability goals. Second, and in parallel, through learning parametric design modeling techniques and software, students are introduced to computational thinking including rule-based reasoning and abstraction as used by computer scientists. Parametric design is commonly associated with the modeling of complex forms and geometries. Three-dimensional (3D) modeling software such as Rhinoceros 3D used in conjunction with McNeel’s visual algorithm editor Grasshopper makes programming and exploring multiple variations of complex geometries readily accessible for design students and professionals alike. From the perspective of biomimicry, computational techniques can be used to translate codifiable biological and mathematical principles, or the basic algorithms of natural systems, into architectural forms, materials, and processes. For CoDe student Mingzi Ye, adopting the method of biomimicry in the design studio involved abstracting the basic relationship between the geometric shape and morphing behavior of a Jeffrey pinecone to inform the generation of design concepts for a kinetic façade module (see Figure 10.1). In another design studio, students drew on the trabecular geometries found in the bones of avian species as well as the structural properties of the bamboo culm to inform the design schema of robotically fabricated acoustic wall panels (see Figure 10.2). Significantly, parametric modeling skills provide a springboard to more advanced computational design methods that enable students to integrate rules and data from different disciplines into computational workflows to assist with design decision-making. For example, computational design studio (structure) explores how structural and material performance can drive design generation. CoDe student Danielle Bisazza translated the geometric principles of origami to inform the design of a large-span stadium structure which was then analyzed and optimized using the Karamba 3D structural analysis plugin for Grasshopper (see Figures 10.3 and 10.4). Designing in a parametric environment that is connected to structural analysis simulations gives students instantaneous data feedback. As students iterate their design systems by adjusting parameters, the structural simulation analysis visualizations help them identify where structural integrity is viable or compromised to tune the design accordingly (see Figure 10.5). In this way, the parametric environment allows students to toggle between the scale of design detailing and the stress and bending forces of the overall structural system. Developing skills in parametric geometry modeling in the foundational year of the CoDe program also instills in students an understanding of design as a relational system. Students learn how to assemble and program computational workflows that can integrate and interconnect multiple forms of disciplinary knowledge depending on the given design problem. This is demonstrated in the fourth computational design studio where students are tasked with addressing the problem of the urban heat island effect on urban development sites. In this design studio, a combination of group and individual tasks engage

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FIGURE 10.1  Digital

collaboration studio, kinetic façade design, 2020. (Image courtesy of Mingzi Ye.)

FIGURE 10.2 Digital

collaboration studio, robotically fabricated acoustic panel design, 2021. (Image courtesy of Anthony Franco.)

68  Matthias (Hank) Haeusler and Nicole Gardner

FIGURE 10.3 Stadium

design for computational design studio (Structure), 2019. (Image courtesy of Danielle Bisazza.)

FIGURE 10.4 Stadium

design for computational design studio (Structure), 2019. (Image courtesy of Danielle Bisazza.)

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FIGURE 10.5 Stadium

design for computational design studio (Structure), 2019. (Image courtesy of Danielle Bisazza.)

students in the collaborative assembly of a computational workflow that combines multiple weighted parameters to generate building envelope layouts. In the example shown here, design options were generated based on topographic and solar data inputs and optimization parameters such as spatial requirements per person, viewing angles from buildings (skyview), and percentage of trees per square meter (see Figure 10.6). Students in this design studio use computational evolutionary solvers based on evolutionary algorithms including Octopus and Galapagos plugins for Grasshopper to iteratively generate and score optimal building envelope layout solution sets (see Figure 10.7). A common assumption is that interdisciplinarity is a dialogue between humans, but in the CoDe program, it is also a dialogue between humans and machines or designers and data inputs, parameters (design priorities), and data outputs. However, this is not to say that computational design excludes human expertise and human interaction. After all,

FIGURE 10.6 Building

envelope layout option for computational design studio (Urban), 2022. (Image courtesy of Max Melamed.)

70  Matthias (Hank) Haeusler and Nicole Gardner

FIGURE 10.7  Matrix

of building envelope layout options for computational design studio (Urban), 2022. (Image courtesy of Max Melamed.)

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disciplinary expertise is necessary for the creation and programming of the various computational plugins that are used in the assembly of computational design workflows. Equally, interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange remain important in the computational design process to interpret computational analysis and simulation outputs that cannot necessarily be evaluated by lone designers. Collectively, these student project examples illustrate how interdisciplinarity in the CoDe program is realized through an overarching synthesis of design thinking and computational thinking (Kelly and Gero 1–15). Additionally, interdisciplinarity in the CoDe program is mediated by computational methods and techniques that enable students to engage with diverse forms of disciplinary knowledge in ways that develop and hone their integration skills. Using pre-programmed scripts (i.e., Grasshopper plugins), and creating bespoke text-based programming (i.e., Python, Javascript, C++), CoDe students assemble computational workflows to generate design geometries, optimize structures, and simulate and analyze the performance of design schemas in relation to a range of life and environmental phenomena such as heat, wind, daylighting, and sound. As such, CoDe students inherently think across disciplinary boundaries to augment design intelligence and generate innovative solutions capable of addressing the multi-scalar problems and complexities that characterize our current epoch. Works Cited Benyus, Janine M. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. 1st ed. New York: Morrow, 1997. Bock von Wülfingen, Bettina. “‘Big Interdisciplinarity’: Unsettling and Resettling Excellence.” Community and Identity in Contemporary Technosciences. Eds. Kastenhofer, Karen and Susan Molyneux-Hodgson. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2021. 263–82. Gardner, Nicole, Haeusler, M. Hank, & Zavoleas, Y. Computational Design: From Promise to Practice. Stuttgart: Avedition, 2019. Kelly, James S. “Wide and Narrow Interdisciplinarity.” The Journal of General Education 45.2 (1996): 95–113. Kelly, Nick, & Gero, John S. “Design Thinking and Computational Thinking: A Dual Process Model for Addressing Design Problems.” Design Science 7 (2021): 1–15. Kristeva, Julia. “Institutional Interdisciplinarity in Theory and Practice: An Interview.” The Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity: De-, Dis-, Ex-. Eds. Coles, Alex and Alexia Defert. London: BACKless Books in association with Black Dog Publishing, 1998. 1–22. Pask, Gordon. “The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics.” Architectural Design 49.September (1969): 495. Pawlyn, Michael. Biomimicry in Architecture. 2nd edition ed. Newcastle upon Tyne: RIBA Publishing Ltd, 2016. Rendell, Jane. “Working between and Across: Some Psychic Dimensions of Architecture’s Inter- and Transdisciplinarity.” Architecture and Culture 1.1 (2013): 128–40. Repko, Allen F., & Szostak, Rick. Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Third edition. ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2017.

11 OUT OF SCOPE How Megaliths Challenge Architecture’s Role Brandon Clifford

Disciplinary Presumptions Site, Program, and Problem

The cornerstones of a typical architecture studio brief are site, program, and problem. The architectural problem depends upon the other two cornerstones, which are strangely beyond the scope of the architect. Strange, because the notion that architecture is dependent upon a geographic site and a predetermined program is a construct of contemporary society. A site is determined by a relatively new social practice of property ownership. A program is bound by governmental zoning codes. And the combination is shored up by a financial model invented through capitalism and leveraged by a banking industry to loan money across a predetermined timeline of 30 years. Despite the invented status and questionable relationship to the origins of architecture, these constructs are not benign. They serve as assumed foundations for most architectural education. They shape our definition of architecture in unfortunately problematic ways. These typical briefs define the most reductive idea of what architecture is, by foregrounding what architecture is not. The acceptance of these practices positions the architect downstream from decisions made by other disciplines. But this tenuous foundation is new to the history of architecture. What kind of studio will emerge if we erode the fictional pre-requisites of property, finance, and zoning? To imagine an architecture beyond these constraints, we can explore architectural problems that existed prior to the constructs that confine us today. Cross Studio Experiment

In the Spring of 2015, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched an interdisciplinary experiment in architectural education. Department head J. Meejin Yoon created an initiative: the Cross Studio. The idea is to create a collaborative studio that bridges the range of discipline groups1 that make up the Department of Architecture. I proposed a studio titled “Megalithic Architecture” in collaboration with professor and architectural DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-15

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historian Mark Jarzombek. To opt into this studio, students must agree to the following preconditions. 1 We are not smarter than megalithic-era architects. 2 We understand architecture is composed of mass, not in spite of mass. 3 We will not dismiss the idea that stones are alive. Megalithic Architecture

Megalithic architecture was prompted by a recent discovery that the Moai of Rapa Nui (Figure 11.1) ceremonially walked from quarry to site, pivoting from side to side in a standing position (Hunt and Lipo 73–92). This discovery upends several euro-centric ideas about what a statue is, but it also illuminates how cultural biases blind us to incredible realities. After all, this is a discovery for Western society, but a confirmation of what the Rapanui has asserted all along: that the statues walked themselves across the island. This revelation shifts attention away from the artifacts themselves and toward the processes of extraction, the carving of the forms, the precise calibration, and ultimately the uncanny performance of bringing a stone to life. Not only does this change our understanding and appreciation for the Moai, but it also challenges assumptions about the role of the architect. It raises questions about how design engages meaningfully beyond the final form, stretching down to pre-construction activities such as extraction, transportation, and assembly. This is a challenge of physics, efficiency, and logistics, but it is also one of culture, perception, and imagination. We found this to be an exciting re-positioning of architecture, centered around a fundamental megalithic challenge: How does one move and stand a big heavy object?

FIGURE 11.1 Moai

emerging from the earth at the Rano Raraku quarry on Rapa Nui. (Photo by Brandon Clifford.)

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FIGURE 11.2 The

McKnelly Megalith performing the act of standing from horizontal to vertical. (Photo by Brandon Clifford.)

To arrive at this challenge, the studio was structured in three distinct phases: beginning with the physics and computation surrounding mass calibration, then exploring scale experiments at the desk, and ultimately testing these ideas against a colossal megalithic performance. The studio joined in a collaborative effort to design, manufacture, and perform the resulting McKnelly Megalith (Clifford 440–449). At 16 feet tall, the statue walks horizontally across land and stands under the limited strength of a handful of architecture students. (Figures 11.2 and 11.3) Within twenty minutes, the megalith walked, stood vertically, paused, reversed its procession, and disappeared. By embracing a fixed time period for the performance, the studio avoided the false assumption that megaliths, and

FIGURE 11.3  The

megalithic architecture studio performing the McKnelly Megalith in Killian Court at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015. (Photo by Axel Kilian.)

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therefore architecture, are eternal artifacts. The design centered attention around the temporal acts of transportation and construction, resulting in an architecture of experience, not inheritance. Conclusions

This studio resists the idea of passively inheriting constructs beyond the scope of the architect. Instead, it actively engages in topics the field has excluded from architecture’s scope: extraction, logistics, transportation, spectacle, mystery, and construction. “Megalithic Architecture” was taught at the graduate level, but the content is in no way restricted to masters students. On the contrary, by challenging default approaches to architecture, we explored the essence and alternative origins of architecture itself. We started to question the foundations of architecture, but also how architecture is introduced to entering students. In turn, this experience transformed my own approach to teaching foundations studios in architecture by incorporating time-based media, folding in interdisciplinary exchanges, and challenging default assumptions about site and program. The goal of these shifts is not to step away from architecture; rather, it is to embrace broader views of how architecture can contribute to existential crises. As the field is grappling with its complacency in a range of big-picture problems, from climate change to social justice and decolonization, we could benefit from pedagogies that expand the discipline beyond its narrowly defined boundaries and test our capacity to contribute to societal and environmental problems. Boundaries that serve as alibis to avoid architecture’s role in addressing problematic practices that can too often be dismissed as “out of scope.” Note 1 The five discipline groups that make up the department of architecture at MIT are (1) Art, Culture, and Technology, (2) Building Technology, (3) Computation Design, (4) History Theory and Criticism, and (5) Architectural Design. This unique make-up of an architecture department does not prioritize one group over the other.

Works Cited Hunt, Terry, & Lipo, Carl. The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island. Free Press, 2011. Clifford, Brandon, “The McKnelly Megalith: A Method of Organic Modeling Feedback,” in ACADIA Posthuman Frontiers: Data, Designers and Cognitive Machines, Paper Proceedings, 2016, pp. 440–449.

12 PERFORM Making a Case for Expanded Structural Dialogues in Architecture Education Julian Palacio

Architecture, by its own nature, is a collaborative undertaking. It demands critical input from a wide range of disciplines by actors with diverse interests and backgrounds. Arguably, one of the most important aspects of realizing a project comes from the field of structures. Indeed, the translation of architecture from the realm of ideas into reality is only possible through a carefully orchestrated equilibrium of forces, tectonics, and material behavior. Despite this, there appears to exist, in the context of architecture education, a widening schism separating structural thinking from the early stages of formal design exploration. The generation of form as the exclusive purview of the architect versus the design of the structure as belonging solely to the field of engineering is a false, and relatively recent, dichotomy. As Braham argues, “[it] was in the 1940s and ‘50s that the compartmentalized mode of teaching building technology that is prevalent in North American architecture schools today became firmly established” (394). More often than not, the perception among students is that the autonomy of formal exploration must be guarded against the influence of external logics that might pollute the virtue of an architectural idea. In other words, structure is seldom seen as a plausible alibi for architectural invention. This is usually reinforced by the fact that in a typical curriculum, there is very little overlap or intellectual cross-pollination between design studios and required structures courses. Perhaps the only exception is the comprehensive or integrated design studios; but even in this case, the true agency of structures is questionable since the structural solution to a specific project remains an isolated act, a problem to be overcome through typical and normative thinking, instead of becoming an opportunity to instigate provocative formal and spatial explorations. Traditionally, the teaching of structures in architecture schools revolves around two main axes: on the one hand, weekly lectures that introduce concepts of structural mechanics, and on the other, exercises in which students analyze precedents by studying the equilibrium of forces at play either through graphical or mathematical means. This text describes an alternative pedagogical approach in the context of undergraduate architecture education. It relies primarily on introducing semester-long, multidisciplinary design-build projects that engage questions of form, structural behavior, and DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-16

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fabrication. The ambition of these collaborations is twofold: first, to conceptualize the projects as experimental vehicles that challenge the ancillary role of courses in structures, catapulting structural thinking to the forefront of spatial and material invention; and second, to bridge the gap between academia and practice, turning practical exercises into platforms for creative collaboration among architecture students, engineers, artists, and builders. The outcome of these explorations extends beyond the confines of the semester and the structures class, as they have offered students the opportunity to pursue ideas related to the vocation of structural form through subsequent design studio projects or even, as has been the case, through their own research during their culminating fifth-year thesis projects. To provide some context, Structures I is the first of four courses that together comprise the structure’s sequence of the undergraduate architecture program at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. In general, these courses expose students to the diverse catalog of structural types while introducing the importance of observation as a qualitative method of structural analysis. The value of this approach in the evolution of structural design has been explored for centuries by builders, architects, and engineers alike. For example, as Billington argues when referring to innovations in the design evolution of thin concrete shells, “the major advances between 1955 and 1980 – a time of intense analytical developments – were achieved, not by performing complex analysis using computers, but rather by reducing analysis to very simple ideas based on observed physical behavior” (20). In particular, the pedagogical goal of the Structures I spring semester is to present a distinct way of thinking about structures, one which is centered on their instrumentality in the production of architectural form, further amplifying Billington’s argument that “the form controls the forces; and the more clearly the designer can visualize those forces the surer he is of his form” (20). Such an approach aligns the investigations carried out during the course with the pioneering work of a select group of cross-disciplinary thinkers, builders, engineers, and architects that include Pier Luigi Nervi, Eduardo Torroja, Felix Candela, and Eladio Dieste, to name a few, whose tactical engagement with form, structures, and materials resulted in some of the most radical and innovative work of the 20th century (Figure 12.1). The main component of the Structures I course at Cooper Union is the design and fabrication of installation projects, which involve a range of different participants, both from within and outside the architecture program. Through these collaborative endeavors students are exposed to material testing, prototypes, and mockups as fundamental pedagogical tools for developing what could be referred to as “intuition of structural imagination” (Nervi 190). Each of these explorations, though launched from the common intellectual platform of the course, manifests differently, according to its specific context, location, and materiality. The installations are conceived as extensions and physical manifestations of the concepts and ideas addressed through lectures, readings, and precedent analysis. Thus, these projects have helped students establish a direct link between the theoretical knowledge of structures and materials and their practical material applications. For this brief overview of pedagogy, I will concentrate on outlining three installations designed by students in the structures course that demonstrate the breadth and depth of their close collaboration with teams of external advisors and consultants. The opportunity to work on these projects has helped students in the early stages of their education nurture

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FIGURE 12.1 

Citricos Caputto. Dieste & Montañez. (Photo by Julian Palacio.)

a fertile interdisciplinary dialogue with experts from different fields. This, in turn, has fostered new modes of thinking about the relationship between architecture and structures and the role of new fabrication technologies in propelling forward new avenues of architectural thinking It has also allowed students to understand the value of dialogue, debate, and collaboration with other professionals as central to continued learning and exploration. The first project, Ibeji (Figures 12.2 and 12.3), was a collaboration with dieFirma, a new art gallery in New York. Its mission is to provide a space for radical experimentation while fostering meaningful community engagement with artists, thinkers, and makers. Students from The Cooper Union worked together with a team of curators, artists, fabrication specialists, and engineering consultants to design and build a piece for the gallery’s pre-opening. The result was a 12ʹ × 20 ʹ × 8 ʹ interactive object that tested ideas of mass, compressive forces, stability, and equilibrium (Figure 12.4). Additionally, the experience allowed students to access state-of-the-art digital fabrication equipment at the North American Sculpture Center (NASC), a fabrication workshop in Westbury, New York, that partners with sculptors and artists to explore how digital technology can advance research in the arts. The second project, Manifold/Corps et Cadre (Figures 12.5 and 12.6), was an installation for the 14th edition of the Festival des Architectures Vives (FAV), an annual architecture festival in Montpellier, France. The festival is concerned with increasing public awareness of architecture by inviting groups of architects to design and fabricate installations in historic buildings throughout the city. Cooper students participated in 2019 via an installation in the 32ʹ × 50ʹ courtyard of the Hôtel des Trésoriers de la Bourse, a landmarked 17th-century mansion.

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FIGURES 12.2 AND 12.3  Ibeji.

Julian Palacio in collaboration with architecture students from The Cooper Union, dieFirma, Precision Stone, and the North American Sculpture Center. (Photo by ImagenSubliminal [Miguel de Guzman + Rocío Romero].)

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FIGURE 12.4 Ibeji.

Julian Palacio in collaboration with architecture students from The Cooper Union, dieFirma, Precision Stone, and the North American Sculpture Center. (Photo by ImagenSubliminal [Miguel de Guzman + Rocío Romero].)

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Umbra (Figure 12.7) is the last of the three projects undertaken as part of the Structures I course. Currently, in design development, it encompasses the design and fabrication of a public sculpture in a plaza adjacent to Cooper Union’s Foundation Building as part of New York City’s Department of Transportation Arterventions program. The project explores aspects of structural behavior and material efficiency through the hands-on design and fabrication of a funicular stone vault. This piece aims to activate the plaza, becoming a focal point for people to gather and interact outdoors. The installation’s design is inspired by the traditional craft of masonry vaulting, but it incorporates digital technologies for form generation, simulation, and fabrication. It is worth clarifying that the purpose of the ideas presented here is not to argue for converting architecture students into future structural engineers. Quite the opposite, the approach outlined maintains a high degree of disciplinary autonomy while shedding light on the intellectual territory where they overlap, fostering opportunities for students to mine a broader, interdisciplinary dialogue. The course and the projects have ultimately become the main vehicles for students to test at a one-to-one scale their collective knowledge of structures acquired throughout the semester, combining aspects of research, design, and digital fabrication in a multidisciplinary context. Equally important, establishing fruitful partnerships with external collaborators who have been key to the projects’ success has empowered students to find tangible agency outside the traditional space of the classroom.

FIGURES 12.5 AND 12.6 Manifold. Julian Palacio in collaboration with architecture students from

The Cooper Union. (Photo by Paul Kozlowski – photoarchitecture.) (Continued)

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FIGURES 12.5 AND 12.6 (Continued)

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FIGURE 12.7  Umbra.

Julian Palacio in collaboration with architecture students from The Cooper Union. (Image by Annie Yaqi He.)

84  Julian Palacio

Works Cited Billington, David P. The Tower and the Bridge. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Braham, William W. “Structures, Construction, Building Systems: From ‘Steel as Required’ to Integration.” Ockman, Joan and Rebecca Williamson, eds. Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012. 392–95. Print. Nervi, Pier Luigi. Aesthetics and Technology in Building. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965.

13 AQUEOUS LANDSCAPES Teaching and Learning in the Intertidal Zone in Second Year Architectural Design Studio Ainslie Murray

Intertidal Zone

Aqueous Landscapes is a large core architectural design studio in the second year of our Bachelor of Architectural Studies degree at UNSW Sydney. It is the first course in which a cohort of around 150 students encounter architectural design studio education with any measure of intensity; the studio demands a deep and sustained engagement with a complex problem through a single term-long project. The studio aims to accelerate independent design thinking and encourage students to develop their own distinctive ethical approach to design. Now in its tenth iteration, the studio sits within the degree as a visible and often volatile point of disruption. Just as each student “sinks comfortably into routine, into formulas, accepted terms, agreed-upon foundations, an accepted history of antecedents, or a pregiven direction” (Grosz 59), we gather the cohort and ask them to overturn their thinking in response to a range of interdisciplinary viewpoints. The project is to design a community-focused marine science research facility on the site of a disused Coal Loader in Sydney Harbor. Less than two kilometers from the Sydney Harbor Bridge, this waterfront facility is conceived as a vital agent in connecting innovative marine research with contemporary social, ecological, and developmental issues in the highly urbanized context of Sydney Harbor. Through the activities of the facility, scientists and ordinary citizens are drawn into a productive dialogue that increases public awareness of key ecological issues and promotes a sense of shared responsibility for the way we inhabit Sydney Harbor. The intertidal zone – the changeable edge of the site – is explored as a concentrated space where diverse forms of life and knowledge are brought together. The “lively cosmopolitanism” (Tsing 191) of the hidden cities beneath our feet and beneath the water is an unstable zone of cyclical comings and goings; a whole world of complex, natural architectures that are only made visible to students through forays into the unknown.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-17

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Three Refusals

The studio commences with a series of refusals in which we challenge the expectations of both staff and students around how to approach the project site. The first refusal is a kind of silence. We do not name or describe the project, we do not discuss the brief or the client, and we do not describe the site. Instead, we engage in a critical place-based pedagogy of “learning from Country” (Lowe et al. 5) in which knowledge relating to the site and our place within it are approached sensorially and “without necessarily trying to understand it” (Lowe et al. 6). As part of this pedagogy, we introduce the practice of “walking Country” (GANSW 38), in which Aboriginal knowledge-holders walk together on-site with students and staff. In this walk, we glimpse a kinship with the flora and fauna of the sentient land that profoundly shifts our attitudes toward the site and our conception of what “site analysis” might mean. The second refusal involves a lingering immersion in the aqueous landscape of our site. Marine scientists working in Sydney Harbor speak to us of the range of marine habitats in the harbor, offering a glimpse into more-than-human architectures and their inhabitants – the rocky intertidal reefs, the seagrass meadows, the sandy holes and the myriad fish, sharks, seahorses and others that live there. The scientists discuss in detail the interconnectedness of terrestrial and aquatic landscapes from an ecological perspective. The perception of the possible design problem, still undefined, expands as students grasp the presence and importance of bustling underwater worlds. The third refusal is focused on creative action through the voices of an artist and an industrial designer – they talk to us about a kind of doing that offers a practical step into the project in which we begin to glimpse pathways toward meaningful action. The artist describes the laborious and unwieldy processes of collecting, transporting, drying, pressing, and sculpting crayweed and bull kelp. She discusses methods for bringing what is hidden to visibility and the differences between scientific and creative knowledge. The detailed description of these methods challenges materials and production thinking in the studio. Many students swap their balsa wood and sheet materials for more organic materials that demand an agile, responsive maker who is attuned to unpredictability and change (Figures 13.1 and 13.2). These three refusals grew from many years of site analysis exercises early in the studio which focused on the meticulous yet strangely meaningless conveyance of “factual” data. Students accrued detailed knowledge of the geographical, legal, ecological, and climatic aspects of the site but could not imagine or communicate stories of the place that give context to what actually happens when a raindrop, carrying water drawn from a distant place, falls upon the intertidal zone and meets the precise land and species of that place. In refusing to frame the early stages of the studio in a conventional manner and giving space instead to “outside” perspectives, we prompt each student to steadily build a personal understanding of the site in a context of recognizing and nurturing relationships (Figure 13.3). The voices that guide this understanding, all gathered from beyond architecture and given time and space to speak ahead of and over architecture, work together to nurture a custodial ethic in the studio in which the architect is just one part of a complex whole. Passionate Immersion

A custodial ethic is vital to encouraging the long-term, relational thinking that is necessary for expanding and re-shaping architectural design thinking in a time of change and is

Aqueous Landscapes  87

FIGURE 13.1 

Concept model, artefact by Tracey Lau (2021).

FIGURE 13.2 

Concept model (detail), artefact by Tracey Lau (2021).

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FIGURE 13.3 

Exploded axonometric, artefact by Tracey Lau (2021).

initiated in this studio through a “passionate immersion” (Van Dooren et al. 6) enabled by the interdisciplinary voices at the commencement of the studio. It is developed through personalized approaches to the site and experimental modeling exercises in which “noticing” the environment in its web of relationships is transformed into ‘attentiveness’ to it through meaningful action. To prompt acts of noticing, the student cohort is evenly

Aqueous Landscapes  89

FIGURE 13.4 

Concept study, textures and light by Rachel Hertz (2021).

distributed across the lower north shore of Sydney Harbor and asked to approach the site along diverse pathways over distances up to five kilometers. Students make independent visual and audio recordings en route as they walk to site, noticing particular qualities of their journey through the presentation of films, soundscapes, photomontages, drawings, and texts with a diversity and precision that expands typical approaches to site analysis in undergraduate architectural design studios (Figure 13.4). This initial passionate immersion involves the students becoming curious and entangled. In giving space to interdisciplinary voices through our three refusals and following up with the invitation to develop a personal and precise relationship with the site, we create a space in which relationships that include and exceed the many lively agents in the dialog are the foundation for meaningful action (Van Dooren et al. 3). We have observed the effect of this interdisciplinary approach to architectural design studio in a noticeable reduction of culturally and environmentally insensitive schemes. Students appear comfortable in “staying with the trouble” (Haraway) as they navigate their way through worlds in the process to formulate a viable ethical position from which to operate. This is poignantly illustrated through the consideration of how students respond to a culturally significant Aboriginal rock carving of a whale on the site. In previous iterations of this studio, students have included the carving in their site analysis and furiously endeavored to establish “facts” concerning its age and its meaning. These “facts” may be unknowable due to conventions governing what can and cannot be shared in the guardianship of Country. Despite this unknowable-ness, or perhaps

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FIGURE 13.5 Elevation,

textures and light by Rachel Hertz (2021).

because of it, we have seen many schemes where students engage with Aboriginal culture by overlaying scaled images of the whale across the site. These works were not presented with insensitive intention but instead grew from approaches to site analysis that did not support the presence of ambiguity or a personalized articulation of place. Following the interdisciplinary “passionate immersion” and our three-refusals approach, such insensitivity appeared significantly diminished and even absent (Figures 13.5–13.7).

FIGURE 13.6 

Site plan (detail), textures and light by Rachel Hertz (2021).

Aqueous Landscapes  91

FIGURE 13.7 

Exploded axonometric, textures and light by Rachel Hertz (2021).

Like sea creatures rising toward light, the architectural schemes presented seemed to emerge from place rather than being overlaid upon it and this, in turn, has prompted confident navigations of scale as the projects develop. We do not yet know if this has been an anomaly of the recent cohorts, but we will continue to teach and learn with this method to see what surfaces next. Acknowledgments

Aunty Margret Campbell, Koori Kinnections, Adriana Vergés, Aria Lee, Alex Goad and Jennifer Turpin have generously contributed to the development of Aqueous Landscapes studio. Works Cited GANSW. Connecting with Country. Issue no. 2, 2023. https://www.governmentarchitect.nsw. gov.au/resources/ga/media/files/ga/case-studies/connecting-with-country-framework. pdf ?la=en Grosz, Elizabeth. Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Real and Virtual Space. MIT Press, 2001. Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, 2016.

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Lowe, Kevin, Skrebneva, Iliana, Burgess, Cathie, Harrison, Neil, & Vass, Greg. “Towards an Australian Model of Culturally Nourishing Schooling.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 53.4 (2021): 1–15. Tsing, Anna. “Arts of Inclusion, or How to Love a Mushroom.” Mānoa 22.2 (2010): 191–203. Van Dooren, Thom, Kirksey, Eben, & Münster, Ursula. “Multispecies Studies: Cultivating Arts of Attentiveness.” Environmental Humanities 8.1 (2016): 1–23.

14 BUILDING BELOVED COMMUNITY THROUGH THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON’S NEHEMIAH INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIO Rachel Berney, Branden Born, and Donald King

The Nehemiah Interdisciplinary Studio at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments (CBE) is a collaboration between the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle (Initiative) and the College. The Initiative’s purpose is to assist Black churches and institutions in the Seattle area in re-envisioning and redeveloping their property assets to meet their longterm goals and help prevent displacement (Born et al.). The CBE comprises five departments: Architecture, Construction Management, Landscape Architecture, Real Estate, and Urban Design & Planning (UDP). It hosts regular interdisciplinary Built Environment studios (BE studios), which require a teaching team representing at least two departments; students from all departments may enroll. Community-engaged practices and projects feature heavily in CBE classes and studios. We strive to build beneficial and transparent relationships with community members, students, and faculty to support community groups’ work and students’ development. In the Nehemiah Interdisciplinary Studio, engagement is focused on outreach and conversations with the clients – pastors and their leadership teams. Students discuss with the clients what information is needed to support conversations with their congregations, and then develop that material. The Nehemiah Studio runs in the autumn as a BE Studio funded by the McKinley Futures Endowment and the CBE. It primarily draws students from Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Real Estate, and UDP. The instructors are faculty from UDP, Architecture, and Real Estate. Volunteer mentors from the City of Seattle and Seattle’s development and non-profit housing sectors provide further support. Studio learning objectives support the development of interdisciplinary education and skills that translate into students’ postgraduate work experiences. In studio, interdisciplinary teams take on several learning objectives, including (1) conducting precedent, site, and market analyses for specific development sites, including concerns and requirements of land use, zoning, transportation planning, urban design, and other city requirements; (2) crafting and presenting design, planning, and development recommendations, including real estate, architectural, landscape architectural, and urban design and planning concerns; and (3) increasing knowledge of working with students from other disciplines and clients that may represent different communities than the students. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-18

94  Rachel Berney, Branden Born, and Donald King

FIGURE 14.1 Proposed

combined building housing Ebenezer AME Zion Church and Meredith Matthews East Madison Y, facing East along 23rd ave. (Source: McKinley Futures Nehemiah studio 2019.)

The successful results of an interdisciplinary student team’s efforts are demonstrated in Figures 14.1–14.3. The students collaborated with two clients with adjoining properties who agreed to envision a joint project. Students engage culture and society through the studio to build professional skills and broaden competencies. As part of a pre-development team serving a Black institutional client, students support developing and preserving Black cultural spaces and belonging. By partnering to offer student training and expertise, the CBE and its students support redistributive justice and clients directing their own redevelopment projects (Berney 211). The Nehemiah Studio provides training that supports interdisciplinary education and practice. This includes formal training through regular desk critiques, and more casual exercises, such as instructors and students working together to define key terms and identify how the different disciplines use them. Our intercultural communication training supports student connections with one another and their clients. This training and practice help shape the students as professionals with skill sets that prepare them to work with diverse communities. The studio supports team building through in-class sessions, including CBE Dean Renée Cheng’s “Equitable Practice” seminar and Dr. Mark R. Jones’s Heard-Seen-Loved training. Both experiences introduce students to and help them practice intercultural communication. These trainings help student teams work better together, engage effectively with instructors, and connect with clients. Increasing students’ knowledge and understanding allows them to confront equity considerations and partner with clients with nonprofit status, specific social

FIGURE 14.2  Programming

for Ebenezer AME Zion Church and Meredith Matthews East Madison Y building. yellow (medium tone) is the Y, red (dark tone) is the church, and green (light tone) is shared space.(Source: McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio 2019.)

Building Beloved Community  95

FIGURE 14.3 Shared

space on a visible southwest corner of the site with separate entrances for the church and Y. (Source: McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio 2019.)

objectives, and considerable financial constraints. The student teams can elucidate client needs and desires through the training, interview preparation, and practice. Figures 14.4 and 14.5 visualize client needs and desires synthesized by student teams in consultation with clients. In a 2021 survey of Nehemiah Studio alumni, respondents highlighted the value of their interdisciplinary and real-world experiences in the studio. They increased their abilities to

FIGURE 14.4 Opportunities

and challenges facing Greater Mt. Baker Baptist Church. (Source: McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio 2019.)

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FIGURE 14.5  Damascus

International Fellowship Baptist Church programming addresses a busy street with a mix of housing types that increases density within a historic neighborhood. (Source: McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio 2020.)

deal with complexity and fast timelines. They appreciated the formal and informal support and opportunities to work on team building through training, assignments, and feedback. They also frequently mentioned their appreciation of the expertise, responsibilities, and roles played by teammates from other disciplines. As an experimental, interdisciplinary studio with many moving parts, we have experienced successes and challenges. We have provided nine Black Churches and one Blackserving institution with pre-development services, enhancing their ability to move their projects forward with the city, developers, and funders. Other successes include effective intercultural communication training. The alumni survey reflected an appreciation for Cheng’s and Jones’ sessions, and alumni reflected on how crucial intercultural communication is for them as a skill that serves them well in their professional work. Given their current positions in architectural practice, students who did not take the Equitable Practice seminar reflected in the survey that they wished they had. Some of the challenges are time-related. Our studio is one academic quarter (10 weeks). Achieving a conceptual development design and financing scheme is difficult in that time frame. Also, the studio runs once a year, so there is a lag between studios in which clients may feel less supported. A challenge for architecture students is that they delve less deeply into building design development than they would in an architecture-specific studio. But, in return, they get an in-depth experience in the cost and timeline to develop the site. Figures 14.6 and 14.7 demonstrate the design synthesis of architectural, landscape architectural, and urban design considerations to support church activities and affordable housing. The basis for the Nehemiah Studio is a university-community collaboration focused on preventing displacement, empowering community-based groups to promote their own change and building beloved community (Born et al.). All groups involved – students, faculty, mentors, and clients – recognize the transformational potential of interdisciplinary, team-based, real-world learning within a context of collaboration and intercultural communication (Berney et al.). Despite continued challenges of un-inclusive educational and professional spaces, our work reveals that professional, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary work coupled with intercultural communication holds promise for changing classrooms and workplaces (Berney et al.). And while studio courses are resource-consuming, students, faculty, and administrators recognize the potential and appropriateness of engaging with this type of work.

Building Beloved Community  97

FIGURE 14.6 Greater

Mt. Baker Baptist Church’s housing-intensive proposal features 301 units for seniors, veterans, and others on fixed incomes. The sanctuary stands independently but can be combined with a multi-purpose space. (Source: McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio 2019.)

Most Nehemiah Studio survey respondents felt there are benefits to integrating interdisciplinary efforts in design education and practice, including hard and soft skills that help them be better and more responsive designers. We see interdisciplinary training and practice as essential. We are helping to ensure that students from different disciplines and identities (race, gender, and so forth) develop the ability to practice careful listening and communication. Building these skills is necessary and desirable for design education and practice (Berney et al.). We know that well-functioning multi-disciplinary teams are more productive than other team arrangements and interdisciplinary teamwork lies at the heart of architectural education and practice. The Nehemiah Studio experience is uniquely positioned to contribute to architectural education. Acknowledgments

Many CBE faculty work on the CBE-NI collaboration, including Dean Renée Cheng and Affiliate Instructor of Real Estate, Al Levine. Thanks also to Nehemiah Initiative Officers, Dr. Mark R. Jones and Aaron Fairchild; studio mentor Hal Ferris; and Jan and Dave McKinley.

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FIGURE 14.7 Open

space concepts for Greater Mt. Baker Baptist Church creating courtyards for church and resident use, and connections to a neighborhood slow street and blockwide pedestrian network.

(Source: McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio 2019.)

Works Cited Berney, Rachel. “Whose City? Invitations and Imaginaries and the Nehemiah Initiative’s Example for Seattle.” Just Urban Design: The Struggle for a Public City, edited by Kian Goh, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, and Vinit Mukhija, 2022 Cambridge: The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/ mitpress/13982.001.0001 Berney, Rachel, Born, Branden, Cheng, Renée, Jones, Mark R., King, Donald, Levine, Al, & Choi, Sunho, and Yuyi Wang. “Advancing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion through Studio Pedagogy.” Under review. Born, Branden, Berney, Rachel, Baker, Olivia, Jones, Mark R., King, Donald, & Marcus, Dylan. “Pushing Back on Displacement: Community-Based Redevelopment Through Historically Black Churches.” Societies 11,10, 2021. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11010010 McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio. Building Beloved Community: Envisioning Thriving Futures for Black Churches in Seattle’s Central District. Seattle: University of Washington, 2019 & 2020. Available at www.nehemiahinitiativeseattle.org/the-nehemiah-studio

15 INTEGRATED STUDIO Trade-offs as a Mechanism for Collaboration Ann Marie Borys and Carrie Sturts Dossick

Introduction

Integration across the disciplines is difficult to achieve as students need to quickly learn to work across disciplinary differences. Without formal interdisciplinary teaching, students self-navigate the challenges of cross-disciplinary collaboration with mixed learning outcomes due to entrenched disciplinary misperceptions. In our decades-long collaboration, we have found that without scaffolding, these disciplinary differences can be negatively reinforced and the students do not achieve the collaboration learning we sought to provide. Faculty from the Departments of Architecture and Construction Management at the University of Washington have developed an integrated studio, where faculty and students from architecture, construction management, and allied disciplines work together to develop and deliver design proposals using an integrated design approach as seen in integrated forms of project delivery such as Design-Build and Integrated Project Delivery. To create an integrated experience that fits into disciplinary program structures, the integrated studio evolved into a studio-seminar pairing, where architecture students register for a 6-credit studio course while construction management students register for a 3-credit seminar. Teams consist of three or four studio students that meet three times a week and are joined by two to four seminar students once a week. The course is organized in three cycles – massing, structure, and detail – each lasting 3–4 weeks in duration. In each cycle, the student teams consistently compare two or more alternatives. Collaboration learning goals are to integrate technical analysis early into the design; to learn about each other’s processes and disciplines; and to apply their own expertise in an interdisciplinary context. To scaffold learning, studio students present on collaboration practices from assigned readings, and then the whole team develops a partnering agreement with shared goals, individual goals, communication protocols, and dispute-resolution procedures. This process engages teams in an early open discussion, allowing communication dynamics to emerge. Throughout the quarter, faculty and students reflect on these collaboration goals –what is working well and what needs to be changed or improved. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-19

100  Ann Marie Borys and Carrie Sturts Dossick

This essay focuses on how design alternative analysis supports social interaction across the disciplines. Students in undergraduate architecture design studios usually practice an incremental process of developing a chosen concept. But in approaching design as interdisciplinary and collaborative, we instead emphasize the analysis of trade-offs between alternative design concepts and key technical requirements. Below we present two studio projects that illustrate how the teams’ analysis of trade-offs between two or more alternatives helped them organize and integrate their work, learn how their knowledge relates to other fields, and learn from each other. The trade-off analysis scaffolded the students’ technical integration by creating a focal point of discussion and a shared multi-faceted problem. This allowed students to see how their own work related to a wider spectrum of design priorities on a project by writing and drawing the results of the analysis together and discovering the trade-offs across disciplines. Academic Building for STEM Disciplines

In 2018, the studio project was a new academic building for the University of Washington Bothell (UWB) campus. As a common reference point, students were given an in-depth account of a “benchmark building” – in this case, the recently completed Discovery Hall at UWB. The design and technical information set by the benchmark allowed students to engage questions and develop informed goals for structure and sustainability that would require technical analysis from the seminar students. In this example, Team 4 chose three shared goals, and they were able to enumerate several ways that each one influenced the final design (Figure 15.1).

FIGURE 15.1  Goals

diagram with notes on project realizations. (Diagram by A. Peabody, A. Purnapuspita, J. Thackray, and J. Thurman.)

Integrated Studio  101

FIGURE 15.2  Comparison

of solar exposure and circulation for two massing alternatives. (Diagram by A. Peabody, A. Purnapuspita, J. Thackray, and J. Thurman.)

The teams’ presentation of two equally developed proposals in a comparative manner for their first two reviews built skills in the analysis of critical factors for shared decisionmaking. This requirement discouraged any individual sense of “ownership” of the project design, assured that everyone had something to contribute, and allowed the team to evaluate proposals systematically. In this example, the team explored massing alternatives with a seminar student conducting daylighting analysis and the whole team debating the strengths and weaknesses of the alternatives by comparing circulation and daylighting considerations (Figure 15.2). Students recognized the value of different disciplinary perspectives in creating a more sophisticated design. In Cycle 2, seminar students investigated various material options and shared their analysis of cost, schedule, and constructability. The design team began façade material studies with visual and contextual criteria foremost. The considerations brought in by seminar students, such as cost, transportation, and other logistical factors, were increasingly incorporated into decision-making for the whole team (Figure 15.3). By using these team decision-making processes, students learned to see design as more malleable, as a synthesis of a wide variety of factors and decisions rather than a linear progression from idea to form. Along the way, they also improved their skills in giving and receiving constructive criticism, and they were required to articulate issues of time management.

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FIGURE 15.3 Analysis

of costs for elements of the building envelope. (Graph by R. Iwafuchi, J. Xu, J. Edwards, and J. Dapper’s; Tabular comparison by A. Peabody, A. Purnapuspita, J. Thackray, and J. Thurman.)

Modular Construction for Mid-Rise Residential Building

In 2013, the studio took up the exploration of design opportunities for urban infill that leveraged modular construction. The program included a mid-rise market-rate apartment building in South Lake Union with a site-built podium and modular tower. The students were given the results of an interdisciplinary study on modular construction (Modular 2013). In the massing comparison assignment, the students weighed, debated, and discussed the concept of the market value of apartments and commercial programs, and construction costs, with the more intangible value of building design concepts (Figure 15.4).

FIGURE 15.4 Analysis

of massing options. (Drawings by M. Deng, J. Duckowitz, D. Dunagan, A. Fu, C. Hartwigsen, M. Kinsman, A. M. Ochoa, and C. Wu.)

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FIGURE 15.5 Analysis

of façade system alternatives construction costs. (Drawings and charts by M. Deng, J. Duckowitz, D. Dunagan, A. Fu, C. Hartwigsen, M. Kinsman, A. M. Ochoa, and C. Wu.)

In Cycle 2, student teams explored façade design with goals for higher energy efficiency and moderate construction costs. Teams explored a variety of trade-offs in this cycle from whole building scale questions such as the construction cost impacts of increased corners in the façade, to more detailed analysis of specific building systems (Figure 15.5). In these studies, the student teams talked together about materials and design implications of specific building systems. In this façade system example, industry advisors suggested that more corners increased the cost of a façade, so the team set out to quantify the impact by analyzing several conceptual alternatives, deciding together which materials and types of “corners” they wanted to study. Likewise, the study of window systems required the team to integrate their disciplinary knowledge in understanding the alternatives. With a spider diagram technique, the team was able to select the dimensions of performance they wanted to compare and to see how one element interrelates with the others (Figure 15.6). For instance, while one system was lower cost, it was determined to also be lower in aesthetics and durability. The trade-offs helped the team integrate their work together in a meaningful way that supported their rationale for design decision-making. From massing through the final cycle, which we called Deep Dive, the trade-off analysis provided the teams a mechanism to bring their various expertise, research, and design exploration together. This scaffolded team design decision-making toward a final unified design by providing the team clear rationale for their choices (Figure 15.7).

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FIGURE 15.6 Analysis

of window system alternatives with spider diagram. (Images by C. Tritt, M. Hovhannisyan, F. Weinker, K. Sistek, M. Leigh, and U.C. Lei.)

FIGURE 15.7 Final proposal and summary of design development. (Images by C. Tritt, M. Hov-

hannisyan, F. Weinker, K. Sistek, M. Leigh, and U.C. Lei.)

Integrated Studio  105

Conclusion

In this essay, we shared two studio examples from a decade-long partnership between architecture and construction management in an integrated studio. Learning goals around collaboration and integrated design are at the fore in this course: complex projects require more expertise than a single individual can master, and it takes collaboration and leadership to pull it all together; design with knowledge of where significant cost implications will emerge avoids later re-design and needless waste; design with knowledge of material and constructability issues will ultimately be more unified and intelligible. Students learned how to conduct an analysis of design alternatives at key decision points for the issues that they prioritize; they learned to document their decisions, articulating the trade-offs on those issues in a clear manner as an integral part of their design process. Over the years of studio development, the faculty have found the mechanism of comparing alternatives and analysis of trade-offs to be an effective scaffold for student learning to integrate their knowledge across divergent disciplines of architecture, engineering, and construction management. Through the three-cycle structure of the studio project, students have been able to practice integration, repeating the processes for three shared deliverables. We have seen the team collaboration mature as students learned how to integrate their knowledge together through visual techniques – such as spider diagrams and the use of color – and the integration of charts and diagrams with architectural representation. This structure and the alternative analysis approach have allowed students to advance individual aspects within a project and then integrate their work through its participation in the shared goals and priorities established from the start. Acknowledgments

We want to acknowledge all of the faculty and students who have participated in the integrated studio. In particular, we thank Kate Simonen, faculty in the UW Department of Architecture for her thought partnership and teaching in these studios and some of the materials presented in this chapter. Works Cited Modular Prefabricated Residential Construction: Constraints & Opportunities (2013), CERC Technical Report #TR002, https://cerc.be.uw.edu/2016/07/28/modular-prefabricated-residentialconstruction-constraints-opportunities-2013/

16 THE STORY OF A SEMI-SCIENTIST Lydia Kallipoliti

When working on my PhD at Princeton University, I embarked on a pilgrimage to interview the late anarchist architect Graham Caine. He built a remarkable self-sufficient house equipped with anaerobic digesters, solar storage, and custom-tailored toilets for methane generation outside of London, as a living experiment for himself, his family, and the underground group Street Farmers, of which he was a member in the 1970s. My own journey was in 2007, and at that point, it was hard to find Caine; even harder to visit him. As he later explained, he had intentionally withdrawn from the tentacles of society and only used a landline and email occasionally in a village near Ronda, Spain. I located him after visiting the AA in London, where Caine studied but never graduated, and sought his former tutor who had retired. After a long trip – from Princeton to JFK, a flight to Malaga via Zurich, a bus to Ronda, and then a donkey ride to his village – I spent three days with Caine in his house. It was a closed world he had carefully constructed, sealed off from the exterior world, both materially and mentally. My days with Caine influenced me profoundly, not only in consolidating my research in the exhibition and book The Architecture of Closed Worlds, Or, What is the Power of Shit (Kallipoliti) but also in understanding and accepting that my position as an architect and educator (as it would later develop) is inherently interdisciplinary. This was not really a choice for me – as an architectural historian and scholar with a background in engineering and building science – but an inevitability. Like Caine, I could not but delve with precision into the technical details of “how things work”, but driven by the motivation to alter social dynamics and power regimes in an enlarged cultural context. As philosopher of technology, Langdon Winner argued, “no idea is more provocative in controversies about technology and society than the notion that technical things have political qualities” (Winner, p.251). I was originally drawn to Caine’s Ecological House, because it was in many ways a striking illustration of how architecture intersects with climate change. In his diagrams, Caine portrayed himself and his family as guinea pigs to test the function of several components of the house. He experimented with his waste, his cooking habits, his use of water, monitoring closely every activity of daily practice until the day the house was demolished in 1974. The architect, therefore, was an indispensable biological part of the house he built and portrayed DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-20

The Story of a Semi-Scientist  107

himself as a combustion engine for generating electricity, connected to the house in a diagram where excretion was a vital constituent of the system’s sustenance. Describing his house as a life-support system, Caine satirically argued that the architect now being involved with the house’s biological cycles may now relate to his own shit. (Caine) Despite the extensive coverage of the press on the Ecological House, as well as the massive logistical and administrative struggle to acquire permission of using public land as an experimental facility, Caine failed his final examinations at the AA and never received his diploma as an architect. In his final presentation (the house was his thesis at the AA), he did not present any architectural drawings. He did present, however, endless arrays of scientific diagrams and tables monitoring in excruciating detail the performance of interconnected machines, as well as sketches that envisioned an alternative political reality. Caine had numerous tables with the altitude of the sun’s zenith, spectral transmittance diagrams with glass, Teflon, weatherable mylar and polythene, measurements for the optimum pitch of glasshouse angles, and diagrams of energy wavelength spectrums. Although Caine envisioned his analyses as a crusade for the individual’s political liberation, the jury could never quite forgive the obliteration of an “architectural middle ground” as recognized by conventional representation formats. When Caine was asked to recollect this story, he was comically apathetic to his deprivation of the architect’s certified title. “This was normal at the time. They could give you funding for a project they believed in, but they could not risk giving a degree to someone like me, interested more in biology than in drawings” (Author’s interview with Caine in 2007). Even though Caine failed his AA thesis exams, the next day after his presentation, he was hired by the AA as an instructor. The story of the Eco-House in South London raises a significant disciplinary paradox. It was an experimental laboratory sponsored by the Environmental Council of London and a house that compelled the public’s imagination as well as the interest of the popular press; it raised hopes for an alternative sustainable occupation of the urban sphere. At the same time, it was rejected and criticized by the architectural community for its lack of canonical references to core disciplinary conventions: investigations on form, proportions, and spatial syntax. Alvin Boyarski and Martin Pawley at the AA recognized this critical moment of disciplinary outreach, thinking of the Eco-house as a spatial tool for social reform propelled by scientific investigations, rather than a project fostering technological supremacy. Caine poignantly characterized all his experiments as a kind of “semi-science”: a calculated scientific methodology driven by political motivations to overturn the very structure of societal structures. In fact, Caine had little, if any, interest in the optimization of results and the servicing of the grid’s supplies. The Ecological House was never intended as an ecological remedy for environmental catastrophes. It was neither a tool of ethical restoration in design thinking nor a technical solution to solace environmental problems. Rather, it was at once an ontological and scientific problem, binding in a single space, numbers along with a vision for a new society. At first sight, “semi-science” might sound derogatory, like something half-baked, which is neither validated by the discipline of architecture nor by purely scientific parameters. And yet, this deep dive simultaneously into different realms of expertise is precisely what we should do. In the context of interconnected global crises, namely, the health crisis, social inequity, and the depletion of natural resources, it is important to not only devise

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technical solutions that are effective, but also to assume responsibility for architecture’s political, social, ecological, and social agency, as a direct response to the urgency of the climate crisis. This is most likely what Caine would have wanted us to do: to espouse interdisciplinarity with a political leitmotif. It is critical to question the managerial ethics and transactional logics of scientific methodologies that are hidden behind the regimes of efficiency and optimization; the breeding of what sociologist and urbanist William H. Whyte coined as “the organization man in 1956” (Whyte), a term which consolidates the calculated and efficient modern subject. But to do so, one must know the science; otherwise, resistance and change are suspended in the sphere of speculation. The turn of environmental discourses almost exclusively to the technical dimension in the past decades prevents their examination in philosophical, social, and political terms, which could reflect on new collectivities and living patterns in the built environment and the urban sphere. In a very broad sense, the main objective of the courses I teach at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union is to understand architecture as part of larger complex systems, be those cultural, social, ecological, economic, or political. With my students we question mainstream perceptions of sustainable metric systems, as technical classification tools that empower capitalist production, creating new revenue sources veiled by the ethics of environmentalism. We analyze, design, and reinvent built environments not only as aesthetic and formal artifacts, but also as new natures; not only in physiological exchange with the existing environment, but also as new productive environments which challenge and affect the existing climate. While delving into engineering facts, we mediate climate knowledge also through the aesthetic qualities of designed environments, with the underlying premise that architecture has a particular capacity to work on and through its physical, and material specificity to make sensible and immediate the reality of climate change. The immediate and easy assumption that once there is a crisis, there is also an immediate solution to this crisis and is convoluted if not futile. When a crisis is so multi-dimensional and weaved in so many parameters of culture, it is not prolific to address it at face value. One might need first to invent novel ways to engage with the problem itself and understand the diversity of its facets. This regression into the story of Graham Caine was used as a catalyst to approach contemporary questions of decarbonization and the reshaping of architectural pedagogy. Going back, regressing into my visceral encounter with Caine’s world of “semi-science”, hopefully brings to the forefront a side road: a reroute into the unconscious of the climate crisis. The story of the “semi-scientist” only provides questions and not any answers or solutions to problems; yet, just forcing one to think and act in daily small diversions, is what might constitute change. Works Cited Caine, Graham. “A Revolutionary Structure.” OZ, no. 45, Nov. 1972, pp. 12–13. Caine, Graham. Author Conversation. Interview by Lydia Kallipoliti, 8 Jan. 2007. Kallipoliti, Lydia. The Architecture of Closed Worlds: Or, What Is the Power of Shit? Lars Müller Publishers/Storefront for Art and Architecture, 2018. Whyte, William H. The Organization Man. Simon & Schuster, 1956. Winner, Langdon. The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. 1st ed., University of Chicago Press, 1989.

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All images that follow are from Lydia’s Kallipoliti’s courses taught at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union.

FIGURE 16.1 Student:

Doosung Shin. (Project: MICROCLIMATES. Course: Graduate Design Studio [Spring 2020].)

This image monitors the construction of indoor micro-ecologies to reinvent the psychrometric chart that analyzes and distributes the properties of air content. Living 90% of our lives indoors has proliferated as a modality of living and working in New York City since the early 1980s. With the allusion to comfort, the climatically controlled interior reflects the hubris of late-modern capitalism in the heightened combination of entertainment and ecology within the place of work and the domestic interior. The design and reinvention of the psychrometric chart are not seen explicitly as an engineering problem, but as one that expands the agency of design to health, interspecies coexistence, and environmental equity for diverse bodies occupying inhabitable spaces.

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FIGURE 16.2 Student:

Sanjana Lahiri. (Project: Vegetable Chowder. Course: Elective Seminar “Edible, or the Architecture of Metabolism” [Spring 2021].)

This project is premised on companion planting, an idea that originated from the Indigenous Iroquois group, whose story of the Three Sisters spoke of how certain plants could be grown together to create a micro-ecosystem for mutual benefit. The drawing depicts five plants grown using the companion method that forms the ingredients of a vegetable chowder: corn provides a structure for beans to grow, while beans capture nitrogen from the air and release it into the soil for other plants; fallen corn leaves become fertilizer for potatoes; potatoes repel the Mexican bean beetle, while beans repel the Colorado potato beetle; chives and the cilantro attract beneficial pollinators into the system.

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FIGURES 16.3 AND 16.4  Student:

Foivos Geralis (Title: Denaturalizing Still-Lifes. Course: Elective Seminar “Edible, or the Architecture of Metabolism” [Spring 2021].) (Continued)

In Baroque still-life paintings, food was associated with territorial sovereignty, where excessive food compositions coexisted with cartographies and models of globes. This coexistence reveals the artificiality of still-lifes as assembled food landscapes: collections of plants, fruits, lavish meat, and sea-food, all from different seasons, environments, and places of the world. Today, similar synthetic and transglobal assemblages can be found in hydroponics stacks, climatically controlled environments, GMOs, and new forms of 3D printed or grown food in petri dishes. By reconfiguring baroque still-lifes with contemporary iconography of food, cultivation environments, and cartographic models, the drawings aim to bring into question the denaturalization of food and its relationship to the geopolitics of its production.

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FIGURES 16.3 AND 16.4 (Continued)

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FIGURE 16.5  Students:

MC Love and Gus Craine. (Title: Urine Bar. Course: Environments [Fall 2021].)

This bar utilizes human urine to brew a recreational drink. Urine is processed in a sanitation tank and separated into fertilizer and water content. Human excrements become nutrients for the soil and enable the growth of corn and yeast which in turn are used for the distillation of beverages. The toilet, therefore, becomes a central space for the social dynamics of the space. Designing infrastructural machines that recycle waste to energy as inhabitable living spaces, the premise is that humans could coexist with the material consequences of their living processes.

PART II

Integrating Disciplines: Speculations across Past, Current, and Future Models in Practice

17 LEARNING FROM PRACTICE – OR PRACTICE LEARNING FROM EDUCATION Julie Ju-Youn Kim

In Architecture and Engineering in Environmental Education (1972), Bill Hillier shares reflections on what he called thing-based engineers and architects as two distinct groups, referring to their differing areas of focus and bases. He goes on to suggest that, We need environmentalist architects and design-oriented engineers, and when we have them, we will call them by the same name, because each, from a different base, and with a different focus, will be concerned with generating knowledge and solving problems in the relationship between human beings and their physical environment. (Hillier 117, italics added) If we were to accept Hillier’s argument, then this suggests we impose limits by bracketing ourselves by our discipline. In reality, however, our fundamental concerns are our shared aims of generating knowledge and solving problems between humans and the built environment. In other words, it is less important to stake ownership as architects do this and engineers do that. My reading of Hillier is that insisting on delineating – of staying inside the lines – imposes false limits on our intellectual and creative capacity. If we dispel the narrow limits of a pre-defined role, our partnerships in collaborative engagement carry the potential to establish innovative hybrid models with the possibility of leading to greater outcomes. The very nature of interdisciplinary collaborations is defined as forays between and among disciplines. As architects, we hold the potential to expand beyond our own disciplinary expertise – the elasticity to think vertically as well as horizontally – bringing that to the foreground of solving problems and seeking solutions. Herbert Simon’s offers his take on vertical thinking with this assertion, “We are importing and exporting from one intellectual discipline to another ideas about how…a human being…solves problems and achieves goals in outer environments of great complexity” (Simon, 138). In alignment with Hillier’s assertion, architects hold the potential to think and operate between disciplines and among disciplines. Let’s return for a moment to the space of the education and the role the academy plays in setting a framework for future leaders in the profession. The aim of most, maybe all, DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-22

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professional degree programs is to prepare students to be competitive, skilled, and versed in, well, professional practice. Allow me to be deliberately provocative here. Are professional degree programs forward-thinking, and, by extension, is professional practice likewise forwardthinking enough? Certainly, programs like the Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) define a strict conduit between the academic space and the professional one. With specific pressures like IPAL as well as those imposed by the normative external accreditation review, does this then compel programs, in turn, to churn out students who can competently and capably navigate conventional professional practice but are not necessarily equipped to aggressively and assertively initiate or lead necessary change to address big global challenges? Yet, one of the core values shared by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), The American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), and the National Council of Architectural Registration Board (NCARB) centers on knowledge and innovation. This notion of advancing knowledge and innovation suggests a rich and generous space that allows risky experimentation. We know, however, in reality, that risk is a double-edged sword. In other words, we want to test the limits but are equally constrained by external and internal limitations. Herein lies the tension. If we embrace and welcome this pressure, the question facing us is how might we shape our professional degree programs to prepare our students – the next set of leaders in practice – to boldly impact critical change in the profession. The profession itself is arguably slow to change. Likewise, the lines between building and construction can seem unyielding. In her reflections on the relationship between education and practice, Renee Chow points to the intractable links between architecture education, external accreditation, and professional licensure. She underscores the tensions that educators are caught between – that is, are we teaching for the profession or are we teaching to address complex challenges and current crises? Returning to another core value shared by NAAB, AIA, ACSA, and NCARB, lifelong learning is embedded in the practice of architecture – lifelong learning then is a shared endeavor between the academy and practice. Yet, why are the worlds of the academy and of practice often perceived in a binary opposition? I recognize that design problems framed in the academic studio tend to be hypothetical. It is a “fiction” – but the problems are “real” and students test solutions against set parameters. Through these exercises, the expectation is that students hone and sharpen skills in design thinking and applying that design thinking toward coherent and resolved spatial propositions. In practice, additional pressures of budget and client inputs differentiate and complicate the design problem. Between the academy and practice, however, we share the concern for solving problems in our built environment. It is worth considering how we may operate in this collective space for bold and risky experimentation in the pursuit of advancing knowledge and innovation – in practice and in education. And, we bring these endeavors together through the lens of interdisciplinarity. Design studios and interdisciplinarity are both well-represented in scholarship. However, the relationship between practice and education specifically considering interdisciplinarity in practice in relation to education is nascent territory. The incisive reflections of Nader Tehrani, Billie Faircloth, Meejin Yoon, and Alan Organschi on the capacity for practice to stretch the limits on what constitutes professional practice prompt questions in my own mind about the perceived, or real, constraints of external accreditation processes and the role these play in imposing boundaries on pedagogy and, by extension, on practice. I wonder where and how professional degree programs may deliberately question the lines – to skirt

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the boundaries. I wonder about the bridge that may be strengthened between the academic studio and the professional one – and how we may establish relevant and reciprocal models of curricula that exploit the shared space between the academy and practice. It is a critical part of education to learn from precedent and other external references. This is not to copy what has been done previously. Rather, the aim here is to build one’s own understanding of intention and of the design-thinking process with the hope to import that understanding into one’s own efforts. The case studies and essays in this section offer critical and provocative lenses, learning from history while forging inventive and creative roles for the architect. Gray Organschi Architecture, KieranTimberlake, Höweler + Yoon, and NADAAA represent models of practice that challenge the status quo. They invest in risky experimentation, redefining and redescribing the conventional frame of professional practice – skillfully stitching connections between the arenas of practice and education. They operate in the world of “both/and” with seamless reciprocity between teaching and doing. Organschi explicitly points to the realization that the practice must be more “disciplined” about their discipline – and by doing so, enabling them to pursue the rich cross section of interconnected practices of design, research, and building. Pushing the perceived limits of the profession, Gray Organschi engages in conventional forms of practice that are equally informed by adjacent activities aligned with broader ambitious interdisciplinary partnerships and transdisciplinary strategic initiatives. In her essay, Billie Faircloth offers a diarist approach to recalling the evolution of KieranTimberlake as an “architectural practice that is also a design research practice and a transdisciplinary design research practice”. Faircloth shares reflections on the roles of the architect relative to generating and building knowledge relative to differing process models of research. She challenges the perceived disconnect between “researchers” and “architects”, insisting on open reciprocity, resisting labels, and affirming inquiry at the edges of architectural knowledge. For both Organschi and Faircloth, challenging the norms of practice stretches the boundaries of their own respective offices in impactful and meaningful ways. Both effectively expand the conversation around the roles of the architect as practitioner, educator, and, yes, researcher to encompass strategic and tactical thinking. I admire the clear direction and vision for the future of architectural education and practice evidenced in the inventive and relevant work of J. Meejin Yoon and Nader Tehrani. Yoon refers to the legacy of MIT, the first school of architecture, and advances the trajectory between computing, visual arts, and building technology in two impactful projects from her practice. She cleverly aligns the traditions of applied research in building technology with speculative research at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Yoon expertly blends physics, logistics, and efficiencies in equivalent measures to culture, perception, and imagination – advancing important interdisciplinary work. Nader Tehrani offers an important lens into a pedagogical practice sharing design methodologies that inform the design of three different schools of architecture – and the role of the interdisciplinary ambitions of each school played in shaping the very physical spaces for collaboration, research, education, and practice. Both an architect and an educator, Tehrani pushes the envelope on limits in roles, budgets, programming, and approach, resulting in inspired and relevant work that places the architect as a choreographer, strategist, visionary, and teacher squarely in the middle. He reminds us that the physical space matters – that material attributes and spatial relationships hold the capacity to foster and support interdisciplinary collaborative practice. Referring to lessons

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from history, Gretchen Wilkins echoes this very question of the role of the space and its potential impact on the productive activities of design, evidenced in the legacy of Eero Saarinen in his body of work of labs and schools. Emerging and experimental practices – Max Kuo’s ALLTHATISSOLID, Andrew Witt’s Certain Measures, Maya Alam’s A/P Practice, and noa* – invite us to consider the roles history, computation, design, and representation can play to strengthen interdisciplinary methodologies. Their work asks us to question conventional modus operandi with an open mind embracing alternative methods of design thinking and execution. The model of practice established by noa* highlights the need for multiple disciplines to work in concert to address the complexity of problems facing the world. They allude to the shared problem requiring multiple disciplinary expertise to effectively address them together, urging universities to actively lay a foundation for interdisciplinary discourse and practice, preparing students to be effective leaders in the profession. This is not a new thought – in fact, this very same sentiment is echoed in nearly every chapter of this book. Kuo, Witt, and Alam straddle realms of practice and the academy where activities in one inform those in the other. Through their work, they each invite us to reconsider common design processes and implementation through those very lenses of practice and, yes, of education. These are inextricably linked. Rozana Montiel’s manifesto is a call to remind us that each project is an opportunity to challenge assumptions about conventions, roles, and approaches. Aligned with the themes proposed by Witt, Kuo, Alam, and noa*, Montiel urges the reader to consider the opportunities interdisciplinary practice allows – enables us, even – to borrow knowledge, tools, and expertise from others. Rosemary Ross Johnston frames the relationship between research and knowledge. …research is obviously concerned with knowledge, but…the crucial aspect of this knowledge is that it re-interprets existing knowledge and ideas, and this reinterpretation in some ways changes understanding. The arts construct and bring together (as a novel, as a painting, as a piece of music, as theatre) multiple sites of looking again, multiple sites of reinterpretation, and multiple ways of comprehending the world. (Johnston 232, italics added) The multiplicity of looking again, reinterpreting, and comprehending – this also describes the design. The diverse sets of practitioners and educators included in this section embody the elasticity required to smartly assess a situation and then determine how best to leverage the best possible outcomes. I admire these practitioners for their ability to shape interdisciplinary processes with ease, elegance, and skill. All of the voices, in fact, included in this publication extends the discussion in the most interesting ways and, through their examples, show us we have many lessons yet to learn. We learn from what others are doing, not to tell us what to do, but to import such understanding into our curricula and into our professional practices. It is worth returning to Nicolescu and his musings on disciplinary approaches. He states, …Today, there are hundreds of disciplines. How can a theoretical particle physicist truly hold a dialogue with a neurophysiologist, a mathematician with a poet, a biologist with an economist, a politician with a computer programmer, beyond mouthing more or less banal generalities? Yet, a true decision maker must be able to have a dialogue with them all at once.” (Nicolescu 41)

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Nicolescu muses, “is there something between and across disciplines and beyond all disciplines?” (Nicolescu, 44, italics added) In an earlier chapter1, I shared Nicolescu’s statements surrounding the challenges of discourse across or even within disciplines. I offered a counter-argument, suggesting that the intersections between different domains of knowledge are not empty – and that the role of introducing such interdiciplinary exercises in architecture education is key to the success of the next generation of architects. I would go on to add this claim – that is, the role of embracing such interdisciplinary endeavors in practice expands the role of the architect. Lessons from practice carry the potential to inform lessons in education. Advancing models for education, in turn, impacts models of practice. The role the architect plays is critical to the reciprocity between the profession and the academy. I reframe and extend Nicolescu’s question by replacing “something” with “someone” in this way. Is there someone between and across disciplines and beyond all disciplines who could be the true decision-maker, dialoguing with all disciplines at once? Could that someone be the architect? The collection of essays and case studies that follow suggest that the answer to that question is – yes. Note 1 In the chapter, Re-thinking Architecture Education, I refer to Basarab Nicolescu’s position on discourse across discipline. I return to this reference here to underscore my claim of the reciprocal nature and responsibilities between practice and education.

Works Cited Hillier, Bill. “Architecture and Engineering in Environmental Education.” Journal of Architectural Research and Teaching, Volume 2.2 (1972): 111–118. Johnston, Rosemary Ross. “On Connection and Community: Transdisciplinarity and the Arts.” Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. Ed. Nicolescu, Basarab. Creskill: Hampton Press Inc., 2002. 223–236. Nicolescu, Basarab. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

Provocation 01

18 MEANDERING TRANSDISCIPLINARY LANDS Billie Faircloth

Adrift in a Knowledge Producers’ Sea

In our work to expand the boundaries of architectural knowledge, some questions will take a lifetime to answer: What are the limits of architectural knowledge? Who produces architectural knowledge? Who benefits from the architectural knowledge produced and used? In truth, will a single answer materialize? Answers are hard to pin down as they continuously coalesce and sever through the murkiness of social, technical, ecological, and power relations. Truth upon truth, I use the word “architecture” when I mean our entire endeavor, exceptional though it may be, to design and construct human habitat through the fullest possible set of considerations (Faircloth, “Build” 6-9). However, in faith, I practice answering these questions daily, knowledge gap by knowledge gap, through a powerful research mode that is, for better or worse, muddled by the cryptic term transdisciplinary. In this essay, I describe how some scientific researchers have, and continue to, identify pathways for transdisciplinary knowledge-making; I associate these endeavors with the acceleration of architectural design research and comb through notes collected over fifteen years of pursuing transdisciplinarity in design practice. My observations hue loosely to forming, researching, collaborating, and affirming themes. They consider the case of a research-centered architectural practice, KieranTimberlake, whose firm-initiated research projects and work with institutions and communities demonstrates a longstanding commitment to inquiry, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and outcomes (Deutsch 217–220; Faircloth, “Searching”; Friedman 48–60). My understanding of how to apply transdisciplinarity, or what it means to be transdisciplined day in and day out, is likewise informed by research director, researcher, architect, educator, advocate, and collaborator roles. With my colleagues and students, I regularly navigate academic-, practice-, and industry-based research attitudes, especially those shaping collaborations on buildings, their meaning, materials, environments, boundaries, impacts, and value. My account should be relevant to landscape architects and urban, community, and regional planners. Our related practice fields, theoretically and professionally, abound in the arts, sciences, and humanities. While KieranTimberlake’s journey has yielded many DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-24

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insights and surprises, our experiences affirm and are affirmed by the reviews of other transdisciplinarians who wrestle with the continued uncertainty of transdisciplinary practice pathways (Aslin and Blackstock 121–125; Guimarães et al. 5–7). Transdisciplinarity could be a powerful working mode for architects, expanding our understanding of problems and solutions while training our profession’s collective focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation, human and ecological health and well-being, and equitable and just practices (American Institute of Architects, “AIA Strategic” 6). Epistemological challenges notwithstanding, a transdisciplinary approach is trust-bound in partnerships questioning the planetary value of knowledge. Disembarking on Transdisciplinarity

Transdisciplinary is not the same as single-, multi-, cross-, or inter-disciplinary (Mokiy 74–76; Stock and Burton 1101–1103). While it’s tempting to ask who cares about such distinctions, architects should care because these prefixes attempt to model how people organize to address problems, and the degree to which they exchange, combine and fuse what they know, their models, and expertise. Architects might empathize with people pursuing these distinctions when they perceive similarities to our profession’s endeavor to distinguish the values of Integrated Project Delivery (more like inter- and trans-) from design-bid-build (more like single- and multi-). We might also consider the prefix mal- as in mal-disciplinary, which attempts to connote how our individual views on knowledge sharing and synthesis are more likely to collide and conflict in collaborative work rather than perfectly conforming to these disciplinary models (Figure 18.1). Thus, these parsers of “disciplinary” challenge what we know, who knows what, and the power dynamics therein, with transdisciplinarity’s knowledge combining and synthesizing offering teams the potential for outcome-oriented work (Mitchell et al. 25). Interdisciplinary Studies Professor Julie Thompson Klein, in her essay Transdisciplinarity and Sustainability: Patterns of a Definition, offers a perspective at the inception of the practice: “The initial definition was “a common system of axioms for a set of disciplines” that transcends the narrow scope of the disciplinary worldviews through an overarching synthesis, exemplified by anthropology as a science of humans” (“Transdisciplinarity” 7). Klein envelopes the original definition (paraphrasing the early (1972) meaning by transdisciplinarian Erich Jantsch (105)) and expounds to provide us with a glimpse of understanding. If designers are to become transdisciplinarians, we are to eclipse the perspective of architecture, challenge and modify our discipline-view (which I suspect is much like a worldview) and allow new theories and ideas to emerge when we forge together various fields and methodologies. Patricia Leavy, in Essentials of Transdisciplinary Research, clarifies the term from the point of view of the social sciences, using a part-to-whole mental model that should resonate with our training in holistic approaches to architectural design: Transdisciplinarity is a social justice oriented approach to research in which resources and expertise from multiple disciplines are integrated in order to holistically address a real-world issue or problem. Transdisciplinarity draws on knowledge from disciplines relevant to particular research issues or problems while ultimately transcending disciplinary borders and building a synergistic conceptual and methodological framework that is irreducible to the sum of its constituent parts. Transdisciplinarity views

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FIGURE 18.1 When

researchers or practitioners (o) organize to collaborate on a project (—–), how does knowledge (→) flow between people, intermix, and transform? Models for multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary research and problem-solving establish expectations for knowledge ownership and synthesis within a team, providing design researchers with clear pathways to engage. A transdisciplinary model challenges design researchers to focus on problems first and disciplines last, aiming to combine knowledge thoroughly, whereas multi- and inter-disciplinary models maintain lesser and greater degrees of disciplinary and knowledge autonomy, respectively. A maldisciplinary model could be the unintended consequence of individual collaborators orienting to knowledge ownership and synthesis differently. (Image by Billie Faircloth.)

knowledge-building and dissemination as a holistic process and requires innovation and flexibility (35). Implicit in these definitions is an ethical and moral obligation to humanity, as found in The Charter of Transdisciplinarity (1994), that could spark for us the reconfiguration of architectural research, practice, education, and built environment outcomes (Nicolescu, “Manifesto” 147–151). However, transdisciplinarity is neither the pinnacle nor panacea of disciplinarity. Basarab Nicolescu, a philosopher of transdisciplinarity and co-editor and signer of the Charter, situates transdisciplinarity as one of many ways of making knowledge, stating, “Disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are like four arrows shot from the same bow: Knowledge” (“Manifesto” 46). Transdisciplinarity originated in Europe, in academic science circles of the 1970s as an alternative way to produce knowledge through university programs (Mokiy 76–78). It invokes the era’s professional expertise denouement precisely captured by architecture-relevant

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theorists such as Rittel and Webber in “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning” (1973) and Illich et al. in Disabling Professions (1977), who take foundational positions on the social role of expertise, problem solving, and professionalism. People pursuing this research process have used charters, institutes, workshops, and research programs to evolve transdisciplinary theory, education, and practice in physics, health, urban ecology, sustainability and more (Augsburg 234–237; Bina et al. 5–19; Klein, “Transdisciplinarity” 7–9). Over the past two decades, a network of academic-based researchers has documented how transdisciplinarians work by recounting the skills of individuals and teams and methods of communication, learning, and decision-making (Augsburg 237–244; Coleman et al. 164–171; Fam et al., “Being” 77–87; Fritz and Meinherz 41–51; Klein, “Learning” 11–23; Misra and Lotrecchiano 45–47). Projects incorporating this research process exemplify its chief mission of addressing “a real-world issue or problem” (Leavy 35) by incorporating multiple forms and traditions of knowledge. Teams engage in research projects addressing the topics of disaster relief, climate adaptation and resilience, ecosystem performance, agriculture, healthcare, sanitation, infrastructure, and community planning (Hadorn et al. 8–15; Inoue et al. 145–146). Today, transdisciplinary research is closely aligned with issues in sustainability, complexity science, and complex adaptive systems (Lotrecchiano and Misra 57–61; Neuhauser 25–38; Sibilla and Kurul 10–12; Vermeulen and Witjes 18–19). However, the application of a transdisciplinary approach fissures into models and definitions with variations in vocabulary, as well as allegiances to holism, degree-producing programs, researchers, scientists, the sciences, and the superdiscipline of sustainability science (Augsburg 234–237; Fam et al., “Meta-Considerations” 85–102; Leavy 30–31; von Wehrden et al. 875–888; West et al. 534–555; Witjes and Vermeulen 27–32). In theory, transdisciplinarity is accessible to all concerns and points of view – to architects and architecture – as imagined in Article 5 of “The Charter of Transdisciplinarity,” stating: “The transdisciplinary vision is resolutely open insofar as it goes beyond the field of the exact sciences and demands their dialogue and their reconciliation with the humanities and the social sciences as well as with art, literature, poetry and spiritual experience” (Nicolescu, “Manifesto” 149). In application, the articles, essays, and books of social scientists, sustainability scientists natural scientists, and researchers from the field of interdisciplinary studies documenting the rise and ways of transdisciplinarity make minimal mention of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, design researchers, designers, design methods, and the superdiscipline of built environments (Vermeulen and Witjes 8–12). More S.T.E.M. than S.T.E.A.M., this might also reflect the divide between arts and sciences deftly depicted many decades earlier by C. P. Snow in the essay The Two Cultures (1959). Continued allegiance to these binaries reveals impossible path dependencies in our disciplinary relationships, weaknesses in transdisciplinary thought and practice, as well as barriers in implementing its practice models. Given the enormity of humanity’s predicament, we should ask: If transdisciplinary teams are concerned with “wicked problems” (Rittel and Webber 160; Klein, “Transdisciplinarity” 10–11) in the built-environment, traversing social, technical, ecological, and political relations, why are architectural designers so infrequently represented on these teams? More fundamentally, in what ways are transdisciplinary research skills in the sciences relevant to the discipline of architecture, the education of architects, and sustainable design (Houghton 17)?

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Federating Design Research and Transdisciplinary Research

If architects are to engage transdisciplinarity, we must simultaneously understand two process models – design research and transdisciplinary research. The first of these models, design research, may have an outsized impact on whether we can beget the other, transdisciplinary research, implying that methodologies of making knowledge and partnerships must normalize within our profession. However, as transdisciplinarity has grown up, so has the demand for and acceptance of architects as knowledge workers. The Changing Shape of Practice Symposium, convened by Michael U. Hensel and Fredrik Nilsson, documents a decade of growing firm-based architectural research culture and models for small to large practices (Hensel 1–3; Hensel and Nilsson, “Introduction” xiv–xviii; Hensel and Nilsson, “Current Changes” 1–13). Architecture firms are engaging research processes, including hypothesis and study question formulation, literature review, peer review, and sharing findings (American Institute of Architects, “The Business” 41). Qualitative, quantitative, mixed-mode, and experimental methods are well-documented for use by architectural researchers in primers such as Ajila Akšamija’s Research Methods for the Architectural Profession (2021), Ray Lucas’s Research Methods for Architecture (2016), and Linda Groat and David Wang’s Architectural Research Methods (2013, 2nd ed.). Architectural institutes, such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), prioritize the discovery of architectural knowledge as fundamental to engaging our most significant and pressing challenges (American Institute of Architects, “AIA Architectural” 2–4; Royal Institute of British Architects, “Presidents’” 40–44). In US architecture schools, research curricula are incorporated into degree accreditation requirements (Nat’l Architectural Accrediting Board, “Conditions” 2), elevating systematic inquiry through various pathways: iterative, algorithmic, comparative, and analysisdriven frameworks. Academies are establishing programs to increase design research awareness and professionalism, continuing to restructure the academy-practice relationship (American Institute of Architects, “AIA UpJohn”; “Applied Research”; Burry 64–65; Cheng and Johnson 31–42; “College of Design”; “Design Research”; “MAARS”; “Our Approach”; “Research”). Furthermore, when firms establish research programs, presumptions of a unidirectional or linear flow of new knowledge from the academy to practice and the academy-practice binary are challenged. Architecture faculty, students, and practitioners engage in applied research and publish findings in academic and practice-based settings, demonstrating that neither setting, academy, nor practice is the sole designator of what architectural research is or could become. Firm-based research programs reveal various tactics to build research literacy, skills, resources, and funding (American Institute of Architects, “The Business” 41; Hensel and Nilsson, “Introduction” xvi–xviii; Faircloth, “Searching”; Royal Institute of British Architects, “How Architects” 17–61). Furthermore, academy-based design researchers – faculty, staff, and students – face challenges across many of the same tactical themes. While firm-based and academy-based research platforms differ significantly in context and management, both ask: How do we practice architectural research? What is or ought to be the scope of built environment research? These trends should neutralize presumptions of where architectural research is happening, establishing all designers’ fundamental agency, academic- or practice-based, to organize whom they research with and how they exchange and build knowledge. Architectural

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FIGURE 18.2 Architecture

schools and architecture firms are platforms, each with a capacity for creating knowledge from research. (A) Any presumption of a unidirectional flow of new architectural knowledge – from colleges and universities to firms – oversimplifies how architectural knowledge is created and used (B); when architects become knowledge workers, they can make architectural knowledge irrespective of their platform, permitting structured feedback loops between platforms (C); a transdisciplinary approach prioritizes partnerships connecting many platform types, supported by co-working, co-learning, and co-creating knowledge (D). (Image by Billie Faircloth.)

researchers can work through university, practice, industry, civic, and community partnerships and organize their work according to single-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research principles (Figure 18.2). They will engage in methods and conventions to make architectural knowledge. And they will make built environment knowledge on inter- and transdisciplinary teams (Abdel-Hadi and Salama 8–13; Colletti 78–83; Hansen 14–20; Sprecher and Ahrens 26–35). Architects steer through ambiguity and complexity using design, integration techniques, and systems thinking, as well as their training to synthesize across art and science domains. We must challenge the idea that architecture-specific and architecture-transcending research is oppositional or binarily positioned. Architectural theorists, academics and practitioners grappled with transdisciplinarity’s challenge to our discipline, exploring themes

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of designer idenity, historicity, and formulating questions about transdisciplinarity’s impact on the discipline’s future (Burry 54–61; Carta 1–6; Dunin-Woyseth and Nilsson 38–40; Hocking 244; Linder 12–15; Radman 131; Stanek and Kaminer 1–5). Shades of this transdisciplinary dilemma are encapsulated by Professor Mark Linder who asks of its potential in 2005, “How does architecture make its appearance without its discipline and how is it possible to bring discipline to architecture’s undisciplined appearance?”(15). We can now address the notion that anyone seeking collaboration through a transdisciplinary model aims to undermine their discipline’s core knowledge. On these issues, I’ve found Nicolescu’s exhortation for a reciprocal perspective to disarm affronts to my notion of disciplinary autonomy, observing, “While not a new discipline or a new superdiscipline, transdisciplinarity is nourished by disciplinary research; in turn, disciplinary research is clarified by transdisciplinary knowledge in a new fertile way.… In this sense, disciplinary and transdisciplinary research are not antagonistic but complementary” (“The Transdisciplinary” 74). These observations correspond to my own experiences practicing design research and transdisciplinary research. Architectural knowledge workers will navigate a spectrum of domains: They can work to reinforce core architectural knowledge, broaden the boundary of fundamental architectural knowledge, and fuse new knowledge territories at the gaps between and across disciplines. Observations on Practicing Transdisciplinarity

Whether inherently single-, multi-, inter-, or transdisciplinary, individual and organizational postures toward researchers – who they are and how they organize – is a choice practitioners have the explicit agency to make. KieranTimberlake is an architectural practice, a design research practice, and a transdisciplinary design research practice. Our research milestones reflect James Timberlake and Stephen Kieran’s decision in 2003 to formalize research as a mode essential to design, invention, and innovation, affirming that architects can and should research (Kieran and Timberlake, “Introduction,” 8–9; Kieran and Timberlake, “The Art” 19). The success of our practice-based research model is its explicit intention to organize, support and engage inquiry daily, integrate it into architectural projects from their inception, and allow curiosity to structure and fuel projects proactively (Faircloth, “Searching”). After organizing the practice around inquiry in 2003, and engaging several research initiatives, Kieran and Timberlake sought to formalize a research group in 2008, continuing to rise above a single discipline-view. From the outset, KieranTimberlake oriented this group toward problems at the gaps between architecture and a range of science-based disciplines, proposing to challenge and transform our understanding of architecture and its system boundaries. In hindsight, KieranTimberlake’s research model embodies Halina DuninWoyseth and Fredrik Nilsson’s supposition in “On the Emergence of Research by Design, and Practice-Based Research Approaches in Architectural and Urban Design”, when they invoked the transformative potential of transdisciplinarity coupled with design research: Also, the now widely discussed new form of knowledge production – Mode 2 [transdisciplinarity] – opens up a search for knowledge through design. The main feature of the new mode is that it operates within a context of application where problems are not set within a traditional disciplinary framework, and the approach is to focus on and follow research problems as they emerge in these contexts…

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Several concepts are now being used in the effort to delineate this specific kind of “in practice model” of research, and especially in the field of architecture and design, there are several concepts – e.g. practice-based, practice-led related to the notion of ‘research by design’ (39). As a transdisciplinary design research practice, KieranTimberlake delves deep into problem realms and often unearths dilemmas of disciplinary bias. This is demonstrated through firm-funded projects such as Green Roof Vegetative Survey, Tally, and Supply Chain Equity Modeling. To date, our projects have integrated people whose knowledge and methods span architecture, sculpture, urban ecology, industrial ecology, environmental management, chemical physics, material science, anthropology, psychology, computer science, and building science, augmented by academic and industry partnerships. Daily, the members of our research group engage in questions that are building-driven – associated with architectural projects and architectural project delivery, or gap-driven – inspired by innovation and an opportunity to link architecture to other disciplines (Figure 18.3). We also work to elevate the design process as a method essential to intractable problems, compatible and hybridizable with other disciplines’ research methods. Many researchers studying transdisciplinary team dynamics – how they organize, communicate, and work – are situated in university settings. The account of KieranTimberlake might challenge presumptions about who engages in this collaborative research practice, where, and why. We have intentionally created research processes, methods of communication, and documentation within a design practice community and have

FIGURE 18.3  Building-driven

research originates with KieranTimberlake’s architectural projects, allowing structured inquiry throughout the design and project delivery process. Gap-driven research represents our commitment to firm-initiated research projects and results in concepts, prototypes, tools, and studies offering significant potential to address built environment challenges across disciplines. Between the two, a feedback loop establishes architectural projects as testbeds for fieldwork. (Diagram by Billie Faircloth and KieranTimberlake.)

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evolved these for nearly fifteen years. Our firm’s pursuit of collective intelligence versus singular genius predates its decision to pursue transdisciplinarity, contributing significantly to our receptivity of this working mode. Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake, in their book Refabricating Architecture, delineate the consequences of disciplinary structures and communication, leading to either the continued “stratification and segregation of architecture” (12) or the potential of “enabling collective intelligence” (14). They posit the need for deeper integration between disciplines inside and outside the field of architecture so that architecture and construction have more meaning and value. Given the challenge to evolve this practice model, the questions arise: What does it look like to be transdisciplined day in and day out? How have our firm’s initial hunches on the value of transdisciplinarity unfolded regarding projects and outcomes? What is the motivation for intentionally forming disciplined or transdisciplined teams? The observations that I share correspond to elucidating moments wrought through dialog, debate, work, uncertainty, and a search for meaning across four themes: forming, researching, collaborating, and affirming: Forming: What hunch about architecture and disciplines ignites a movement toward transdisciplinarity? Is there a first and forming principle for a transdisciplinary design research practice? Researching: How does transdisciplinarity challenge our understanding of architectural field research and design research methods? Collaborating: How do we exercise individual agency to gain knowledge? How do perceptions of what we need to know impact our participation in transdisciplinary teams? Affirming: How do our mental models shape presumptions about who has the agency to ask and answer questions within a research-integrated practice? My observations are neither comprehensive nor conclusive – I only wish I could offer reflections with a diarist’s dedication! Any expectations for perfection in practicing this approach should be suppressed from the outset. Our experience aligns with the experiences that other transdisciplinarians and their teams convey – transdisciplinary attributes are identifiable, sometimes instinctual and can be learned (Augsburg 239–244; Fam et al., “Being” 79–86). Transdisciplinarity remains deeply connected to the experience of researchers, which is why I provide this first-person perspective. My notes offer insight into how KieranTimberlake’s goals established a way to know what it might mean to practice transdisciplinarity. On Forming

What hunch about architecture and disciplines ignites a movement toward transdisciplinarity? Is there a first and forming principle for a transdisciplinary design research practice? In the summer of 2008, the potential of working across disciplines was foremost in our minds as we mapped the firm’s next research stage. We imagined an internal team of designers, scientists, engineers, and analysts working on problems together and ultimately declared the transdisciplinary nature of this group its first and forming principle. Throughout the global financial crises of ’08 and ’09 and the hiring of the group’s first members,

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we publicly presented quasi-apologia for design research and transdisciplinarity to architectural audiences. I often began these presentations with a basic definition of research and design research. I offered a firm “no” to the question: Isn’t architecture’s ties to structural, civil, and mechanical engineering inherently transdisciplinary? by citing the knowledge stratification within our design and project delivery methods. The presentation titled “The Experiment; The Results” at Field + Tactics: Future of Praxis in our Twenty-First Century, sponsored by the University of Nottingham, occurred 44 months after declaring transdisciplinarity as the group’s foundational principle. The opportunity to address our peers differed from any previously attempted because this symposium aimed “to examine the future of architectural practice and applied research in such a way that will be of interest to practicing architects and students alike” (University of Nottingham 1). It converged with results from nearly four years of testing what we meant by our decision, and we were ready to share insights through the perspective of people and their day-to-day work. In this setting, I conveyed to professional architects, architecture faculty, staff, and students a practice model that would “make messy the process by which architecture comes into being and challenge our perception of design problem culture, and design problem inputs – their origin and range” (Faircloth, “Experiment”). I invoked our quandary with boundaries and pointed to architecture’s disciplinary bias resulting in our hyper-focus on buildings at the expense of everything and everyone else. And I invited the audience to investigate this bias by answering the following questions: At which scales are architectural problems solved? Who are the problem solvers? How long may it take to solve them? These three questions, which I’ve recounted in numerous talks on research, capture the generative capacity of the prefix “trans”, revealing that forming encompasses not only disciplines but also scale and time. In other words, how can we see past disciplines, scales, and time? Regarding forming, KieranTimberlake’s actions then and now suppose that architects have limited knowledge of the built environment’s complexity. By seeking to work on problems through multiple disciplines, we confront and challenge the scale of our actions (minuscule and massive) and their impacts on generations to come. When forming a transdisciplinary research group, what comes first, people or projects? In our experience, people, curiosity, and action do. To begin, we imagined and described seventeen potential bodies of knowledge that might participate in the research group. Those that joined us initially represented materials science, chemical physics, architecture, sculpture, anthropology, urban ecology, and environmental management. Over time, these fields have expanded to include industrial ecology, comfort science, computer science, physical computing, circularity, and more. Initially, and in this setting, we framed our approach as a reflection of architecture’s limited domain. I explained, “It is perhaps a simple, risky, but necessary experiment to bring together individuals with disparate bodies of professional knowledge—individuals far afield from architectural problem solving and its allied disciplines and set their minds loose inside the canons and precepts of the architectural design process in a professional practice setting” (“Experiment”). Today, our transdisciplinary research process underpins a firm-wide research commitment as we seek

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to understand better the role of design, knowledge, and decision-making in informing the built environment. Forming remains foundational to our firm’s ambitions today. Who will join this endeavor? What do they know? What can we do together in a setting where we have the agency to question proactively? On Researching

How does transdisciplinarity challenge our understanding of architectural field research and design research methods? Research emerges when we discover gaps and seams in the knowledge between disciplines and co-create questions. KieranTimberlake supports a bottom-up, proactive research model where firm-initiated research and a collaborative mindset build applied research workstreams to prove concepts. KieranTimberlake’s research process results in buildings, prototypes, applications, analyses, and studies that reflect how we think about design, architecture, inquiry, and the built environment’s most urgent challenges (Kieran and Timberlake, “Introduction” 8–9). We provide a platform for people to create and share knowledge with multiple audiences internally and externally. Our research projects often utilize multiple methods, integrating measurement, surveying and mapping, modeling and simulation, and prototyping techniques (Table 18.1). Furthermore, the buildings we create and renew with clients and communities and our process inherently offer test beds to study and understand the dynamic relationships between people, buildings, and ecosystems and how they interact. Patricia Leavy, in The Essentials of Transdisciplinary Research clarifies: “Transdisciplinary research practices are issue- or problem-centered approaches to research that prioritize the problem at the center of research over discipline-specific concerns, theories or methods” (14). By 2018, nearly a decade into forming, KieranTimberlake could demonstrate how transdisciplinarity engendered problem-oriented architectural fieldwork, augmenting our ability to study buildings as part of a more extensive system of environmental exchanges. We structured our research through a questions-first, knowledge-second, disciplines-last approach. Our projects launched thorough co-working sessions to engage in problem and question identification collectively. I have previously spoken and written about the importance of reflexivity in our group (Faircloth et al., “How We” 33). These were great flashes of insight, often wrought out of a robust debate, yielding the recalibration of what we knew about our respective disciplines. Conducting field studies became essential for our group’s members to learn how to develop knowledge together, providing many opportunities to hybridize methods, create new methods, and mosaic data across several fields (Faircloth et al., “How We” 32–34). In 2018, we engaged in two notable opportunities for a broader reflection on researching. The first occurred at the AIA’s Collaborative Research Summit (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and the second at the Technical University Munich Clima Design Symposium (Munich, Germany). With architecture professionals, faculty, and students gathered, my notes outlined fundamental positions on challenging the first principles of our disciplines, studying the built environment, and testing presumptions of the boundaries of our systems. I offered a comparison of numerous KieranTimberlake field studies to elucidate the gaps in our knowledge and the power of collaborating within

134  Billie Faircloth TABLE 18.1 KieranTimberlake’s selected projects demonstrate fieldwork through partnerships and

collaboration on real-world built environment problems using a transdisciplinary research model. Projects conducted through a dedicated transdisciplinary research group with academic, institutional, and industry partners. Every project is gap-driven – motivated by questions where knowledge gaps occur between disciplines.

(Continued)

Meandering Transdisciplinary Lands  135 TABLE 18.1 (Continued)

(Continued)

136  Billie Faircloth TABLE 18.1 (Continued)

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FIGURE 18.4 KieranTimberlake’s

gap-driven research demonstrates a transdisciplinary approach by connecting architectural knowledge to the knowledge and methods of other disciplines, organizing teams around pressing problems and questions to share, synthesize, and merge knowledge. (Diagram by Billie Faircloth and KieranTimberlake.)

our group on designing methods, collecting data, characterizing relationships, and drawing insight (Figure 18.4). However, my notes caution, “We diminish the potential of field experiments when we frame them through our discipline alone” (“Panel: Research”). The projects that best demonstrate a transdisciplinary approach to researching destabilize disciplinary and, therefore, architectural identity, pointing to gaps in individual disciplines’ day-to-day practices. Our field studies raise broader questions about our receptivity to learn from what is built. Furthermore, what is the value of teaching inter- and transdisciplinary research skills? And, how can design and methods of diagramming, drawing, mapping, detailing, analyzing, computing, simulating, and synthesizing be fully represented on the many transdisciplinary teams tackling the

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intractable problems of our day? In our experience, researching is akin to meandering and goes hand in hand with gap and chasm leaping. On Collaborating

How do we exercise individual agency to gain knowledge? How do perceptions of what we need to know impact our participation in transdisciplinary teams? When transdisciplinarity appears in architectural practice, it can exact a high price for collaborating, demanding a designer to disengage from their professional identity. In this way, collaboration within transdisciplinary teams might be the most potent tool to excavate exceptionalisms and exemptionalisms in design and architecture culture (Faircloth, “Build” 7). Will designers choose to collaborate to such a degree that the design process is one of several possible research methods available to a team, or will they work to acquire new knowledge for themselves alone, ensuring their disciplinary identity remains intact (Giri 104)? We flex between knowing and sharing postures best encapsulated by the term transdisciplinary orientation, defined by Klein as “a synergistic combination of values, attitudes, beliefs, skills, knowledge, and behaviours that predisposes individuals to collaboration” (“Learning” 13). In turn, an individual’s transdisciplinary orientation contributes to the work of transdisciplinary knowledge producing teams, defined by Researchers Gaetano Lotrecchiano and Shalini Misra as “groups of researchers, scholars, practitioners and community stakeholders who address problems at the intersection of scientific disciplines” (52). Architects are naturally situated within these groups as professionals who serve clients and communities, while our quest for transformative, boundary-moving work requires knowledge acquisition and innovations. How do we orient our work to challenge what we know, and how does this relate to transdisciplinarity? A review that comes closest to describing my personal experience, my colleagues’ experience, and the whole group’s experience as we sought to understand our motivation and affinities for this work is Tanya Augsburg’s essay “Becoming Transdisciplinary: The Emergence of the Transdisciplinary Individual” (2014). Augsburg collects evidence from multiple authors on transdisciplinary orientation, exploring the identity of transdisciplinarians and perceptions of how they work. It accounts for “transdisciplinary skills and traits” (Augsburg 239–241) and “transdisciplinary practices and virtues” (Augsburg 242). Augsburg’s chart “Factors contributing to transdisciplinary individuals” affirms our 15 years of daily skillsbuilding exchanges that significantly impact one’s experience and sense of job efficacy on a transdisciplinary team (240). Transdisciplinary research processes have emerged alongside accounts of individual and team experiences, and concepts, such as mutual learning and relational thinking (Klein, “Learning” 12; Mitchell et. al., 32) express individual predispositions’ impact on group interaction and outcomes (Fritz and Meinherz 47–49; Lotrecchiano and Misra 57–59). For over a decade, I’ve watched members of our research group joyfully engage and fiercely protect transdisciplinary styles in practice. In academia, I’ve concurrently examined pedagogy and curricula for studio and technical courses. These experiences have afforded the nagging questions: What patterns of knowledge acquisition are implicitly embedded in architectural pedagogy? And, do these patterns make individuals more or less receptive to inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration? Furthermore, is it a matter of individual receptivity, or is exposure to and experience with structured cooperation lacking?

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In 2017, while questioning fundamental knowledge for architecture students on the subjects of energy, matter, and construction systems with Professors Salmaan Craig and Kiel Moe at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, I annotated a graphing technique named agency mapping to help students and faculty discuss knowledge and collaboration. I first presented the method at Architecture + Technology: Pedagogy in the Age of Disruption, a symposium at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Agency mapping allows individuals to plot perceptions of their relationship to knowledge and presumptions around knowledge ownership and acquisition, presenting an individual’s epistemological desires and quandaries as the basis for a forthright discussion on the acceptance or rejection of collaboration. Undoubtedly, our approaches to agency mapping are shaped by the aim of architectural education, which ultimately leads to licensed architects in teams using generalist knowledge across various fields to support a holistic and ethical approach to building. Our practice traditions teach individuals to acquire and use knowledge rather than think of ourselves as knowledge makers and sharers. We also rail against expertise when it is outdated and imprecise. The nascency of architectural research, research conventions, and research professionalism opens knowledge-producing pathways. However, these knowledge-related attitudes amount to a blurry and incoherent context to reflect upon our attitudes toward collaboration, power dynamics, and the efficacy of transdisciplinarity. Agency mapping, described by my notes as a theoretical practice, begins with a quadrant graph (Faircloth “Assembly”). The graph’s vertical axis constitutes the “domain of practices,” with the poles on this axis occupied by the words mine and yours. The word ours occupies the center. Mine: The beliefs and methods I use to direct action. This is the degree to which practices are in the realm of my expertise. Yours: The beliefs and methods I rely on you (expert? consultant?) to act through. This is the degree to which practices are in the realm of your expertise. Ours: The beliefs and methods we collectively integrate through synthesis and knowledge sharing. The graph’s horizontal axis constitutes the “domain of entrenchment”, referring to the relative changeability of our skills, knowledge, tools, and methodolgies. The opposing poles on the axis are occupied by the words mutable and immutable. Mutable: The degree to which skills, knowledge, tools, and methods are changeable. Immutable: The degree to which skills, knowledge, tools, and methods are unchangeable. The graph’s overall structure is instructive in multiple ways. The top half is other people’s domain, while the bottom half is the domain of the mapper. The mapper’s perceptions bias the map. In the top half, bias is attributed to what the mapper believes other people know and do. In the bottom half, bias is attributed to the mapper’s desire to gain types of knowledge. The graph’s four quadrants result in additional designations with specific orientations to knowledge. The top left/right quadrant is the domain of the nimble advisor or resolute advisor, whose mutable or immutable practices are used for the mapper’s purposes. The bottom left/right quadrant is the domain of the nimble individual or

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resolute individual whose mutable/immutable practices are the mapper’s own and reflect personal skill building. The graph’s horizon, pierced by the word ours, opens the discussion on collective intelligence, offering domains of the nimble collective or resolute collective, referring to knowledge-integrating teams. How will mappers plot knowledge and practice domains, such as life cycle assessment, energy modeling, materials characterization, dynamic systems modeling, robotic fabrication, climate modeling, climate policymaking, or more (Figure 18.5)? Once plotted, what does the mapper mean by the initial location of a given practice? Is there a desire to move a practice into another domain? Where and why? Mapping agency exposes (pedagogical) ideologies on collaborating and reflects the perceptions we have about power, people and knowledge. This reflexive exercise attempts to help practitioners, faculty, and students: (1) identify their reliance on actionable

FIGURE 18.5 Agency

mapping explores attitudes toward collaboration, knowledge ownership, and acquisition. We can examine our relationship to various fields of knowledge (life cycle assessment, energy modeling, robotic fabrication, materials engineering, etc.), methods, and tools and concurrently represent our affinity for single-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research practice models. (Diagram by Billie Faircloth.)

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practices and methodolgies, (2) identify their expectations of other people’s knowledge and practices, (3) determine the fixity of practices, (one’s own and other’s) and the extent to which we rely on or desire methods or technology to change, (4) articulate personal motivations for acquiring new knowledge outside of their domain (Faircloth “Assembly”). When we engage in agency mapping iteratively, we will discover attitudes intrinsic toward the knowledge terrain shaping the built environment. We will also learn how knowledge producers, such as consultants and specialists, organize. I concluded that our future “depends upon people and their willingness to take up a sobering discourse on agency; advocacy for new types of agency; admission of epistemological preconditions, the importance of collective intelligence, and the efficacy of transdisciplinary design practices” (“Assembly”). More importantly, mapping agency holds the potential for a more rigorous discussion on the value of collaborating by simultaneously representing deeply held beliefs about venturing into multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary territories. On Affirming

How do our mental models shape presumptions about who has the agency to ask and answer questions within a research-integrated practice? Whereas my notes on forming, researching, and collaborating reflect clarifying moments, my observations on affirming ponder a more procedural view. Routinely we’ve been asked: How does it work? What does it look like to practice this way day in and day out? These questions seek answers on the daily nature of meandering, and my responses take some form of “wait and see!” We learn by doing, which means intentionally building, evaluating, adjusting, and tweaking our research process, project by project, allegiant to discovery. The word “agency” is a guidepost, marking my numerous talks and discussions to convey a belief that architects exert power through inquiry and confer power to architectural knowledge. We use questions, day in and day out, to understand outcomes for people and communities aware of the potential to yield action-oriented feedback across all built environment scales and systems. Our firm’s design research approach is committed to “plan, do, monitor, and learn,” an organizational, functional, ethical, and moral imperative applicable to building-driven and gap-driven research. As our firm’s leaders have relayed in numerous university and industry-based settings, workshops, and publications, a firm committed to planning, doing, monitoring, and learning builds a design research culture. In addition, our firm enacts and manages a practice model that exposes some real and perceived opportunities and barriers to practice-based research daily. We have learned that making a research culture is a continuous endeavor requiring open conversation on these organizational imperatives: research process, research resources, experimentation and failure, techniques, value, communication, and feedback (Faircloth, “Searching” 83–84). While models for transdisciplinary collaboration and collective intelligence underpin KieranTimberlake’s theory of value, these models instantiate differently, firm by firm, based on who has the agency to research, what, and when. Individuals, groups, and entire firms will derive real and perceived value from research based on how access to inquiry is managed and structured (Faircloth “Searching” 83–84). In our case, our research group is but a fraction of our overall firm size; most of our design community includes people trained

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as architects. We aim to elevate research as a process connected to our transdisciplinary posture, to architectural design, and research projects. One essential setting has allowed us to affirm a structure of practice-led transdisciplinary design research and openly theorize with students how it works and why it works the way it does: the Issues in Professional Practice seminar taught by Professor Phillip Bernstein at the Yale School of Architecture. A topic-based course on contemporary architectural practice for graduating students, our charge in the classroom was always to represent the case of KieranTimberlake, knowing that the value of architectural practice models concerned them greatly. In the Spring of 2014, I offered Phil’s students the question, how should we organize to connect people to modes of research? framing a quasi-agent-based modeling thought experiment on a chalkboard. I’d engaged in this experiment many times before and since to imagine my colleagues’ interactions, knowledge flow, and pathways for inquiry (Figure 18.6). The experiment began with a grid of fifty dots. Ten represented members of our research group, and forty represented members of our architectural staff. What attributes do each of these groups have? How should they interact? Why? And to whom is their interaction valuable? Zooming into the research group, I observed that each of the ten dots represented a different body of knowledge – environmental management, urban ecology, computer science, and so on, consistent with our transdisciplinary approach. In comparison, the 40 dots presumably represent the same body of knowledge: architecture. The challenge, of course, was to imagine how the knowledge of one set of dots could relate to the other, the rules of interaction, and the presumed consequences of enacting the rules. I circled up a grouping of five or so “architect” dots and declared that they were working on an architectural project. In what ways could a “research” dot relate to this grouping? How does knowledge flow between these dots within the confines and conventions of architectural project delivery? Do we presume a one-way flow of analysis, where the research services of the “research dot” are at the disposal of the five “architect” dots? Or do we eliminate these labels, declaring that the formation of a group situates research as a mode integratable with architectural design and the project delivery process? I circled up five or so “research dots” and declared they were working on a project. In what ways could an “architect dot” relate to this grouping? Furthermore, how should these projects and their outcomes relate to each other? Will researching be in service of architecture, or can we pursue a greater understanding of the built environment through projects? Finally, I offered another place to begin, eliminating several models of research practice by declaring that all dots could question. I provided that question marks are infrastructural to our firm’s work, regardless of your role as an architect, design staff, or researcher, with Phil observing their vitality as a bi-directional connector between individuals and groups. In our day-to-day practice, question marks serve as a common language within this community of dots. Affirming helps to mark a colleague’s or collaborator’s questioning and answering path, providing the skills, resources, and opportunities to do so. Meandering Transdisciplinary Lands

In our work to expand the boundaries of architectural knowledge, we engage the hope of transdisciplinarity, and labor to be transdisciplined. All the while, we’ve accustomed ourselves to states of boundlessness, and these spark my unstudied observations on forming,

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FIGURE 18.6  What

are people’s presumptions in a research-integrated architectural practice, and how do they organize to affirm research through building-driven or gapdriven projects? This thought experiment begins with 40 “architect dots” and 10 “research dots” to explore ways to enable greater knowledge sharing. For example, a researcher can contribute their expertise to an architectural project. Conversely, an architect can contribute their expertise to a research project. Alternatively, researchers and architects can be viewed as simultaneously and continuously contributing to an integrated model of inquiry and research, supported by a transdisciplinary orientation toward knowledge acquisition, sharing, and synthesis. (Diagram by Billie Faircloth.)

researching, collaborating, and affirming. The urgency and restlessness to our wandering that might be sensed in these reflections, and any irritations over the insistence we pin down what is or is not transdisciplinary is simply this – climate action, climate justice, and environmental justice wait for no discipline. Acknowledgments

Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake offered me a new pathway to explore the value and meaning of transdisciplinarity in practice when, in 2008, I accepted the position of

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research director at KieranTimberlake. I left the platform of full-time academia for the platform of full-time practice. Ever since, we have worked to understand the value of transdisciplinarity, believing it is relevant to transformative architecture, practice-led research, and our most significant social-ecological challenges. I am grateful for the risk they were willing to take alongside partners Jason Smith, Richard Maimon, and Matthew Krissel. Thank you to the firm’s principals, associates, and staff for demonstrating daily what it means to merge questioning and the architectural design process. To my former and current co-conspirators in the KT Research Group, your enthusiasm for sharing, challenging, and moving knowledge boundaries teaches and inspires me daily. Our gap-leaping work is the essence of a transdisciplinary quest. You have all made this journey possible. We are, undoubtedly, better together. The classroom continues to be a platform to explore the capacity of our discipline to expand. For more than two decades, I have worked with architecture students, first at The University of Texas School of Architecture and now at the Weitzman School of Design, the University of Pennsylvania, to frame the potential of transdisciplinarity. Thank you to my students for engaging questions that challenge our disciplinary identity openly and candidly. Works Cited Abdel-Hadi, Aleya and Ashraf M. Salama. “Editorial: Transdisciplinarity, People -Environments, and Design Research.” ArchNet - IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, pp. 8–13. The American Institute of Architects. The Business of Architecture: AIA Firm Survey 2022. The American Institute of Architects, 2022, 2022 aia Firm Survey-Full Report.pdf. The American Institute of Architects. AIA Architectural Research Agenda. The American Institute of Architects, 2019, content.aia.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/AIA_Research_Agenda_ 2019-2020.pdf.    . “AIA Upjohn Research Initiative.” The American Institute of Architects, www.aia.org/ pages/11911-aia-upjohn-research-initiative-grant. Accessed 30 Apr. 2023.    . AIA Strategic Plan, 2021 – 2025. The American Institute of Architects, 2021, content.aia. org/sites/default/files/2020-12/EX20_StrategicPlan-2021-2025_RJ_v06.pdf. Akšamija, Ajla. Research Methods for the Architectural Profession. Routledge, 2021. “Applied Research Consortium: Welcome.” UW College of Built Environments, arc.be.uw.edu/. Accessed 23 Aug. 2023. Aslin, Heather J. and Kirsty L. Blackstock. “Now I’m Not an Expert in Anything”: Challenges in Undertaking Transdisciplinary Inquiries Across the Social and Biophysical Sciences.” Tackling Wicked Problems Through the Transdisciplinary Imagination, edited by Valerie A. Brown et al, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2010, pp. 117–129. Augsburg, Tanya. “Becoming Transdisciplinary: The Emergence of the Transdisciplinary Individual.” World Futures, vol. 70, no. 3–4, 2014, pp. 233–247, https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027. 2014.934639. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023. Bina, Olivia, et al., editors. Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Research and Collaboration. E-book, INTREPID Knowledge, COST Action TD1408, 2019, intrepid-cost.ics.ulisboa.pt/wpcontent/uploads/2019/09/INTREPID_ebook.pdf. Burry, Mark. “Towards Meeting the Challenges of Facilitating Transdisciplinarity in Design Education, Research and Practice.” Design Innovation for the Built Environment: Research by Design and the Renovation of Practice, edited by Michael U. Hensel, New York, Routledge, 2012, pp. 53–66. Carta, Silvio. “Transdisciplinarity: A New Generation of Architects and Mediocritas.” Enquiry, vol. 13, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1–6.

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Cheng, Renée and Andrea J. Johnson. “Consortium for Research Practices: Closing the Knowledge Loop Between Education and Practice Through Research.” The Changing Shape of Architecture: Further Cases of Integrating Research and Design in Practice, edited by Michael U. Hensel and Fredrik Nilsson, Routledge, 2019, pp. 31–42. Coleman, Miles C., et al. “Lessons From the Pandemic: Engaging Wicked Problems With Transdisciplinary Deliberation.” Journal of Communication Pedagogy, vol. 5, 2021, pp. 164–171, doi. org/10.31446/JCP.2021.2.17. “College of Design, Consortium for Research Practices.” University of Minnesota, College of Design, design.umn.edu/academics/programs/architecture/architecture-ms-research-practices/ consortium-research-practices. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023. Colletti, Marjan. “Post-Digital Transdisciplinarity.” Architectural Design, vol. 86, no. 5, 2016, pp. 76–83, doi.org/10.1002/ad.2092. “Design Research: Pedagogies 2020.” Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture, https:// soa.cmu.edu/design-research. Accessed 2 May 2023. Deutsch, Randy. “Case Study Interview with Billie Faircloth.” Data-Driven Design and Construction: 25 Strategies for Capturing, Analyzing and Applying Building Data, Wiley, 2015, pp. 216–221. Dunin-Woyseth, Halina and Fredrik Nilsson. “On the Emergence of Research by Design and Practice-Based Research Approaches in Architectural and Urban Design.” Design Innovation for the Built Environment: Research by Design and the Renovation of Practice, edited by Michael U. Hensel, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2013, pp. 37–52. Faircloth, Billie. “Assembly and Agency.” Architecture + Technology: Pedagogy in the Age of Disruption Symposium, 10 February, 2017, Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Lecture Notes: unpublished.    . “Build. No Exceptions.” Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 75, no. 1, 2021, pp. 6–9.    . “The Experiment; The Results.” Field + Tactics: Future of Praxis in our Twenty-first Century Symposium, 2 May, 2012, University of Nottingham. Lecture notes: unpublished.    . “Panel: Research Labs and Field-Based Testing.” AIA Collaborative Research Summit, 24 July, 2018, Minneapolis, MN. Discussion Notes: unpublished.    . “Searching and Searching Again: Research in Practice.” Architecture Australia, vol. 107, no. 4, 2019, pp. 83–84, architectureau.com/articles/searching-and-searching-again-research-inpractice/. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023. Faircloth, Billie, et al. “How We See Now: Traversing a Data Mosaic.” Informed Urban Environments: Data-Integrated Design for Human and Ecology-Centered Perspectives, edited by Ata Chokhachian et al., Springer, 2022, pp. 27–49. Fam, Dena, et al. “Being a Transdisciplinary Researcher: Skills and Dispositions Fostering Competence in Transdisciplinary Research and Practice.” Transdisciplinary Research and Practice for Sustainability Outcomes, edited by Dena Fam et al., 2nd ed., Routledge, 2017, pp. 77–92.    . “Meta-Considerations for Planning, Introducing and Standardising Inter and Transdisciplinary Learning in Higher Degree Institutions.” Transdisciplinary Theory, Practice and Education: The Art of Collaborative Research and Collective Learning, edited by Dena Fam et al., 2nd ed., Springer, 2018, pp. 85–102. Friedman, Daniel S. “KieranTimberlake: Researching-KieranTimberlake’s Design Ethic.” The Changing Shape of Practice: Integrating Research and Design in Architecture, edited by Michael Hensel and Fredrik Nilsson, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2016, pp. 48–60. Fritz, Livia and Franziska Meinherz. “Tracing Power in Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research: An Exploration.” GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, vol. 29, no. 1, 2020, pp. 41–51, doi.org/10.14512/gaia.29.1.9. Giri, Ananta K. “The Calling of a Creative Transdisciplinarity.” Futures, vol. 34, no. 1, 2022, pp. 103–115, doi.org/10.1016/S0016-3287(01)00038-6. Groat, Linda N. and David Wang. Architectural Research Methods. 2nd ed., Wiley, 2013. Guimarães, Maria H., et al. “Who Is Doing Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research, and Why? An Empirical Study of Motivations, Attitudes, Skills, and Behaviours.” Futures, vol. 112, 2019, pp. 1–15, doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2019.102441.

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Hadorn, Gertrude H., et al. Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research. Springer, 2008. Hansen, Hanne T. R. “Synthesis Through Trans-disciplinarity.” Scroope: Cambridge Architectural Journal, vol. 18, 2008, pp. 14–21. Hensel, Michael U. “Introduction to Design Innovation for the Built Environment – Research by Design and the Renovation of Practice.” Design Innovation for the Built Environment: Research by Design and the Renovation of Practice, edited by Michael U. Hensel, Routledge, 2012, pp. 1–3.    . “Introduction: The Changing Shape of Architectual Practice and Research.” The Changing Shape of Practice: Integrating Research and Design in Architecture, edited by Michael U. Hensel and Fredrik Nilsson, Routledge, 2016, pp. xiv–xviii.    . “Current Changes in Conditions and Contexts for Architectural Research and Practice: A Brief Introduction.” The Changing Shape of Architecture: Further Cases of Integrating Research and Design in Practice, edited by Michael U. Hensel and Fredrik Nilsson, Routledge, 2019, pp. 1–13. Hocking, Viveka Turnbull. “Designerly Ways of Knowing: What Does Design Have to Offer?.” Tackling Wicked Problems Through the Transdisciplinary Imagination, edited by Valerie A. Brown et al, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2010, pp. 242–250. Houghton, Adele. “The gap in capacity building on climate, health, and equity in the built environment postsecondary education: a mixed-methods study.” Frontiers in Public Health, vol. 1, 2023, pp. 1–19, doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1090725. Illich, Ivan, et al. Disabling Professions. New York, Marion Boyars, 1977. Inoue, Masashi, et al. “Building Disaster Resilience Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Transdisciplinary Approach for Decision Making.” Journal of Disaster Research, vol. 17, no. 1, 2022, pp. 144–151, doi.org/10.20965/jdr.2022.p0144. Jantsch, Erich. “Towards Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in Education and Innovation.” Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities, edited by Léo Apostel et al, Paris, OECD Publ, 1972, pp. 97–121. Kieran, Steven and James Timberlake. Refabricating Architecture. McGraw Hill, 2003.    . “Introduction.” KieranTimberlake: Inquiry, by Karl Wallick, Rizzoli, 2011, pp. 8–9.    . “The Art of the Whole.” KieranTimberlake: Fullness: All In, vol 1, by Steven Kieran and James Timberlake. The Monacelli Press, 2019, pp. 13–22. Klein, Julie T. “Transdisciplinarity and Sustainability: Patterns of a Definition.” Transdisciplinary Research and Practice for Sustainability Outcomes, edited by Dena Fam et al., 2nd ed., Routledge, 2017, pp. 7–21.    . “Learning in Transdisciplinary Collaborations: A Conceptual Vocabulary.” Transdisciplinary Theory, Practice and Education: The Art of Collaborative Research and Collective Learning, edited by Dena Fam et al., 2nd ed., Springer, 2018, pp. 11–23. Leavy, Patricia. Essentials of Transdisciplinary Research: Using Problem-Centered Methodologies. Left Coast Press, 2011. Linder, Mark. “Transdisciplinarity.” Hunch. The Berlage Institute Report, no. 9, 2005, pp. 12–15. Lotrecchiano, Gaetano R. and Shalini Misra. “Transdisciplinary Knowledge Producing Teams: Toward a Complex Systems Perspective.” Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline, vol. 21, 2018, pp. 051–074, doi.org/10.28945/4086. Lucas, Ray. Research Methods for Architecture. Laurence King Publishing, 2016. “MAARS, Master of Advanced Architectural Research Studies.” University of Southern California, USC Architecture, arch.usc.edu/master-of-advanced-architectural-research-studies. Accessed 30 Apr. 2023. Misra, Shalini and Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano. “Transdisciplinary Communication: Introduction to the Special Series.” Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline, vol. 21, 2018, pp. 041–050, https://doi.org/10.28945/4086. Mitchell, Cynthia, et al. “Beginning at the End: The Outcome Spaces Framework to Guide Purposive Transdisciplinary Research.” Transdisciplinary Research and Practice for Sustainability Outcomes, edited by Dena Fam et al., 2nd ed., Routledge, 2017, pp. 25–38. Mokiy, Vladimir. “International Standard of Transdisciplinary Education and Transdisciplinary Competence.” Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline, vol. 22, 2019, pp. 073–090, doi.org/10.28945/4480.

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National Architectural Accrediting Board. Conditions for Accreditation, 2020 Edition, February 10, 2020. National Architectural Accrediting Board, Inc., 2020, www.naab.org/wp-content/ uploads/2020-NAAB-Conditions-for-Accreditation.pdf. Neuhauser, Linda. “Practical and Scientific Foundations of Transdisciplinary Research and Action.” Transdisciplinary Theory, Practice and Education: The Art of Collaborative Research and Collective Learning, edited by Dena Fam, et al., 2nd ed., Springer, 2018, pp. 25–38. Nicolescu, Basarab. Manifesto of Trandisciplinarity. Translated by Karen-Claire Voss, State University of New York Press, 2002.    . “The Transdisciplinary Evolution of the University Condition for Sustainable Development.” Transdisciplinary Theory, Practice and Education: The Art of Collaborative Research and Collective Learning, edited by Dena Fam, et al., 2nd ed., Springer, 2018, pp. 73–81. “Our Approach to Research.” School of Architecture and Planning, University of Buffalo, archplan. buffalo.edu/research/research_approach.html. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023. Radman, Andrej. “Architecture’s Awaking from Correlationist Slumber: On Transdisciplinarity and Disciplinary Specificity.” Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal, no. 10–11, 2012, pp. 129–141. “Research.” School of Architecture, College of Design, Georgia Tech, arch.gatech.edu/research. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023. Rittel, Horst W. J. and Melvin M. Webber. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.” Policy Sciences, vol. 4, no. 2, 1973, pp. 155–169. Royal Institute of British Architects. How Architects Use Research – Case Studies from Practice. RIBA, 2014, www.architecture.com/-/media/gathercontent/how-architects-use-research/additionaldocuments/howarchitectsuseresearch2014pdf.pdf    . The Presidents’ Fact-Finding Mission, The High Road to 2034. RIBA, 2021, ribaprd-assets.azureedge.net/-/media/GatherContent/Business-Benchmarking/AdditionalDocuments/12666RIBAPresidents-Fact-Finding-Missionv3Bpdf.pdf?rev=23677b4caf64428fbc fd574e4c66b193 Sibilla, Maurizio and Esra Kurul. “Transdisciplinarity in Energy Retrofit. A Conceptual Framework.” Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 250, 2020, 119461, doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119461. Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1959. Sprecher, Aaron and Chandler Ahrens. “Adaptive Knowledge in Architecture: A Few Notes on the Nature of Transdisciplinarity.” Architectural Design, vol. 86, no. 5, 2016, pp. 26–35. Stanek, Łukasz and Tahl Kaminer. “Trans-Disciplinarity: The Singularities and Multiplicities of Architecture.” Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal, vol. 1, 2007, pp. 1–5. Stock, Paul and Rob J. F. Burton. “Defining Terms for Integrated (Multi-Inter-Trans-Disciplinary) Sustainability Research.” Sustainability, vol. 3, no. 8, 2011, pp. 1090–1113, doi.org/10.3390/su3081090. University of Nottingham. “Fields + Tactics: Future of Praxis in our Twenty-first Century Symposium,” 2 May 2012, Nottingham Contemporary, University of Nottingham. Nottingham, England. Symposium Agenda, pp. 1–4. Vermeulen, Walter J.V. and Sjors Witjes. “History and Mapping of Transdisciplinary Research on Sustainable Development Issues: Dealing with Complex Problems in Times of Urgency.” Transdisciplinarity for Sustainability: Aligning Diverse Practices, edited by Martina M. Keitsch and Walter J.V. Vermeulen Neuhauser, Routledge, 2021, pp. 6–26. von Wehrden, Henrik, et al. “Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research: Finding the Common Ground of Multi-Faceted Concepts.” Sustainability Science, vol. 14, no. 3, 2019, pp. 875–888, doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0594-x. West, Simon, et al. “Beyond “Linking Knowledge and Action”: Towards a Practice-Based Approach to Transdisciplinary Sustainability Interventions.” Policy Studies, vol. 40, no. 5, 2019, pp. 534–555, doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2019.1618810. Witjes, Sjors and Walter J.V. Vermeulen. “Transdisciplinary Research: Approaches and Methodological Principles.” Transdisciplinarity for Sustainability: Aligning Diverse Practices, edited by Martina M. Keitsch and Walter J.V. Vermeulen Neuhauser, Routledge, 2021, pp. 27–52.

Case Studies from Practice

19 CROSSCODING CULTURES Design and Data across Disciplines Andrew Witt

The systemic challenges of our time demand a versatile new kind of designer who can imagine beyond the limits of conventional architecture. Conversant across diverse types of disciplinary knowledge, such architects are equally comfortable designing buildings and systems. Architecture can be a natural context for the federation of disparate media, ideas, and ways of working, but to fully realize the possibility of transdisciplinary design, we must rethink the symbiotic models of both practice and pedagogy. Innovative design practices can pioneer transdisciplinary methods, which can then inform more future-oriented education frameworks. Certain Measures, the studio I cofounded with Tobias Nolte, is a design office grounded in architecture but extending omnivorously beyond it through computational transdisciplinarity. We use computation – or, more properly, the mathematical and data approaches underpinning it – not only as an engine of formal invention but as a way to encapsulate and work with diverse disciplinary and cultural practices in creative concert, a practice we call cross-coding. Far from seeing computational design merely as a technical practice, we see it as a means to orchestrate cultural capacities across human knowledge. In fact, we see computation as indispensable to the very idea of transdisciplinarity today. Lessons drawn from our practice symbiotically inform a pedagogy at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design spanning design studios and research seminars that deal with topics ranging across artificial intelligence, waste reuse, networked health, energy generation, domestic life, and beyond. Drawn from practice and education, I offer three key lessons for transdisciplinary design: the power of grand challenges, the common language of digital data, and the impact of teams. Through all of these lessons, digital media provide connective tissue across disciplines and a foundation for a more synthetic approach to design. The Power of Grand Challenges

Planetary challenges such as ecological remediation, accountable government, circular economies, and human welfare provoke architects to think more broadly about their role DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-26

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and how to tackle problems collaboratively across disciplines. Trans-scalar grand challenges intrinsically surpass the scope of architecture alone, and thus encourage designers to engage processes and practices outside their typical disciplinary register. They also prompt designers to think and represent in terms of dynamic systems rather than static artifacts. Systems thinking tools such as actor maps and operation diagrams help chart relationships among human and nonhuman stakeholders. Addressing grand challenges also demands the use of research methods – user and subject matter expert interviews – beyond the typical disciplinary scope of architecture. All of these allow architects to expand their design methods and establish common languages of practice with other disciplines like systems engineering and sociology. In our own practice, Certain Measures often situates architectural speculations in the context of grand challenges. This allows projects to have some larger relevance beyond a singular proposal. For instance, Mine the Scrap, our work around radical construction waste reuse, draws on architecture, geometry, machine learning, materials science, and ecology to imagine new structures generated from discarded demolition scraps (Figures 19.1 and 19.2). To develop the project, we first built a system of waste classification and grading, a system that could be embedded in a bespoke software tool. The project generates specific architectural proposals but also has a larger import as a generalized technique of waste reuse. Educational frameworks that bring together multiple disciplines in a project-based grand challenge can be particularly rich design exercises. Urban design is a grand challenge in its own right, particularly in the context of today’s globalized and technologized cities. The recent Harvard design studio “Neuralisms Shenzhen” combined data science

FIGURE 19.1 Mine

the Scrap, a data driven process that designs new structures algorithmically generated from existing scrap. (Image courtesy Certain Measures.)

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FIGURE 19.2  MTS_003

scales up the geometric methods of Mine the Scrap to the realm of architecture. The project negotiates between the perfect precision of computational methods and the imperfect figure of a form assembled from misfits. (Image courtesy Certain Measures.)

approaches with architecture, landscape, and urbanism, as well as telecommunication, geology, and ecology, to imagine Shenzhen, China as an evolving technopolis (Witt, 2021). Through custom-built scanning software and systemic analysis of agricultural, food, infrastructure, and mobility systems, design interventions reached beyond singular buildings to networks of interventions across geographies and scales. This allowed students to synthesize numerous constraints, rules, and parameters into generative software that aided in the identification of opportunities and a production of design scenarios for landscape and urban development (Figure 19.3). The Common Language of Digital Data

Data is a powerful way of making transdisciplinary concerns legible and operable. The media of data and computation are natural fits for cross-disciplinary challenges: they allow the embedding of disciplinary knowledge in code, components, and datasets that can be used in an operative and recombinant way in new contexts. They function as epistemic ready-mades that allow architects to portably apply techniques and knowledge from other disciplines to new problems. The scope and depth of contemporary disciplinary knowledge sprawls beyond the capacity of any one person to comprehend it, and it is through tools that augment the human capacity to assimilate and process data, knowledge, and technique that we can find a truly transdisciplinary synthesis. Computation, including data

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FIGURE 19.3  A

diagram showing the data pipeline for an AI-assisted landscape design process. Image from Harvard GSD studio Neuralisms Shenzhen, diagram by Koby Moreno and Ana Gabriela Loayza. Instructor: Andrew Witt. (Image courtesy Koby Moreno and Ana Gabriela Loayza.)

science and deep learning, provides one such set of such tools for mental augmentation that enable an intriguing new kind of transdisciplinary designer. I will call this figure the Crosscoder. Today, data, code, and software have become a pervasive lingua franca that spans the sciences, humanities, and arts (Witt, 2022). The Crosscoder takes advantage of this by using data science, bespoke software, and artificial intelligence to embed knowledge, processes, and even intuitions from diverse disciplines into code and data. Once encapsulated in digital media, disciplinary knowledge can be reordered and recombined into intricate new tapestries of integrated creative practice. The Crosscoder sees knowledge systems as software APIs that can be modularly rewired into new design practices. Certain Measures applies this method of crosscoding to access and recombine technical systems from mathematics, the sciences, and a broader culture. Beyond the procedural methods of computational geometry, machine learning can extend the quantitative scope of mathematics to images, video, text, models, and many other forms of data. Natural language processing, machine vision, sentiment analysis, and neuroclassifier approaches allow the quantification or normalization of qualities that extend beyond the typical purview of mathematics. Indeed, it is precisely through the use of these methods that the digital humanities offer an intriguing rejoinder to fears of fragmenting knowledge and cultures. Media theorist Lev Manovich’s notion of “cultural analytics,” for example, aligns data

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science and the media artifacts of culture – images, drawings, literature, and models (Cultural Analytics, 2020) (Manovich). In fact, one could argue that fluency in the technocultural languages of data is indispensable to the cultural generalist of the twenty-first century. The technocultural practice of crosscoding enables distinct epistemologies to be synchronized and integrated into design. Our bespoke development of original software, datasets, and hardware tools encodes not only architecture knowledge but also techniques from a range of other disciplines – literature, biology, mathematics, and even politics. We expansively embrace working across scales from the material to the planetary, and we have developed projects in industries as diverse as finance, manufacturing, government, and medical devices. In doing so, we assimilate the rules of those diverse industries and disciplines in a data-centric way that sets them in dialog with a constellation of other processes and knowledge systems, each opening access to different frames and solutions for design. The Impact of Teams

Marshalling collaborative teams can offer a multi-disciplinary approach to unlock essential insights into trans-scalar wicked problems. The challenge of building an effective transdisciplinary design team comes with aligning language, values, priorities, and assumptions about process. Harvard’s Design Engineering (MDE) program takes seriously the potential of transdisciplinary teams as a core part of design pedagogy. Drawn from professional backgrounds in design, engineering, business, psychology, computer science, and many more, students come together to tackle grand systemic challenges. The teaming dynamic is essential: each project is collaborative, and students adopt roles that play against their natural skills while being mentored by their classmates with professional expertise. This creates a peer-supported process of development for a truly transdisciplinary designer. The studio structure also differs from usual in that there are substantial lectures around diverse design methodologies, technical skills, and creative practices, to expose students to the range of possible sub-disciplines within the broad universe of design. In MDE we are building a new pedagogy to foster a new kind of systems designer. One of the greatest challenges in building collaborative teams is the underlying cultural and methodological expectations that can come into tension between different disciplinary cultures. Some disciplines may prioritize broad exploration of scenarios and alternatives, while others expect narrow and tightly scoped interventions. As C.P. Snow pointed out, there is often a gap in understanding among those trained in different fields. Creating a common language for what design is can pre-empt these challenges, but open, sensitive, and patient communication will always be essential to true transdisciplinarity. Architecture beyond Architecture

Architecture is a field that is open to synthetic and ecumenical connections across disciplines, but the opportunities of transdisciplinarity require deliberate cultivation. By leveraging the potential of grand challenges, data, narratives, and teams, we can expand the scope and impact of architecture to meet the integrated and multidimensional needs of tomorrow. Particularly as technique, culture, and knowledge are increasingly encoded in software, data, and neurodigital formats, possibilities open for rewiring disciplinary cultures as if they were software code. New cultural configurations appear that span and interweave

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visual techniques, scientific knowledge, and architectural methods. In this tactic of crosscoding, we find not only a mode of technical recombination and invention but also a new pattern of design practice to transcend disciplinary limits. Works Cited Manovich, Lev. Cultural Analytics. MIT Press, 20 Oct. 2020. Witt, Andrew. Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture. MIT Press, 11 Jan. 2022. Witt, Andrew and Robert Pietrusko. Neuralisms Shenzhen. Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 01 July 2021.

20 THE ARCHITECTURAL INCONGRUITIES BETWEEN SPECULATION AND PRACTICE Max Kuo

Rem Koolhaas once described a parable of building consultants gathered around the conference table in discussion of a new architectural project. As if to dispel the sheepishness an architect-generalist might feel around such a group of technical experts, Koolhaas reminds us, the architects, that we are the only consultants in the room with historical expertise on cities and buildings. It is nothing new to hear architects defend and champion the autonomy of architecture as its own cultural, historical, and intellectual discipline, set apart from the contingent forces of urbanism and the political economy. However, this disciplinary claim is rarely turned on its head, as Koolhaas does, treating the history of architecture as a form of professional expertise that provides economic value to an increasingly commercial and technocratic enterprise. Similarly, in my own work, where I devote equal time to teaching and practicing architecture, both modalities of architectural production contribute their own unique and specific stakes within other domains where they might not seem to belong. It is this reciprocal dialogue when practice is brought into academia, or viceversa, that redefines and reconstructs the repertoire of the other. In this way, architecture is able to construct a theory of the contemporary out of this interaction where history and theory meet the urgency of societal and urban issues presented by professional practice. Societal changes, new settlement patterns, or market trends challenge architects to conceptualize and design new spatial environments. Often, clients approach the architect with a novel set of problems or an entrepreneurial concept but often retreat to a conservative or narrow set of possible architectural solutions. A Lodge Three Ways, seen in Figure 20.1, is merely one example of how we coax novel expression out of the collision between tradition and crisis. Yet, some of these problems become so urgent that they inspire new discourse or areas of research within academia. For example, California has begun to face a myriad of structural crisis, including structural housing shortages, workforce migration, increasing wildfires, and inflationary rents. Although these problems stem from long-term structural forces, in the real world they often only find short-term market-based solutions. By bringing them into academia, these issues offer opportunities for academics to retool and innovate, especially as we encounter a new era of urban and environmental crises similar in scale to the historical DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-27

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FIGURE 20.1  Designed

by ALLTHATISSOLID, A Lodge Three Ways is a mountain retreat whose outer forms contain a multitude of programs indicative of today’s peculiar clash of anxieties and comforts.

disruptions of the last mid-century. During that previous historical chapter, architect Lina Bo Bardi also contended with the academy’s role to manage these sudden transformations: Theoretically, History is useful only as an old bridge that allows us to cross a river; in other words, man’s exigencies have become suddenly, rather than gradually … diverse. The architect is called on to create new other values that do not correspond so much with particular ideologies, but with certain necessities, implicitly aesthetic; in the same sense that we demand … a color TV simply because we are tired of the black-and-white one. (Bo Bardi 74)

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In her nuanced assessment, Bo Bardi describes history’s necessary role in the construction of a new society but also cautions against reducing history and theory by merely dressing them up with the latest fashions in consumer taste. In my own pedagogical approach, the academic studio offers design investigations that go beyond solutions in pursuit of integrative design models that interrogate the forces that produce symptoms of crisis in the first place. Societal and urban emergencies are unpacked for the relevant architectural issues they touch upon and then recast within a broader historical and theoretical conversation. By doing so, prosaic problem-solving endeavors are allowed to evolve into a set of possibilities that might be enriched by other concurrent vanguard projects within academia. In the academic studio, external crises serve a double-function. On the one hand, these crises will persist into the future, becoming the very same issues those students will confront as they graduate into professional practice. On the other hand, these issues also function as MacGuffins that allow students to go beyond immediate symptoms to unpack social mores and cultural attitudes that would otherwise go unchallenged. For example, addressing today’s housing crisis benefits from reexamining progressive housing models from the past. These historical case studies reveal alternative and forgotten social and spatial configurations that broaden our perspectives, creating a contemporary imagination better equipped to redefine collective dwelling and belonging. By piercing the myopic bubble of 21st century neo-liberalism, students are more limber in their explorations and redefinitions of how we might love, bond, work, quarrel, care, own, study, cook, and play in the near future. Lifestyles of the past have a way of seeming unfathomable by today’s conventions. By measuring our social comforts against historical examples, today’s convictions and biases that bolster unsustainable typologies begin to dissolve. Dolores Hayden’s scholarship on an incredible range of 18–20th century case studies in feminist housing and Anna Tsing’s theorization of “feral technologies,” which activate the agency of natural and urban networks, taken together, offer young students a huge range of architectural possibilities. These are just two examples of how specific histories and theories can couple together with today’s exigencies to produce new architectural models. In a recent undergraduate studio I taught in UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design, students instrumentalized these ideas and case studies to dislocate and interrogate their own biases and norms as they considered how collective housing might take form today. One crucial supposition of the studio brief is that housing density, urgently needed by Los Angeles, provides a communitarian foundation upon which other economic and mutual care systems can thrive. As seen in one example of Figure 20.2, the students were tasked with designing a monumental yet composite form of collective living situated in Griffith Park on the banks of the Los Angeles River. A fascinating urban and ecological site, students were challenged to identify and integrate all living agents as tenants of this housing collective. Horses, college graduates, native vegetation, Amazon workers, wilderness islands, mountain lions, and agriculture were woven into a set of material relations and feedback loops that informed the design of a new synthetic architecture. Managing such a messy entanglement of agents and forces, the vignette shown by Figure 20.3 demonstrate how the students worked assiduously to design both intimacy and infrastructure into a dwelling system that exists at both scalar extremes simultaneously. Inversely, my professional practice engages with the emergent desires and needs of various communities, clients, and organizations, our academic research can be imbued with meaningful stakes that might not be apparent when understood as mere formal design

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FIGURE 20.2 Designed

by UCLA students Kaitlyn Do, Ryan Nubling, and EmaLee Sault, this communitarian housing project examines the ecological and programmatic relationships within local recreational, agricultural, and housing cultures in Northeast Los Angeles.

FIGURE 20.3 This

view of the threshold leading into the communitarian housing project speculates on ways to defamiliarize the typical material cultures found within this housing typology.

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exercises. Leading with design, my studio ALLTHATISSOLID continuously works on a set of persistent formal obsessions both in teaching and practice. Some of these formal problems include the spatial and perceptual contradictions that are deliberately sustained across plan and elevation, paradoxical inversions of inside and outside, and the suturing together of otherwise scattered parts. We have been fortunate enough to engage clients that allow us to leverage these form-making strategies into architectural projects with realworld stakes. In one such project, Qolab is a proposal for a co-working and gaming space catering to the LGBTQ video “gayming” community and their needs for safe spaces. My academic interests in social collectives and Peter Sloterdijk’s spherology, coupled with formal interests in the scatter-plan, produce an immersive environment where gaymers can be alone and together in a syncopated and choreographed manner. While designing this project, we realized that Qolab’s business model was a symptom of a deeper structural change in how urban space has begun organizing itself in paradoxical ways. Physical isolation did not mean social isolation, and people increasingly want easy access to the options of both togetherness and apartness. Figure 20.4 is an example of parallel projections and

FIGURE 20.4 Designed

by ALLTHATISSOLID, this is a plan study for Qolab which examines the spatial, visual, and social potential of using pixels and bitmapping as planning techniques.

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FIGURE 20.5 In

this rendering of Qolab, the planimetric complexity of single uses cohere as a collective environment when experienced as a perspectival elevation.

near-plans that we used as a way of investigating these socio-spatial conundrums. With this realization, we discovered that our formal obsessions could take on new meaning as a novel part-to-whole model for a contemporary social collective. The Qolab proposal is founded upon an atomized plan that offers physical isolation with varying degrees of porosity. As these individual units extrude upwards into a waffled landscape, Figure 20.5 reveals how the many partitions are sliced away by an invisible hand, creating an elevational awareness of a global whole. In doing so, the simultaneity of central and peripheral awareness works in sync with the various states of attention activated by a social and virtual gayming environment. The above examples of my architectural work across both teaching and practice demonstrate how both modalities operate agonistically by prodding one another in unexpected ways. It’s not that real-world problems are imported into the studio as a practicum for students to experiment on, nor that formal speculations from academia are arbitrarily supplanted onto the first commercial opportunity it finds. Instead, both domains offer their own concerns and states of affairs that, when overlapped onto one another, can be understood in unexpected ways precisely through their misfit. By observing their incongruous boundaries and gaps, a contemporary theory of architecture emerges as one mode reinterprets the other. This interaction between practice and academic speculation constructs new perspectives, protocols, and criteria in order to enlarge the world of possibilities and redirect contemporary design trajectories. Contemporary architecture should never emerge from a closely tracked synergy between professional practice and academic speculation. Instead, the incongruity between the two reveal the inconsistencies and blindspots of each, so demarcating their limitations points us toward where uncharted territories and a new imaginary might be found. In this manner, history also offers a world of past possibilities that foregrounds the mutability of today’s stigmas, anxieties, and social patterns. By destabilizing our own comforts and familiarities, we can reconsider the operative terms, design criteria, and possible case studies that will better guarantee architectural futures. Whether it be expanding real estate planning

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terms so that households might include wildlife and fulfillment workers, or finding social and perceptual relevance for topological scatter-plans, contemporary architecture emerges when we explore incongruous meanings and contexts where they did not exist within the narrow confines of their previous exigencies. Often times, professional practice is riskaverse and merely reaches for the closest and most convenient solutions at hand. Likewise, academic speculation can be either too prosaic or self-obsessed. By promoting an architecture that thrives off of how both practice and speculation provoke each other, indirect and agonistic connections can be made and subliminal forces can materialize as novel solutions. By finding new connections and construing new contexts, conventional thinking and design can be overcome. Work Cited Bo Bardi, Lina. The Theory of Architectural Practice. Translated by Catherine Veikos, Oxford, Routledge, 2014.

21 PRACTICE BEYOND THE DIGITAL BUBBLE Maya Alam

“What does it mean that this seamless panning and zooming [in a geo-browser like Google Earth] has become naturalized, that it has become how I see and experience the world, or how I want to see and experience my world?” (Presner et al.)

The ongoing competition to gain “mapping independence” between tech giants such as Apple’s “Look Around” and Google’s “Street View” is only the latest manifestation of the pervasive influence that these infrastructures have on the built environment (Goode). Today more than ever, it is within these immersive bubbles that we orient ourselves in the space of the city, virtually leaping in with a click of the mouse, orbiting around in a 360-degree panoramic image to familiarize ourselves with unknown territories. What is at stake here is to remind ourselves how these digital habits, far from being a purely descriptive, passive representation of an “external reality,” perform as a cognitive agent of cultural organization. Moving between academia and practice, I will highlight the design opportunities embedded in adopting an interdisciplinary approach to architectural imaging: borrowing expertise ranging from digital compositing – as found in animation studios – to spatial mapping – as developed in contemporary surveying practices – we can formulate architectural sensibilities able to engage with such a complex media-built landscape. These sensibilities are generally constructed from an understanding, knowledge, and perception of architecture and the built environment. The resulting design, form, material, and function are deeply embedded in an awareness of cultural, social, and historical context. It is essential to add here that this is not seen as a novel approach, but as a continuation of centuriesold architectural practices oscillating between the physical and the metaphysical: with this work, I aim to convey to students and collaborators the urgency of connecting the digital and physical realms as one. From this perspective, far from advocating for an anachronistic digital accelerationism, often predicated upon a seemingly innocuous severance between all-things-digital and bare materialities, I aim to broaden architectural imaging references DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-28

Practice Beyond the Digital Bubble  163

and position design pedagogies as well as building practices amid the messy contemporary entanglements of digital and physical spaces. Holding on to such a stale dichotomy would be as unproductive as insisting on drawing clear disciplinary boundaries for architectural means of representation and ideation. Reflecting on the possibilities of this approach in academic spaces, I will refer to a few pedagogical strategies I developed during my teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, Weitzman School of Design Figures 21.1 and 21.2. In the context of a first-year Master of Architecture studio, students used as a departing point of their design investigations some of the ever-present digital infrastructures through which we engage the built environment and construct our position within it. More specifically, platforms like Instagram and Google Earth, inevitably lingering in the background at all times, were directly introduced as central sites of design investigation. Critically engaging with the complex biases embedded in these platforms and their systems of representation becomes an opportunity to deploy similar methodologies to unpack disciplinary “proper” forms of communication such as plan, section, elevation, etc. The goal is to foreground the constructed nature of these visual devices, often described as “neutral” and “objective,” and to support students in developing their own sensibilities and personal aesthetics. Bringing into the classroom the experience and the methodology of contemporary CGI (computer-generated imagery) artists acts as a disrupting force to problematize the collaborative nature of studio culture, question their production expectations, and foreground the relationship with an audience in their design explorations. In particular, the studio takes inspiration from a practice called #everydayimage, which, as its associated hashtag suggests, prompts the artists to develop and post one artwork on their social media accounts daily. This strategy, often used by digital artists to acquire new software skills or to jump-start their attitude towards a new project, acts as a subtle moment of reflection for the incoming architecture student in their graduate studies. In this framework, students are tasked to develop a visual representation of their project and its site every day for two weeks. The images produced are collected in a shared studio Instagram account, acting as a collective repository of their visual research, encouraging them to position their individual point of view within the broader body of work developed in the studio. Furthermore, the daily production schedule, far from being an exasperation of already pressing expectations around architecture labor practices, is a device to highlight the value of work-in-progress, reject protective attitudes towards singular outcomes, and foreground the iterative character of design learning. Finally, sharing the work with an audience outside the studio’s walls emphasizes the dialectic relation between design practices and public constituencies. Rather than falling in line with graphic tendencies or viral trends, students are encouraged to negotiate aesthetic ambitions with their public reception, framing design production as a discursive and collective process. Beginning architecture students, in particular, often have a preconceived notion of the disconnect between their outside recreational world and the (perceived or actual) severity of their architectural education. Following this exercise, students are consistently surprised to find that there are no clear boundaries between social media imagery and academic, architectural conversation. The differences and similarities identified in presenting an idea via Instagram versus a “normal” studio context led to productive discussions on sensibilities, notions of aesthetics, and means of communication. Not only did the results lead to a

164  Maya Alam

FIGURE 21.1 Student

work by Eric Anderson, Megan York, & Maria Fuentes (left to right), University of Pennsylvania, Weitzman School of Design, Department of Architecture, ARCH 502, Spring 2019. (Continued)

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FIGURE 21.1 (Continued)

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FIGURE 21.2 Student

work by Weiting Zhang, Dario Sabidussi, & Miguel Matos (left to right), University of Pennsylvania, Weitzman School of Design, Department of Architecture, ARCH 502, Spring 2020. (Continued)

Practice Beyond the Digital Bubble  167

FIGURE 21.2 (Continued)

168  Maya Alam

rich library of images that my students and I could revisit whenever projects slipped away, as they so often do while trying to answer more complex organizational questions about program, location, and structure, but they also opened up a conversation about individual experience and perception. Throughout this exercise, it is crucial to remain perfectly transparent about the shortcomings of borrowing modes of communication from platforms driven by corporate needs, such as META and Google. As is too often painfully evident, narratives of democratic access and equitable data collection tell a richer story when we focus on the communities excluded by these platforms and the spaces of the city omitted by these modes of vision. Focusing on Google Earth, Street View, and contemporary practices of digital surveying is another strategy to embed interdisciplinary techniques in the pedagogical structure of the design studio. Students are introduced to first-hand experiences with digital surveying practices (ranging from photogrammetry to LiDAR scanning) and are encouraged to engage with them not as static mapping devices, able to capture an “objective” reality found “out in the field,” but rather as active sites of negotiation between public and private identities: the aim is to blur the boundaries between surveying practices and paradigms of surveillance. Overturning hierarchies between observer and observed students deploy the same photogrammetry techniques to scan physical territories as flying drones over the 3d navigable surfaces displayed on Google Earth. A recursive practice turning images (acquired from Google surveillance cars) into 3d mapped models of the built environment, dissected again in a series of screenshots (developed by carefully navigating such digital interface) and ultimately recomposed in a 1:1 model of their site of analysis. Three degrees (at least) of separation between observable reality and the ‘base’ model in their hands. From this perspective, resolution and fidelity become central terms of discussion, this time not to obsess over machinic gaps inevitably found in translation across media but to challenge our ideas of aesthetics, community, and commodifications built in these visual devices. Photogrammetry models begin to be read as malleable fragments of a constructed representation of reality, just as much as our digital gaze, inspecting unknown territories immersed in 360-degree images, is foregrounded as an active agent in the construction of those same places. To capture the unstable nature of these visual devices and to articulate a sensibility able to intervene within them, students were tasked to build their own series of 360-degree panoramic renderings of the proposed intervention in the existing Google Street View environment, highlighting what (and who) is being captured as much as what (and who) is being left out of it. In this exercise, for example, students were able to examine and respond to a neighborhood in lower Northwest Philadelphia at different levels of resolution. While highresolution 3D models represented new, high-priced housing developments, other less affluent parts of the same block had been captured with lower resolution strategies, blurring away their presence in the city. It is from an awareness of the physical and political consequences of these different modes of vision that students were able to understand some of the existing dynamics occurring on site. Through these exchanges, some students even felt confident enough to talk about the impact of their color vision deficiency, he ma a defect but as a distinct way of seeing the world. Within these gaps, we were able to point out existing realities and speculate about the possible future of our built environment.

Practice Beyond the Digital Bubble  169

In our practice, we put forward similar investigations speculating on contemporary imaging and surveying technologies to recalibrate our agency across physical and digital spaces. More specifically, moving from academia to the sphere of practice, we focus on strategies to extend the discursive relationship between inter-disciplinary modes of representation into material experimentations, embedding digital material sensibilities into traditional craftsmanship. Therefore, while my pedagogical approach aims to unlearn homogeneous understandings of topics such as architectural representation and its cultural context, it is in my practice that these questions are tested with digital and physical prototypes. Working on adaptive reuse projects, as-built evaluations become particularly relevant to the development of the design. We leverage 3D scanning practices to problematize the relationship of the proposed intervention with its context, acknowledging the layered reality of the given site while allowing for novel interpretations. For example, in our project, Casa Zwei Figure 21.3, a design developed as a layered extension of an existing structure in Rome, the means of acquiring the 3D survey and its

FIGURE 21.3 

Rendered image of the project in visualized site data, ©AlamProfeta.

170  Maya Alam

FIGURE 21.4  Diagrammatic

©AlamProfeta.

visualization of Google Street View cars capturing the site,

relative data became an integral part of the design and allowed us to ask questions like; what are the possibilities of creating an interaction between the visual motion of discovery constructed through surveying practices, their image acquisition processes, and urban scenography? From this perspective, camera points, view cones, and site sequences are instrumentalized to articulate an architectural figure claiming autonomy as much as engaging with its surroundings Figures 21.4 and 21.5. The proposed design establishes a street façade acting as much as a disruption as it camouflages itself in the collected data, distorting future surveys and creating its own aesthetic. Conversations around materiality become crucial when negotiating such complex dynamics. In this case, the individual RGB values extracted from the survey were reprocessed following a system of organization that prioritizing the topological structure of the scanned artifact (its 3D mesh) rather than the “original” material assemblies. This results in a “vaporized texture” able to reshuffle existing physical traces towards novel material associations. In this case, working in close collaboration with a material development company based in northern Italy, individual RGB pixel values were translated in striated bricks composed of a variety of colored grains of sand hardened via natural binders activated exclusively by contact with water Figure 21.6. The opportunities generated by moving fluidly between multiple representations of the site, from the photographic survey to its point-based visualization and further materialization as material mock-ups, highlight the value of an interdisciplinary approach to design processes, able to problematize ideas of context between physical and digital space. The technologies through which we see and experience the built environment determine how we construct it. My pedagogical approach, therefore, aims to convey to students that there are no clear boundaries between the digital environments we live in

Practice Beyond the Digital Bubble  171

FIGURE 21.5  Layered

drawing of context, building and articulated, interior void space, ©AlamProfeta.

and the physical environments we design and construct. The introduction of representational strategies is consequently paired with discussions of implicit notions of normalcy and bias embedded in cultural and social interactions. In a world where communication is increasingly digital, and we are ever more focused on re-using resources of the built environment, it is crucial to focus on strategies to intervene in existing conditions and understand them as hybrid realities. It is the combination of design expertise and cultural understanding that allows us to challenge our students and our preconceived notions of what architecture ‘should’ be. In the space of practice, these same questions become crucial moments to develop physical prototypes extending this conversation in

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FIGURE 21.6 

From digital to physical materialities: 3D-printed rock model, ©AlamProfeta.

material form. The interaction between practice and education is highly reciprocal and goes beyond the digital (or physical) bubble. Works Cited Goode, Lauren. “The Biggest Apple Maps Change Is One You Can’t See.”Wired, Conde Nast, 31 Jan. 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/apple-maps-redesign/. Presner, Todd, et al. Hypercities Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities. Harvard University Press, 2014.

22 THE UNEXPECTED SOLUTION How Multidisciplinary Enriches the Design Process Stefan Rier and Lukas Rungger

When we founded noa* network of architecture in 2011, our first statement was to give the studio a name that did not bear our signature. No Rungger, no Rier, but a name that was itself a celebration of the choral nature of architecture. More than 10 years later, a glance at our projects reveals the plurality of solutions we have adopted from time to time according to the different challenges, which we have tackled with the most diverse professionals. At an early stage of our professional activity, it was already clear to us that architecture is a multi-faceted subject; we gained this understanding back in the years of university education. The first clue in this regard is the hesitation of the majority as to whether the architecture department belongs to the sciences or the humanities, a usually strict division in the European university system. Vitruvius, 2000 years ago, said that architecture is a science arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning (Pollio, De Architectura, vol. 1). A statement as relevant yesterday as today. The collective character of architecture is also reflected in the working methodology chosen par excellence in university courses: teamwork. A way of learning that reveals a strong drive to relate with others and to exchange ideas. Academic education has provided us with a clear perspective on the hybrid aspect of architecture and its vocation to engage different professionals. We were constantly taught that architects must learn how to create solutions rather than learn fixed solutions. The interdisciplinarity in the design process is relatively well supported in the European university system, even if it is more of a possibility than a compulsory step. There are possibilities to do some ECTS in other universities, and one can choose an external degree supervisor. But in our opinion, interdisciplinarity reveals its innovative potential when professionals from the most diverse fields are systematically included in design laboratories. We had the opportunity to be invited to a think-tank for a research program at the Design University of Bozen/Bolzano, led by Professor Alastair Fuad-Luke, entitled: “What Could A Farm Be?”. The goal was to develop an agro-socio-ecological approach towards sustainable, viable agricultures for small farms in Europe through an interdisciplinary mixing of design, art, social and farming practices. The creation of new knowledge depended DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-29

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FIGURE 22.1 

Transsensorial Gateway, University of Milan, 2021.

upon the successful hybridization of different worldviews, framings, practices, and so on. Introducing workshops of this kind into the education system is recommendable for two reasons: on the one hand, the university does not have the constraints of architectural practice, such as external demands or regulations, and one therefore can experience interdisciplinarity without restrictions. In addition, young designers have the opportunity to delve into the design thinking phase, which precedes the design building phase. It is the crucial part where research and concepts in architecture are given meaning, and it is the part that is most enriched by an exchange of knowledge. We have brought this interdisciplinary approach into our architectural practice. Although not directly in touch with academia, our modus operandi involves a significant interdisciplinary research phase. It is a way of working that can sometimes be difficult to sustain in a free-market economic system, but it pays off in the added value achieved in the project. Interdisciplinary design is fascinating because it is an activity where you never know what the final outcome will be. When noa* is in charge of a project, the core theme is that of architectural creation. Our in-house team consists of 30 creatives located in Bolzano, Berlin, Milan, and Turin, covering the fields of architecture, interior design, and, for some projects, tailor-made solutions for product design. But we don’t want to work as a closed-box system: architecture has countless points of contact with other subjects, such as psychology, history, politics, ecology … Each project’s idea and concept are reinforced when professionals from other fields are invited to join the design process. At the beginning of every project, we ask ourselves: what is what you always wanted to do but never had the chance to do so far? Who could we work with on this issue? The

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FIGURE 22.2 

Transsensorial Gateway, University of Milan, 2021.

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FIGURE 22.3 

Centre for Culture and Community, research project.

FIGURE 22.4 

Centre for Culture and Community, facade studies.

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FIGURE 22.5 

Altstadthotel Weisses Kreuz, rooftop bar, Innsbruck.

think-tank must be established at the very beginning of the project and not afterwards, in the final design stage, like a cosmetic operation. Through this procedure, it is more likely to produce unexpected solutions. The key factor is that each discipline has a different worldview, so you approach the situation differently and, consequently, see other things. A closer look at three of our projects will help to understand better the way we work. In 2021 we were asked to present a project during the Design Week in Milan as part of the exhibition for Interni Magazine entitled “Creative Connections”. As the name says, the main topic was the research on how creatives can foster relationships after a long stop caused by the pandemic. For this project, we called in Hannes Wohlgemuth, founder of the lighting design company EWO, and Alexander Ebner, DJ and sound designer at Ebner Film + Music. We, as architects, focused on the spatiality of the installation and designed a sort of arch that embraces the public approaching the exhibition. Meanwhile, the light and sound designers worked on the sensory components. The result was a light and sound landscape, called “Transsensorial Gateway”, able to interact with the public. Another project that draws on other disciplines is the prototype for a Centre for Culture and Community, a project carried out by our research department and quite challenging because, as a prototype, it did not have a context to refer to and to settle in. The theme of flexibility was then central to the design. In this initial set-up, made up of variables and conditions, we found our way, taking inspiration from the game of chess, a seemingly distant parallel, but which applies the idea of “For every action, there is a reaction” that we wanted to introduce in this project. Just as the chess pieces move on the chessboard, the modular elements forming the façade can be moved on the Cartesian axes

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FIGURE 22.6 

Altstadthotel Weisses Kreuz, entrance, Innsbruck.

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according to specific rules, creating a wide range of possibilities, and giving life to the most diverse scenarios. A field of intersection that appears whenever we work on renovation projects is that of history. From 2018 to 2021, we worked on a unique historical building in the centre of Innsbruck (Austria), whose past goes back centuries, the Altstadthotel Weisses Kreuz. During the re-design, we kept asking ourselves: how can we revive a past that no longer exists? In this research phase on the idea of time travel, the inspiration came from the art of the Komische Oper: having a studio in Berlin, it often happens that some colleagues go to see one of Barry Kosky’s plays. The Australian director uses projections in his works to stage a living musical theatre: in the same way we, as architects and interior designers, have used the means at our disposal to create surreal spaces, wholly detached from the bustling life of the nearby streets. We did this by using colors, lights, mirrors, and paths. With these three examples, we want to show the depth that emerges from a multidisciplinary approach to our projects. These case histories are just an extract of our work: in ten years of activity, we have had the opportunity to work with psychologists, fashion designers, glass blowers, weavers, and many other professionals. Practice and education run differently, because they have different goals. But at the same time, they are a continuation of each other, not always in a linear time pattern. The conversation about interdisciplinary opportunities must find more space in both worlds. In the above examples, we have reported on three projects where interdisciplinarity represented an added value, a possibility to enrich a design with new meanings. But there is also another consideration to be made: the extremely complex problems of today’s world necessarily require an interdisciplinary response. In architecture, the issues are varied and wide-ranging, covering, to give a few examples, the sustainability of building materials, the reduction of land use, the circular economy of buildings, and the issue of affordable housing. Sustainability, the ongoing climate crisis and the professionals' awareness of the need for a change of direction have helped to highlight the relevance of interdisciplinarity in tackling the complexity of today’s problems. Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity: these are words with slightly different nuances, but a common goal: to find a versatile solution for people’s well-being, putting humans and the planet on which they live at the center. In the architectural practice, there are already integrated systems, which are becoming a compulsory step in Europe: one example is BIM, Building Information Modeling, an integrated information management system that allows collaborators from related disciplines, such as architecture, engineering, and building technology, to work together on a project. However, we believe that universities should first lay the foundations for interdisciplinary discourse, helping students to master the steps set out in the Dublin descriptors: 1 Knowledge and understanding: the ability to interact with disciplines other than one’s own by understanding the basic principles, acquiring the vocabulary, and mastering the core objectives. 2 Applying knowledge and understanding: the competence to interact with competences other than one’s own on a common project and to collaborate in the achievement of results. 3 Making judgements: the ability to elaborate autonomous research thought with respect to one’s own discipline of origin, enriching one’s own point of view with the contamination of different opinions.

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FIGURE 22.7 

Altstadthotel Weisses Kreuz, rooftop bar, Innsbruck.

4 Communication skills: the ability to describe an interdisciplinary research project in a scientifically and formally correct but sufficiently clear manner, illustrating the assumptions, methodological paths, and expected results. 5 Learning skills: the competence in the acquisition of basic knowledge and information on new topics and disciplines other than one’s own. The question surely remains as to how interdisciplinary curricula are introduced and recognized in academia and whether creating macro-areas of application might be a viable way forward. But in the working realm, there is a growing demand for less fragmented expertise. We see this well in our studio: we have creative minds from different fields, and we actively seek a network to collaborate with on different projects. This modus operandi has proven to be successful. After all, how can an architect plan a green roof without essential elements of botany? How can one design a kindergarten without knowledge of child psychology? In an increasingly specialized world, there is more than ever a need for figures that connect the dots. We think everyone must recognise their field of action, but the outputs from collaborative design are evidence of how this approach should be continually encouraged. Work Cited Pollio, Vitruvius. De Architectura. Gotardus de Ponte, 1521.

23 LEARNING BY DOING Rozana Montiel

Design manifests actions that make us aware of our construction of space. There are many ways to build. Building goes beyond laying bricks: we can build socially; we can build different times and realities. That is what design relies on – our ability to imagine different times and spaces. Design is a form of strategic thinking that enables creative solutions to complex problems. Design is also about transforming space into a place. Placemaking for us is understanding that architecture adds value by activating a social construction that leads to non-discriminatory economic growth and development. It is about building processes which enable meaningful connections between spaces and people. In the studio, we work on a wide variety of projects of different scales and layers, that range from the city to the book, from the artifact to other micro-objects. We learn by doing, by acting upon our observations, by weaving a collective network between artists, writers, photographers, researchers, urban planners, landscape designers, anthropologists, sociologists, artisans, and communities… This inter-disciplinary work nourishes our performance from different perspectives. Sharing knowledge and exchanging experiences with others allows us to analyze any existing or new challenges within a multilayered matrix that transcends architecture. Today, I have come to understand that architecture is a platform to act, for critical thinking, and for beauty. As architects, we have a responsibility to act upon our ideas and to activate spaces accordingly. To take a stand in accordance to our political, social, and ecological convictions, understanding beauty as a basic right. As architects, we are taught to design and build, but we’re not always taught to express our beliefs through design. Nowadays, it is more and more important that, through architecture, we generate critical thinking. If architecture is a platform for expression, for activation, and for reflection, then our ideas should come across through it. This is easier said than done. However, anything that we design must be rooted in our convictions. So, if we believe in some ideal, how can we represent it? How can we build it? DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-30

182  Rozana Montiel

FIGURE 23.1 Labyrinth

(Mexico City, 2012). In this site-action, we built a space from a line of lime. A simple trace is capable of re-building behavior, perception, and uses of the space. A trace can change the memory of a place, but more importantly, it can reshape a community.

FIGURE 23.2  Void

Temple (Jalisco, Mexico, 2011) project in collaboration with Dellekamp Arquitectos. This circle is one of the many landmarks along the Pilgrim’s Route in Jalisco, Mexico. The circular enclosure creates an open-air temple and shelter.

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FIGURE 23.3 Walk

to the volcano (Mexico City, 2016). Transformation begins with a shift of perception. We invited the inhabitants of the Miravalle community in Mexico City to hike up the trail to the Guadalupe volcano. The walk produced a great social shift: the community committed to preserve this inhabitable boundary and to use it sustainably for its potential to capture rainwater. (Continued)

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FIGURE 23.3 (Continued)

Any complex thinking must be essentialized and must convey our ideas with regards to a theme. When working within a community, in a specific landscape, or with a specific building material, we are actually choosing to take a stand. It is paramount that we reflect on the design tools that architecture implements as a discipline. We believe buildings are powerful structures for knowledge and that the territories that are connected and defined through architectural design are also spaces for the interpretation of perception, and places of collective memory and understanding. Design must go hand in hand with research. In fact, every project should be an opportunity for inter-disciplinary research and development. An interdisciplinary approach allows people to borrow tools, knowledge, and expertise from other professional practices. Architecture is a collective practice involving many forces: As researchers, we reflect upon the syntax, context, texts, and subtexts. Before setting out to design, we thoroughly research the specific potential, resources, community assets, and essential needs of a site. Research looks for traces, prints, signs, and vestiges. It is the work of a detective: to recollect information to learn about the role of people in the context they inhabit. It is also important to read the underlines in every space given to make visible the invisible. As teachers, we hold a back-and-forth dialogue between experience and imagination. The spaces we design are linked to teaching, learning, and mindfulness. Learning is acquiring knowledge. To apprehend is to conceive species of spaces to be fixed in memory through experience. For us, design is a creative and strategic thinking process aimed at offering better aesthetic and functional solutions to complex human problems. By taking the initiative of identifying a problem, probing and persuading students and professionals to find a feasible solution, we contribute to society as designers. Imagination is coupled to experimentation, and method to resolution.

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FIGURE 23.4 Common

Unity (Mexico City, 2016). This public space rehabilitation of the San Pablo Xalpa housing unit, in Mexico City, worked around the physical barriers placed by residents in common spaces. Our design strategy replaced the dividing vertical structures (walls, fences, and barricades) with horizontal structures (coverings, patterned pavements) implementing equipped roofs for a diverse program (boards, climbing walls, games, railings, and nets). The new space facilitated a different kind of appropriation: neighbors working for the common good.

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FIGURE 23.5  Court

(Veracruz, Mexico, 2016). For a suburban housing complex in Veracruz, Gulf of Mexico, we designed a sports court to house a community center. The court became more than a roof: by using the capacity between the building columns, we generated a multifunctional program.

FIGURE 23.6  Fresnillo

Playground (Zacatecas, Mexico, 2018). In one of the most violenceridden areas in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, we recycled a paved sewage canal and transformed it into a playground. The new space improved the quality of life in the housing complex by offering safe recreational areas and opportunities to vulnerable groups.

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As practitioners, we explore how architectural shapes materialize meaningful structures in place. For this, we have created an Architectural Manifesto that dictates our principles for approaching our projects. “To manifest” etymologically means “to be caught in the act”. To act on every project means to: 1 Stand Ground 2 Facilitate Placemaking 3 Search Content in Context 4 Change Barriers to Boundaries 5 Change the Spatial Perception 6 Approach the Landscapes as a Program 7 Resignify Materials 8 Recycle and Reuse 9 Work with Temporality 10 Build Narratives 11 Transform Scarcity into Abundance 12 Beauty is a Basic Right This critical thinking exercise allow us to translate new meanings into architecture. In terms of design, we are mostly interested in placemaking, which means rediscovering the frames that connect us. Place-making is a process more than a product. It is about building processes that enable meaningful connections between people and different spaces. Architects, as professionals in their fields, can detect, frame, source, and solve problems, which may be blind spots to others. Placemaking is the result of asking what the architect’s role regarding community building is. It is not only a relationship between a scholar and a student within an institution; it is also a relationship between collaborators in the studio, between client and architect, and between urban landscape and designer. The architect plays the role of mediatorprovocateur-manager between institutions and communities. In many cases, we have noted that design, for both, seems superfluous. However, we maintain that beauty is not a luxury, does not imply a higher cost, or is opposed to the functionality of a space; on the contrary, we have confirmed that it improves the quality of life. The fields of action of research, teaching, and practice can be resumed in the following concepts: 1. Art, Representation, and Action When the limits between art and architecture fade, architecture provokes, moves, and dislocates in the same way as art. To understand beauty as a basic right – is a statement looking to dignify everyone – then it’s implicit that our architecture must nurture the human spirit. Representation in architecture is a way of conveying meaningful narratives of space but also of re-signifying our connections to space. Therefore, texts, drawings and models are an integral part of the design process and cannot be separated from how we translate our ideas into concrete forms.

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FIGURE 23.7 (Top)

Stand Ground (Venice, 2018). Our piece “Stand Ground” (to hold ground/ defend a position) presented at the Venice Biennale “Freespace” transforms the wall into a floor: it connects the exterior with the interior, turning a barrier into a horizon. (Bottom) Stand Up for the Seas! (Versailles, 2022) is an installation made of recycled materials, which invites us to walk inside a seine fishing net to experience what it feels like to get caught. More and more, waste needs to be re-signified into a resource. We transformed the discarded fishing nets into a new building material: a floor.

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2. Materiality, Habitability, and Experimentation “Materiality” is not solely about form or function, it is about approaching our daily habits in a meaningful way. And “habitability” is the way space welcomes and engages people in everyday routines. In these two concepts there are two important aspects: the first is material congruence: materiality can add texture to life when it promotes a meaningful relationship between landscape and social environment. And second, experimentation with building formats: experimenting affordable and simple materials, open new ways of inhabiting a territory. The detailed care of materiality must be in congruence with the identity of a place.

FIGURE 23.8 CIVAC

Linear Park (Jiutepec, Morelos, México, 2022). This infrastructure and urban renewal project generated a civic and cultural center on one of the main avenues of Jiutepec, Morelos, Mexico. The new administrative buildings were designed with lattice facades that orient citizens through the premises thanks to their iconic character. We gave a local identity to the complex through the use of vernacular porticoes and volcanic stone masonry. (Continued)

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FIGURE 23.8 (Continued)

3. Public Space, Social Ground, and Community Our ideas begin with the act of delineation. And the line is a powerful tool for design. Re-inventing the use of the line has been crucial in the development of our public space projects. A single line can transform a barren ground into a public area. It can be a wall, a roof, a ground, a bridge, a slide… Extracting these very simple concepts can have great impact on social construction. By activating public spaces effectively, we might enable a grass-root culture and lead the community towards economic growth. We perceive “place” as something where a community inter-connects, because communities are an anchor for equity, diversity, and resilience. If architecture takes for granted the social ground which makes it happen, it can forget its vital effect: which is to build relationships. Relationships are the primary shelter of any society. Without them, proper shelter cannot exist. In the process of building places and relationships, we’ve discovered that working with people’s perception of space is already a way of building. Small-scale projects admit ripple effects on the larger scale when people get involved, not as consumers of space but as place-makers. In order to succeed with these ideas and to be capable of changing the ordinary into something extraordinary requires commitment. Once architecture becomes ethical, aesthetical, and practical, it can truly act upon solving concrete problems like many of the issues urging the world today.

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FIGURE 23.9 PILARES

Cultural Center (Iztapalapa, Mexico City, 2021) is an urban project of social impact developed by Mexico City to generate citizen knowledge centers. We designed this venue in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, a vulnerable, densely populated area that lacks cultural infrastructure, parks, and squares. This venue was planned as an inclusive and multifunctional cultural oasis, open to street activity through its front access.

Provocation 02

24 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES Nader Tehrani

Introduction

Speculations set within current architectural practices involve a great many received conventions and, yet practices have also been impacted by a multitude of emerging forces, many of which have required the broadening of disciplinary boundaries. What constitutes the core of the discipline has also been put to question as part of this equation, on the one hand putting landscape, urbanism, and architecture into a larger necessary dialogue while on the other hand responding to belated challenges to Western thinking, among other tropes that have shaken the autonomy of pedagogical platforms. Establishing the differences between how we practice within offices versus how we operate within schools is an important question, not only if we value the connection between them but equally so if we discover what is possible to achieve even more strategically once separated. If architectural practices at large are defined by the cultivation of education, the transformation of professional practices, the acknowledgment of marginalized histories, and the engagement of more inclusive communities through which the built environment gets rethought, then this is also a moment to reckon with the varied activities that define the architect as protagonist. Beyond designer, the architect as administrator, activist, politician, educator, or patron, among a myriad of other roles – all suggest a productive yield when the lens is widened beyond the conventional frame. At the same time, it goes without saying that the architect rarely plays all the aforementioned roles alone; each involve responsibilities of ample complexity that exclude the possibility of breadth and depth at the same time. Furthermore, in order to have these spheres of practices evolve with some depth, we must come to appreciate the differences of their respective means and methods, the varied cultural and political contexts they impact, the effectiveness of their connection to each other, but also their freedom to explore independently, speculating without being bound by the immediacy of results. In other words, this is also a time to reckon with the fecundity of experiments for which no guaranteed results are assumed.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-32

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The Institution as Case Study

To gauge inter-disciplinary advancement is also to question the role of the institution of architecture: how it operates as a body of people, how it organizes itself, how it teaches, and how it lays out an infrastructure for its actions. These questions are as philosophical in their challenge as they are physical in the ramifications of the spaces they organize. There is possibly no space like the “school” of architecture that gives evidence to this institution as a body of thought; it not only gives substance to its thinking but also embodies those ideological shadows we often don’t see clearly enough to articulate. Within these schools, there are faculties, students, and administrations; there are also daily rituals, annual traditions, and cycles of the longue durée. Thus, coming to understand the formal, spatial, and material qualities of this institution is possibly as important as understanding the ideas on which these schools are built; indeed, often they are mirrors of each other, while other times they merely cohabit for a moment in time. These institutions house individuals of varied expertise, of multi-disciplinary range, and of ideological diversity; so, this is also an opportunity to gauge how architecture’s historical commitment to humanism can be tracked through buildings whose spaces embody an appeal to these aspirations – bringing the arts and sciences into a broader philosophical conversation. On this occasion, I will take the opportunity of speaking to extraordinary conditions within three buildings as the basis for revealing the nature of inter-disciplinary thinking; having worked closely with the academic and administrative communities of Georgia Tech’s Hinman Building, the University of Melbourne’s MSD Building, and the University of Toronto’s Daniels Building, I have also had the opportunity of blending the professional and academic spheres into productive conversation, effectively adopting faculty voices and their research as the framework for the buildings’ anatomies. These projects have served as test beds for collaborative working environments, allowing not only the buildings to embody the promise of their (cross)programming but also to design the very buildings as an imprint of the collaborative process they entailed.

FIGURE 24.1 From

left: Hinman Research Center, ©Jonathan Hillyer; Daniels Building, ©Nic Lehoux; Melbourne School of Design, Photography © John Horner.

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In context, all three buildings were commissioned around the same time, the result of competitive processes, involving either formal competitions or requests for proposals. All three projects were launched just prior to the economic recession of 2008, and accordingly, all were also impacted by the radical cuts each project required to comply with the fiscal austerity that ensued in their respective contexts. Each involved a close working relationship with academic cohorts, both faculty and students, who, to different degrees, collaborated on the projects, giving those opportunities they would not have otherwise had. Georgia Tech: Hinman’s Suspended Crib

Georgia Tech’s Hinman Building was originally conceptualized by Paul Malcolm Heffernan in 1939; conceived as a ‘research’ building, it was designed around a high-bay space whose legacy stands today as the space within which the helicopter and microwave, among many other industrial inventions, were developed. Because of the focus on adaptive re-use, for us, the collaborative impulse was there from the beginning, adopting the talents of Jack Pyburn’s team at Lord Aeck & Sargent to lead in the arena of historical restoration, while acknowledging that the projected program would require substantial interventions such that NADAAA would be engaged to insert new architectures within the historical frame of the existing building.

FIGURE 24.2 

Historic Hinman Research Building, unknown photographer.

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From a programming perspective, the building was to house the master’s and PhD programs of the School of Architecture, and in doing so, redescribing the entire central quad of the campus – something that was entirely transformed in tandem with this project. Spread across three buildings – the original School of Architecture (the East Architecture Building), also designed by P.M. Heffernan, with a new addition by Jerry Cooper in 1980 (the West Architecture Building). The actual programs housed in these buildings included Architecture, Industrial Design, City and Regional Planning, as well as Building Construction that received its own building some years after the renovation of the Hinman Building. During the years of the Hinman Building, the design process was supported by deans Thomas Galloway and Alan Balfour; however, it was associate dean Doug Allen whose direct knowledge of the programs, and a more engaged relationship with the faculty groups that truly helped form the inter-disciplinary team from whom we would mine the culture of the school, that was critical to the project. With the high bay being defined as the key space of opportunity, the initial programming exercises would revolve around entities within the PhD programs, whose research could give impetus for the amount of new real estate inserted within the building; indeed, beyond architectural terms, the feasibility study revolved around cultural questions of possible inter-disciplinary interactions, and how they may catalyze new modalities of work across programs within Georgia Tech. So vast were the initial programmatic ambitions that the high bay space was to be effectively filled with three stories of research space, eliminating the sense of awe the space engendered. From this perspective, the economic crash was seen as heaven-sent because the immediate reduction in budget also translated into the reduction of scope, effectively saving the high bay as a void. While our initial architectural impulse had been to insert a new figure of some strength within the space of the high-bay, as an airship might be sheltered within its hangar, we were saved from that very eventuality by the reduction of the budget of about one-third the initial scope. With the scope transformed, so was the inter-disciplinary reach of its programmatic ambitions. Still, the existing spaces north and south of the high-bay, were to remain as key programmatic support for the great hall, in effect allowing the height of the high-bay to maintain the kind of vitality it always had and to allow large-scale mock-ups, installations, and artifacts to be tested within the space. Saddle-bagged around the high-bay, the PhD spaces would then be able to monitor their own projects with the adjacency they enjoyed to the space of fabrication. The high bay, thus, took on the responsibilities of bringing the various programs together as a space of flexibility, intersection, and interaction. This also meant it needed to

FIGURE 24.3 From left: Program insertion diagram, NADAAA; USS Macon Blimp inside Hangar

One, NASA Ames Research Center; Program insertion diagram, NADAAA.

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FIGURE 24.4 

The ‘Crib’, NADAAA.

house fundamentally different activities, with everyday studio spaces for the master’s program, open spaces for fabrication, open wall spaces for pin-ups and reviews, as well as the flexibility to open up the entire hall for large scale events, be they for graduation of other such collective functions. From a technical and typological point of view, this also had vast consequences. Namely, if we were to imagine a flexible studio space, we would also need to provide for a significant amount of infrastructure within the ground to allow for electrical hook-ups that enable varied table layouts without encumbering the openness of the vault above. In tandem, this also allowed for the truss and gantry crane overhead to play roles they were never called on to undertake by taking on more responsibilities, both physical and conceptual. The roof’s anatomy was composed of several key elements that we would wish to enhance. First, its barrel vault was composed around a bow-string truss, whose figure we wished to maintain as a characteristic feature of the building. Second, conceived around clerestory windows on the north and south sides, the truss is tied to its day-lighting strategy. Third, the gantry crane that once supported the research initiatives within the high bay is also tied to the clerestory frame, a major piece of infrastructure awaiting a new function. In addition to these existing conditions, we knew that the high-bay space would require the introduction of several new elements to satisfy the new programs: a new studio space on the third level, connecting it to the second by way of a stair, a new staircase on the south to give another means of egress, lighting systems overhead, and of course the sprinkler system in case of fires. These facts gave rise to an interpretation that was the key to an inter-disciplinary engagement, transforming the nature of this entire endeavor. The question we posed was simple: how do we allow the building’s systems to service the building from above and below without having to connect to each other? Was there a way of ensuring that no new structural systems invaded the space, allowing the ground to remain entirely unencumbered by obstacles? The raised floor system allowed for the introduction of the electrical and mechanical systems underfloor, giving the ground precisely the kind of flexibility this space required. In collaboration with Uzyn & Case Engineers, LAS, and our own team at NADAAA1, this produced a discussion that strategically wove questions of engineering, historic preservation, and new interventions into productive dialogue. Specifically, by reinterpreting

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FIGURE 24.5 

Exploded studio, NADAAA.

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the roof as a “new ground”, we were able to invert the tectonic logic that is conventionally sought in a building; the roof truss is called on to suspend the lighting and support the spiral stair, all while re-purposing the gantry crane to support the new studio, the Crib, from above – none of them touching the ground as such. The Crib required added structural struts overhead, running east-west to frame the space of the newly suspended studio. Diaphanous in their presence, a series of thin cables were called on to support the Crib’s tray below, with each cable linked back to structural T’s below the studio tray. Literally suspended from above, the Crib also required lateral bracing; thus, delicately bent steel rods were introduced onto the north and south sides to mitigate the subtle sway that the crib would otherwise have foreseen. From a conceptual standpoint, the relationship between historic preservation, structural intervention, and new additions was complex, especially in light of canonic approaches we had studied as precedents. For instance, Carlo Scarpa’s interventions at Castelvecchio establish a clear difference between the existing conditions of the building and the new interventions by the introduction of floating planes, reveals, and new material conditions, all together underlining the difference between history and the present in a figural way. In this sense, the confrontation between the old and the new bears little ambiguity, and the clarity of its separation helps to mitigate an otherwise complex set of design decisions that Scarpa navigates as episodes, details, and small instances. At the Hinman Building, instead of “confronting” the building, our collective team elected to draw from the logic of its elements – playing judo as it were – effectively adopting the strength of the existing building to extend it, intervene in it, and to transform it. In this sense, one cannot identify a seam between the steel of the gantry crane, and the newly inserted steel that upholds the Crib; they cohere as an organic whole, giving new meaning to an old artifact. This suggests a more complex relationship between history and the present, allowing the building to live on, as it were, not as sacred archeology, but rather as a living entity with the dynamism of being able to take on new responsibilities. If there are subtle but important differences between historic restoration, preservation, and renovation, then the adaptive reuse of the Hinman Building challenges the very ethics behind each of these categories, drawing on the interdisciplinary team to bring nuance to the seams between the lines of restoration and intervention. University of Melbourne: MSD’s Tectonic Inversion

The collaborative model of working between disciplines was equally critical to our experiences in Melbourne. The Melbourne School of Design was born out of a two-stage international competition, and we were contacted by John Wardle of JWA Architects with the proposition of teaming together. Overcoming the conventional opposition between the design architect/architect-of-record model, we opted to capitalize on our innate architectural synergies to genuinely collaborate on all aspects of the project, from design to implementation – a risky path by any comparison. However, it was this very quality of the collaboration that possibly established our primacy toward the commission – with the two design sensibilities in synch, NADAAA’s longstanding academic involvement as a critical factor, and JWA’s proximity to the site as a significant bonus. Composed of JWA and NADAAA as co-designers, we were joined by IrwinConsult as Engineers and Brookfield Multiplex as General Contractors2 to take on the challenges of the project, with the Design Studio, located at the core of the building, as a special feature.

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FIGURE 24.6 

From left: Castelvecchio by Carlo Scarpa, photograph by Paolo Monti.

The set-up of the competition was no less explicit about a shift toward interdisciplinarity. Composed around four themes, the Dean Tom Kvan had developed a brief that asked competitors to explore the “studio space” of the future, the “academic environment”, a “living building”, and a “pedagogical building” as the cornerstones for dialogue. The exploration of a new studio space was important because MSD had never

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had a dedicated studio space prior, and this new building would become an opportunity to rethink the studio as a space of intersection and collaboration. This meant they could experiment with what happens in the studio, testing to what degree the blending of design studio with construction in the “fablab” could come together, how research in the library could gain a different presence if parts of the studio were to be located within, or how curatorial practices in the exhibition hall could advance a different way of thinking about design practices were they to join forces. As such, the academic environment referred to the possibility of bringing their varied degree programs and research platforms into conversation, in a variety of categories: from architecture to urbanism, and from construction practices to history and theory. The living building amplified the academic environment by an appeal to the forms of urbanism the building could acquire, connecting to its context on campus, as well as the other academic platforms at the University. But beyond that, it targeted how a living building could become more self-conscious about its footprint from an environmental point of view. This includes not only the specification of materials up front, but also the daily use of the building, and its life cycle costs after the advent of design. For these reasons, the pedagogical building was not only the programmatic commitment to creating spaces for teaching, but to make the building exemplary in both its formal, constructive, and material choices – and as such, a didactic instrument, teaching by example. The lessons learned in Atlanta also invariably came to inform the Melbourne School of Design, though not in a linear way. Initially, the commitment to the design studio at the Melbourne School of Design was designed to compete with RMIT by ensuring a desk per student. Despite this, very early in the design process, we discovered that the ambitions of the program were completely out of synch with the budget. For this reason, unable to guarantee a desk per student, the institutional commitment was to develop a studio of hot-desks, allowing temporary seating and workspaces for students on a rotating basis – indeed, a defining moment in the commission. Thus, while this meant they would not be able to afford a dedicated studio space, we still needed to consider how the other spaces of the building might accommodate the concept of studio. With the elimination of the proposed studio space atop the building – a horizontal platform, we observed that the atrium would have already needed circulation space to its varied classrooms, offices, and research spaces; thus, but simply extending the terraces of circulation by a nominal dimension, we might yet be able to create a veritable vertical studio space. The vertical studio was also a way of creating varied activities on each level – exhibits and pin-ups on level 2, collaborative workspace in level 3, drafting/drawing in level 3, and conferencing and critiquing on level 4. Borrowing from the FFE budget, the furnishing for these programs was inserted into the architectural scope, and in turn, allowing for the elimination of traditional railings and guards that the atrium would have invariably required. Thus, the furnishing would become the infrastructure that gives “figure” to the shape of the atrium. Shrink-wrapped against the furnishing, a diaphanous mesh gives body to the entire atrium, completing transparent when viewed on axis, though visible as a surface when viewed obliquely. Most importantly, by defining each level through ‘activities’ (and not academic programs), we were also able to reinforce the idea that architects, urbanists, historians, and technologists would all comingle on different levels at different times, disabling the kind of intellectual balkanization that befalls so many institutions.

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FIGURE 24.7 

Studio programming, NADAAA + John Wardle Architects.

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left: MSD Studio Hall, ©Peter Bennetts; studio corridors, NADAAA + John Wardle Architects.

FIGURE 24.8  From

Despite the hot-desks at the perimeter of the atrium, we still maintained the ambition for dedicated studio spaces – perchance for the visiting faculty, whose temporary role may be given amplified presence. Thus, the crowning moment of this space is reserved for the “Suspended Studio”, an edifice that is both physically and conceptually tied to the structure, daylighting, and acoustic performance of the atrium at large. Working in collaboration with Brookfield Multiplex, much of the building was conceived in terms of prefabrication and off-site construction, a factor that would eventually eliminate six months of construction time, and considerable costs. Thus, beyond pre-cast concrete panels and large scale corrugated/perforated zinc panels, all of the mass timber elements were prefabricated and delivered to the site at early hours of the morning. Spanning the atrium were 22-meter LVL beams, from which was suspended a hybrid structural frame of wood and steel (wood as main structure, a steel as back-up for fire rating) in an inverted tectonic befitting Atlanta’s Hinman Building. If the Crib in Atlanta produced a horizontal tray in suspension, the Melbourne Studio stacks three studios, one on top of the next, to produce a suspended tower of sorts. Akin to the Tempietto and Kahn’s round stairwell at the British Arts Museum, the studio space serves as a tower framed by the building fabric within which it is contained. Unlike its predecessors, the suspended studio is tectonically linked to the roof structure entirely. Both physically and grammatically, the coffering the roof and the structure/cladding of the suspended studio come together in confluence, seamlessly intertwined: initiated by massive girders at the top to thin plywood panels in suspension at the bottom. In what stands in contrast to a classical palazzo, where the rustication of the base embodies the depth of the weight it needs to support, here the atrium structure occurs at the top of

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FIGURE 24.9 

Suspended Studio, NADAAA + John Wardle Architects.

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FIGURE 24.10 

Suspended Studio structure construction, ©Peter Bennetts.

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FIGURE 24.11 From

left: Tempietto del Bramante, photograph by JTSH26, Wikimedia Commons; Yale Center for British Arts by Louis Kahn, photograph by Gunnar Klack; Melbourne School of Design, ©Peter Bennetts.

the space, where one is able to virtually inhabit the depth of the structure. In turn, the thin veneers of plywood that adorn the suspended studio are perforated throughout the entirety of the space, dulling acoustic reverberations within the atrium. Naturally, the coordination of acoustic and building services were the key elements to draw into the architectural systems at play. Thus, in addition to the contractors and engineers, our collaboration with AECOM as acoustic consultant and UMOW for building services and sustainability allowed for a level of absolute integration that is not achievable in conventional buildings. With a sensibility of speculation, the pedagogical building drew from the faculty to radicalize their own explorations within our building. For instance, the hybrid floor slabs were conceived as cross laminate timber formwork, top screwed with steel screws, wrapped in rebar, and then topped off with a concrete slab to create a composite slab for which there was no precedence. Otherwise, we eliminated all acoustic “products”, using custom perforations as the dominant means for acoustic balance within the great hall. Also, the corrugated zinc panels were conceived as vertical beams, from slab to slab, to forgo the necessity of added back up structure. All of these elements, and more, served as the basis for a pedagogical building, drawing from the inter-disciplinary team, both professional and academic, to produce an edifice that is the embodiment of their pedagogy. University of Toronto: Daniel’s Integrative Thinking

The last in the series of these buildings, the Daniels Faculty, was possibly the most explicit in developing a patronage process that was inter-disciplinary at its root. With faculty members on the steering committee, research platforms of every discipline group participating in the design of each lab, and the fabrication lab team being directly involved in the construction of the millwork of the building, the project was a direct collaboration with the school community itself. Like the Hinman Building, part of the building was prone to adaptive reuse, though in a much more orthodox way taking advantage of its existing cellular spaces for offices and classrooms; at the same time, it involved an expansion to the

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FIGURE 24.12  Melbourne

Bennetts.

School of Design view from under the Suspended Studio, ©Peter

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FIGURE 24.13 

Mock-ups of CLT formwork, steel rebar, and concrete pours.

FIGURE 24.14 

Daniels Faculty discipline group participation in the design process; NADAAA.

north that became the space for experimentation and speculation, housing studios, auditoria, fab-labs, and a much more complex promenade that is a critical part of the public mission of the project. Located on Spadina Crescent at the Southwestern corner of the University of Toronto campus, the site forms the threshold to its western neighborhoods, including Kensington

FIGURE 24.15  Daniels

Building site plan, NADAAA; Daniels Building east courtyard, ©Nic Lehoux; Daniels Building “street”, ©Nic Lehoux.

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Gardens and Harbord Village. With an intensive academic emphasis on landscape and urbanism, our collaboration with Adam Nicklin and Marc Ryan of Public Work was a central part of the finding ways to transform a once dangerous traffic circle into a civic space with opportunities for public engagement. One of the conceptual challenges was to reinforce the urban monumentality of the north-south axes of Spadina, all while recognizing that the building cannot actually be entered on what would be its traditional front door in the south. With the main connection to campus being on the east-west axis, and the accessibility issues being solved within the intersection of the old and new building, the true public concourse would evolve on Ursula Franklin and Russell streets. With a plaza to the east, the connection to the campus is acknowledged as its new main entry, reinforced with an interior street that houses the main concourse, including views and access to the main auditorium, the fab-lab, galleries, lockers, café, and of course the access to the studios. The concourse is open to the west, keeping the promenade open 24/7, making the Daniels part of a larger public realm. In turn, the spaces around the building functionalize and create opportunities for indoor-outdoor engagement; for the vehicular drop off area, the outdoor construction court of the fab-lab, the Belvedere court on the south; the landscape is not recessive, but an active protagonist of the circle. Even if the building appears rectilinear in its massing, its various levels are conceived as landscape terraces extending the context into the building while also allowing varied programs to extend into the landscape at different levels. The landscape is thus conceived as a figure: formed, carved, and designed to give a robust sense of environmental differences as one navigates around the circle. The section of the building effectively illustrates the organization of the various discipline groups lodged within the anatomy of the building. Topped by a living roof, the GRIT Lab was programmed by the landscape professors, and is a testament to the way in which a new building can embody the possibility of new forms of horticultural research other buildings could not have engendered. Moreover, it is what underlies this very roof that defines the interdisciplinary nature of the challenges we faced. The

FIGURE 24.16 Daniels

Building at One Spadina Crescent, ©Michael Muraz; Daniels Building fabrication court, ©Nic Lehoux.

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main studio space of the building is lodged within the third floor of the building, nested back into what was the original court of Knox College. A vast open terrace, reminiscent of the flexibility promised by IIT’s Crown Hall, this space is also far more figured, like a landscape. Its ground is folded down into an informal bleacher space that functions as a social space, doubles as an informal classroom, and triples as the overflow space for the Great Hall lectures, with a view directly into the hall. The studio activities are, thus, formed within the space between this floor and the roof. Conceived as an extension of the roof landscape, the folded structural roof deck needed to address three challenges: first, to span the 110 ft. width of the hall, second, to find ways of daylighting the space to minimize energy use, and third, to develop a formal configuration that distributes the water to its edges, allowing for the natural irrigation of the landscape below. The confluence of these criteria involved a deft dialogue between NADAAA, Entuitive (the structural engineers), MBII (lighting and illumination), and Public Works (landscape); but beyond this, the means and methods required for the construction of the vaults enabled other forms of innovation that brought the MEP consultants into a critical part of the discussion. As with the rest of the building, the vaults were conceived to be built in concrete, following the tradition of shell structures such as we have seen in the work of Felix Candela and other cohorts of the 20th century. Initially, the finish of the ceilings was also meant to remain raw concrete. However, despite close collaboration with the contractors (Eastern), they continued to reject the roof strategy citing un-buildability and cost issues. To this end, NADAAA developed two physical models, and subsequently a full-scale mock-up on our own premises in the NADLAB to establish the proof of concept. Once Eastern understood that the vaults were composed of ruled surfaces, they also realized that they could use sheet material for formwork. Still, the labor involved in the creating formwork, and its subsequent dismantling was cited as expensive, with the costs swelling 1 million dollars over the budget. Thus, it was the NADLAB mock-up that truly brought all the

FIGURE 24.17 Section

through studio addition showing integrated systems, NADAAA; Daniels Studio, ©Nic Lehoux.

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FIGURE 24.18 Fábrica

High Life, Calle de París, Coyoacán, México by Félix Candela, photography by Erwin Lang.

integrative elements into dialogue with each other. First, we developed a more composite approach to the construction of the roof, with triangulated steel framing, corrugated steel deck with concrete deck atop, insulation on the outside with gypsum board panels on the interior; this approach helped to simplify the erection of the roof, with an anticipated means and methods that were entirely part of the experience of the contractors. But also, we were able to find a radiant gypsum panel that could serve as the cooling panel for the space. With heat rising and cold temperature descending, the space of the studio would then act as a virtual sandwich between seasons, drawing from the intelligence of the building systems to activate the flow of air and temperature within the space. Of course, to the degree possible, natural air ventilation was adopted as the prime means of environmental control during the Spring and Fall days. Thus, the mechanical systems were reserved for the extremes of Summer and Winter. Similar to the Hinman Building and the Melbourne School of Design, the Daniels Building examines the delicate relationship between different disciplines to explore ways in which to radicalize the connection between structural systems, natural daylighting, environmental performance, and the building technologies that make for complex systems.

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FIGURE 24.19  Mock-up

testing in NADLAB, NADAAA; Ceiling construction diagram, NADAAA; Construction of Daniels ceiling, ©Peter MacCallum, photo courtesy of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.

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FIGURE 24.20 

Daniels Building Grad Studio, ©John Horner.

Conclusions

What these projects attempt to illustrate is the fecund territory of the academic environment not only as a space for speculation, but also collaboration; in different ways, these projects allowed us not only to learn from faculty members, but indeed to work and build with them. Recognizing that our clients were effectively the most erudite of students and faculty one could desire, it offered the possibility of genuine collaboration. It also demonstrated the power that academic spaces offer, not merely to house spaces of teaching, but to imbue the building with pedagogical moments: spaces, material explorations and details that teach by example. We were fortunate to have occupied both sides of the dynamic, as practitioners and teachers, to be able to benefit from this important connection between these two spheres of practice. It is a well-known fact that architecture always already benefits from an inter-disciplinary approach. Within these buildings, what was important is that, as designers, we did not come in with a priori solutions. In all cases, we delayed architectural assumptions by simply listening more carefully during the design process, not only to the faculty cohorts but equally so to the various technical teams whose varied areas of expertise brought the arts, sciences and humanities into conversation. Important to this equation was that for interdisciplinary work to be valuable, then it also means that the various protagonists must bring something of consequence to the table –that each discipline is able to push its knowledge to some form of extreme. As architects, we would not merely need to assemble their expertise, but indeed to prioritize, transform, and give configurational logic to all that

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work – to make something larger than the sum of their parts. In other words, even with this depth of collaboration, things do not come together naturally, and so one needs to bring clear ideas, agendas and priorities to each project. This means that each project also benefits from a larger dialogue with culture at large, whether in conversation with its community, the urbanism of the site, the history of building types, or the programmatic logics that emerge from different working groups. From our perspective at NADAAA, after many years of focus on material studies, these buildings were also an opportunity to put integrative thinking in dialogue with a more precise logic of material assemblies, construction protocols, and a new eye onto the means and methods that give rise to the intelligence of buildings. Part of this process entailed coming to terms with scenarios that would not comply with the purity of our architectural agendas; the adherence to strict budgets, the accommodation of particular academic cohorts, the limitations of building trades, among other factors all required us to focus our efforts in strategic ways. This also entailed us to think more broadly between disciplines: looking carefully at the expertise of our own consultants, less so in what they specified, but more so in how they thought about their respective priorities. For this reason, our commitments between structural design, illumination strategies, and environmental performance has less to do with the overlay of their work onto our architecture, but rather a wholesale shift in the direction of our form-making, our spatial configurations, and our strategic agendas to inhabit their shoes as we designed. In this way, we think of these projects as being able to substantially benefit from the best characteristics of a pedagogical practice. Notes 1 James Case and John Hutton led the Engineering efforts at Uzun & Case Engineers, Jack Pyburn, Karen Gravel, and John Kisner led the historic preservation efforts at LAS, and Nader Tehrani, Dan Gallagher, and Tom Beresford led the design efforts on new interventions at NADAAA inc. 2 Barry Roben led the structural efforts at Irwinconsult, and Ian Steedman of Brookfield Multiplex led the efforts on construction sequencing

PART III

Experimenting in Interdisciplinarity: Speculations across Past, Current, and Future Models in the Academy and Practice

25 SHAMELESS EXPERIMENTATION Making Space for Interdisciplinary Exchange Gretchen Wilkins

Interdisciplinary Space

Lebbeus Woods, in writing about Eero Saarinen’s Bell Laboratories building in Holmdel, New Jersey asked, “Does creative thinking in any field have any relationship with the architecture it takes place in?” (“Saarinen’s Last Experiment” in Slow Manifesto by Woods 217). His question was posed in reference to a New York Times opinion piece about Bell Labs that recounted what Woods described as “the all-too-familiar story of how a giant American corporation sponsored some of the most important research in science and technology in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, establishing the United States as the world leader in innovation…,” (Gartner in Woods 217). The Bell Labs at Holmdel opened in 1962, about a year after Eero Saarinen died in 1961, and two years before Lebbeus Woods went to work in Saarinen’s office in 1964. The question Woods asks of this building is a compelling if elusive one for architecture generally, but it seems especially pertinent in the context of this publication’s focus on interdisciplinary design thinking in architecture. A major focus of our efforts in considering interdisciplinarity in architecture is the Venn diagram of participants and curating who is in the room. But as architects considering this topic, the room itself seems like an equally important design question. What role does the quality of space play in provoking, supporting, or perhaps even unintentionally preventing, interdisciplinary collaboration? Can architecture itself prompt or facilitate exchanges ad hoc, and if so, how? It’s difficult to deny that the inventions produced by Bell Labs were world-changing. They included the transistor, cellphones, touch-tone dialing, fiber optics, proof of the Big Bang theory, seven Nobel prizes, and countless patents. Less discernable, however, is how the architecture of Bell Labs might have contributed to these discoveries. “It’s a hard case to prove, one way or the other,” admitted Woods. But we do know that designing a facility for interdisciplinary experimentation and research was Saarinen’s explicit task and program. We also know from the National Register listing that Bell Labs had an established culture of improvisational, interdisciplinary collaboration and sought out Saarinen to design a facility that better supported and represented that culture (“NP Gallery NRHP Archive DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-34

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FIGURE 25.1 Saarinen’s

built-in seating (and ashtrays) at the 1962 BLabs building were one of many details meant to encourage informal interaction across scientists and engineers in the 2 million square foot research facility. (Photo by Weston Wells.)

FIGURE 25.2 Cartoon

for Bell Laboratories Research Center by Claude DeForest, 1957. (Image courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.)

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FIGURE 25.3 Cover

of Architectural Forum, July 1949. (Drawing of the General Motors Technical Center by Glen Paulson for Eero Saarinen.)

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Search ” 16). So while empirical proof of the building’s direct contributions may be elusive, the basic requirements were squarely in place: a culture of collaboration and openended experimentation, and a space designed to encourage unscripted forms of exchange. The process of designing of Bell Labs was itself Bell Labs was itself something of an experiment. The idea was first tested at the “industrial Versailles” of the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, originally a collaboration between Eero and his father, Eliel Saarinen. Indeed, a precedent for the GM Tech Center campus can be found in the elder Saarinen’s earlier campus experiment in nearby Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, the Cranbrook Academy of Art (Martin 143). As the Academy’s first President and Head of the Architecture Department, Eliel Saarinen was responsible for designing the physical campus at Cranbrook (which includes the Art Academy and several other schools, a museum, and a science institute) as well as the Academy’s pedagogical model that persists today. Not unlike at GM, and Bell Labs, the earliest conceptual ambition of Cranbrook was to combine spaces of research, making, and interdisciplinary collaboration on an academic campus, in this case for postgraduate architects, artists, and designers. And in the ninety-plus years since it opened, the relatively small Academy has earned a reputation as the epicenter of Modernism in America (Miller 6). We might therefore be inclined to pose Lebbeus Woods’ question here too – is the architecture of Cranbrook in any way responsible for the innovative practices that emerge from it, and if so, how? Again, difficult to prove. But we can point to some highly idiosyncratic traits about the Academy’s

FIGURE 25.4 Interior

model view of Bell Telephone Corporate Laboratories by Eero Saarinen and Associates, circa 1957. (Image courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.)

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ambition, culture, and physical environment that do nothing if not endeavor to encourage unscripted, interdisciplinary exchange across research, making, and practice. Beehives

The New York Times article that Woods refers to includes a mapping of the inventions at Bell Labs with the title “Hive of Invention” (Marsh). The hive analogy reflects the highly productive and collectively-pursued research that evolved as the company moved from its downtown Manhattan facility to Murray Hill, and finally to the Holmdel campus designed by Saarinen. Within the Holmdel Bell Labs building, several details specifically aim to facilitate these exchanges, such as the flexible wall systems that allowed the labs to be reconfigured quickly and remain adaptable to new uses, even today (Jacobs). Equally important, though, was encouraging proactive and nimble human exchange across groups in the various labs. As Jon Gertner reported, “Part of what seemed to make the Labs ‘a living organism,’ [Bell Labs President Mervin] Kelly explained, were social and professional exchanges that moved back and forth, in all directions, between the pure researchers on one side and the applied engineers on the other” (Gertner 151). A key word to note here is applied, as reintegrating Development in the R&D equation marked a critical shift in the work as it moved from Murray Hill to Holmdel, shift that increasingly prioritized material experimentation and making as critical to the discovery process (Knowles and Leslie 28).1 The beehive analogy is coincidentally also one that was used to describe the early aspirations of Cranbrook by its founder – newspaper publisher and philanthropist George G. Booth. As a strong believer in experience-based education, Booth considered the physical world around us as deeply and inherently educational, encouraging learning through observation and teaching as a communal act. “Why not brief lectures from ‘The Well Digger,’ ‘the Stone Mason,’ ‘Blacksmith,’ ‘Gardner’ and others? …My hope is that there may be no ‘drones’ in this hive of education,” he wrote (8). Working for Booth on the campus design, Eliel Saarinen’s design task was therefore that architecture inspire this pervasive educational experience throughout the 300+ acres, as well as to devise a pedagogy that did not limit teaching only to designated “teachers” but included the full community in some way. Toward that end, the Academy has never had a traditional “faculty” of professors, but rather a group of Artists-in-Residence leading their respective disciplines and mentoring by example through their own art, architectural, or design practices. As Saarinen described about himself, “I am not an educator, nor are the other men on this staff educators. …I am supposed to be the head of the Architectural Department and I am just a bricklayer. As a matter of fact, we are a group of artists, each working in our own field, and we allow the students to do the same” (Rivard 9). Shedding conventional titles is a small but significant way to dispense with the entrenched patterns or presumed limits that can often prefigure academic or professional labels and roles. Rather, everyone is a practitioner from day one: students developing or retooling their practice and Artists-in-Residence mentoring that process through conversations, critiques and importantly, through their own work. The “hive” is in many ways also a physical reality, as Saarinen’s design for Academy Way includes studios and housing for students, Artistsin-Residence, and the Academy Director. The result is a collective environment in which teaching, living, and practicing are integrated with and expanded across the Academy

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FIGURE 25.5  Latitude

exhibition at the First National Building in Detroit, Michigan, an interdisciplinary show as part of the Detroit Month of Design, 2022. Work from Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni as shown left to right: Doug Jones (Print Media, 2022); Diana Noh (Photography, 2022); Kevin Cendejas (Architecture, 2023); and Jessy Slim (Architecture, 2021). (Photo by Clare Gatto.)

studios and shared spaces, as well as the extended (pre-k through high school) campus grounds. Indeed, Architecture students make consistent use of the expansive campus to test their studio research through experimental installations, site-specific projects, or curated events, continuing the tradition initiated by Booth and Saarinen that the physical environment is itself an inherent aspect of learning. Practice as Pedagogy

I treated the students just the same as I had wished to be treated if I were one of them. I let them all select their own problems (living problems) and let them build their own progress… I have found this educational system the only one that leads toward the wisdom of life. (Saarinen 23) [Bell Labs President, Mervin] Kelly believed that freedom was crucial, especially in research. Some of his scientists had so much autonomy that he was mostly unaware of their progress until years after he authorized their work…In sum, he trusted people to create. And he trusted them to help one another create. (Gertner) With no set curriculum or formal classes, the pedagogical structure at Cranbrook centers individual studio practice as the generator of the department’s academic content. This

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applied research is the focus of weekly critiques, but it also prompts invitations for visiting artists, readings for group seminars, site visits, studio visits, and extended fields trips. So, while students have complete freedom to define the scope and trajectory of their own research and practice, there is an inherently collective dimension to everyone’s unique and individual studio work for how it contributes to the shared culture and discourse of the department. Students also rely on each other for feedback in critiques, a peer-review process that requires advance preparation and engaged critical input from everyone in the room. These critiques include Architecture students and Elective students who have joined from other disciplines, so a variety of approaches to critique is encouraged, if not inevitable. This approach aims to expand everyone’s understanding of what critique is and what it does, and to reveal inherent biases and limitations of different disciplinary approaches. In these ways, and as a post-professional program, the pedagogical structure at Cranbrook isn’t designed as training for predefined models of architectural practice, but rather as a space and community to define, model, test, and develop unique and idiosyncratic approaches to one’s practice within and through the program itself. These models are often interdisciplinary as they have emerged through the experimental and cross-disciplinary approach afforded by the Academy structure. Collaboration across disciplines is a key part of this experience and is woven throughout the two-year program through ad hoc projects, drop-in visits to other departments, by participating in Academy-wide lectures or workshops, or by becoming an Elective student in another department. Collaborations across whole departments are common too. Architecture, for example, has collaborated with the Metals, Fiber, and 4D departments on seminars, lectures, and workshops. Latitude, the Architecture Department’s 2022 exhibition for the Detroit Month of Design, invited recent Architecture and alumni for a group exhibition. While the projects exhibited where mostly individually-produced, the practices they represented were inherently shaped by spending a semester or more embedded in a discipline other than their own. The common thread throughout all of the work, which included Fiber, Ceramics, Photography, Print Media, 4D Design, 3D Design as well as Architecture, was a question about how we make things, how those things make space, how those spaces are occupied, and by whom. Exhibited in a 100-year old room of a building originally designed by “Detroit’s Architect,” Albert Kahn, each project was also tasked with connecting to the existing space in a material, conceptual, or spatial way. Material Thinking

It has been said that in these buildings I was very much influenced by Mies. But this architecture really carries forward the tradition of American factory buildings which had its roots in the Middle West in the early automobile factories of Albert Kahn. Eero Saarinen (Knowles and Leslie 9) Quite intentionally, Bell Labs housed thinkers and doers under one roof. …Side by side were specialists in theory, experimentation and manufacturing. (Gertner) Cranbrook founder George G. Booth was deeply and passionately invested in both the Arts and Crafts Movement (as a strong proponent of craft-based disciplines and as a

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FIGURE 25.6  Latitude

exhibition at the First National Building in Detroit, Michigan, an interdisciplinary show as part of the Detroit Month of Design, 2022. Work from Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni as shown left to right: Rebecca Smith, hanging piece (Fiber, 2020); Cooper Siegel, floor piece (Ceramics, 2022); Gretchen Wilkins, video (Head of Architecture 2018-present); Ben Cook, hanging work (Architecture, 2020); Zofia Pietrowicz, garments & clothes rack (Architecture, 2021); Fabiana Chabaneix (3D Design, 2022); Meirav Ong, (Fiber 2022); Jessy Slim (Architecture, 2021). (Photo by Clare Gatto.)

trained metalsmith himself), and the Industrial Revolution taking place in Detroit at that time (outfitting his newspapers with the most modern and up-to-date presses available on the market at that time) (Wittkopp 67). The Academy of Art, which today includes disciplines of Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, Fiber, Metals, Photography, Print Media, 2D Design, 3D Design, and 4D Design, is an outgrowth of both traditional and contemporary approaches to making. Material exploration remains a core tenet of all disciplines and is an important aspect of facilitating interdisciplinary and collaborative work in Architecture. With specialized workshops in each of the eleven departments, students are at once novices and experts – adding to their own skills through collaborations in other disciplines and offering their skills to visitors in their own. The result is that any one project in the Architecture department might be influenced by experiences from any of the other departments – such as specific topics in art or design discourse, unique tools and material workshops, approaches to group critique, or through conversations with other Artists-inResidence. The focus on making in architecture is both a catalyst for individual research

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FIGURE 25.7  Latitude

exhibition at the First National Building in Detroit, Michigan, an interdisciplinary show as part of the Detroit Month of Design, 2022. Work by Yi Shi (Architecture, 2023). (Photo by Clare Gatto.)

FIGURE 25.8  Latitude

exhibition at the First National Building in Detroit, Michigan, an interdisciplinary show as part of the Detroit Month of Design, 2022. Work by Ryan David (Architecture, 2022). (Photo by Clare Gatto.)

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and provides opportunities for collaborative work. It also allows the department’s collective research to continually shift in scale: from objects to spaces to larger urban questions about material flows and contemporary manufacturing, for example. Slow Space

In the same blog post noted above about Bell Labs, Lebbeus Woods referred to Eero Saarinen as a “shameless experimenter,” a supportive defense against critiques lodged against him for lacking any consistent or signature style. Shameless experimentation is a useful way to think about interdisciplinary design thinking in architectural education as well. The whole point of this effort, it seems, is about generating new questions that we could not have imagined from a singular perspective or isolated experience. It also presupposes a process of discovery through open-ended trial and error. False starts and dead ends are inherent and equally productive, as are the numerous other destabilizations that come from navigating differences in approach, skills, communication, biases, and agendas of collaborators. All of this is an effective way to slow our work down and make space for ideas we couldn’t have envisioned at the start, or on our own. And making space is one of the primary skills that architects can bring to the interdisciplinary table. Note 1 As one historian described this shift, “Where Murray Hill was about as far toward the ‘R’ on the R&D spectrum as an industrial laboratory could get, Holmdel was closer to the ‘D’.”   From: “Industrial Versailles": Eero Saarinen's Corporate Campuses for GM, IBM, and AT&T Author(s): Scott G. Knowles and Stuart W. Leslie Source: Isis, Mar., 2001, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 1-33 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/237325 p28.

Works Cited Blauvelt, Andrew, & Wittkopp, Gregory. With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art since 1932. Cranbrook Art Museum, 2021. Booth, George. Memoranda for the Consideration of the Board of Trustees Provided for in My Will for the Administration of the Estate of Cranbrook as an Educational Centre. George G Booth Papers, Cranbrook Archives, 1927. Gertner, Jon. The Idea Factory. Penguin, 2012. Gertner, Jon. “True Innovation.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/innovation-and-the-bell-labsmiracle.html?hp. Jacobs, Karrie. The Bargain That Revived Bell Labs | Architect Magazine, 23 May 2016, https:// www.architectmagazine.com/design/culture/the-bargain-that-revived-bell-labs. Knowles, Scott G, & Leslie, Stuart W. “‘Industrial Versailles’: Eero Saarinen’s Corporate Campuses for GM, IBM, and AT&T.” Isis, vol. 92, no. 1, 2 Mar. 2001, pp. 1–33. Marsh, Bill. The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Feb. 2012, https://archive.nytimes. com/www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/02/26/sunday-review/26bell-gfx.html. Martin, Reinhold. The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space. MIT, 2005. Miller, MH. “How Michigan Became the Epicenter of the Modernist Experiment.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Sept. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/ t-magazine/michigan-modernist-architecture.html.

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“NPGallery NRHP Archive Search.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2017, https://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/. Rivard, Nancy Marcotte. “Eliel Saarinen in America.” Wayne State University, 1973. Saarien, Eliel. Bloomfield Hills, 1950. Woods, Lebbeus. “Saarinen’s Last Experiment.” LEBBEUS WOODS, 3 Mar. 2012, https:// lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/saarinens-last-experiment/.

26 EXPANDING INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELDS Reflections on the Science of Design Julie Ju-Youn Kim1

As I envision future models of academy and practice, I remain focused on the shared spaces of these two arenas – the productive hybrid space of the in-between. I am interested in examining the role we conventionally understand for the architect – and to reconsider how we may frame inventive and creative pedagogies to support a radical new future of practitioners, leaders, designers, and collaborators. Certainly, the case-study examples and critical texts within this book reveal the similarly aligned ways we operate in that common space, and how we work toward shared problems. In fact, while the academy and practice are often presented as binary, I see that the shared problem is what binds us, offering the potential for expanding the connections between the two. In previous conversations, I have referred to a memory hearing someone speak about the “common ground” of architecture as being framed by thinking horizontally rather than vertically. I have considered its relevance many times in my own intellectual and academic pursuits. One of the specific reasons I refer to this recollection again here is that it can apply across multiple scales of inquiry including shaping curricula and shaping practice as vertical, rather than horizontal, thinking. First, let me offer some of my own lateral thinking on these two terms: collaboration and practice. As a set of actions – practicing collaboration; collaborating in practice – we can have two conversations here. One is about collaborating in a practice. Practice, in the context of this essay, includes both the professional and the academic design studio. The other is about practicing collaboration to get better at it. Just as one improves at riding a bike or speaking a foreign language with practice, likewise, one progresses at collaborating by actually doing it. Ultimately, it is not inherent in our DNA to know how to collaborate. In other words, simply putting people together does not necessarily lead to successful outcomes. Whether mono- or cross-disciplinary players, we struggle to move past “mouthing more or less banal generalities” (Nicolescu 41). Without a structured agenda to guide actions, people may be unable to focus on a common goal. An additional complexity is that we may not all speak the same language. In other words, the term “program” means one thing to an architect but something DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-35

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completely different to, say, an engineer. In The Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity, Julia Kristeva suggests, One can only benefit from interdisciplinary practices if researchers meet other researchers whilst learning how to discuss both their competencies and the outcome of their interaction; therefore, contributing to the exposure of the risks inherent in an interdisciplinary practice. (Kristeva 6–7) Kristeva’s position points to the importance of open communication between the project partners. We – practitioners and educators – recognize that the intersections between different domains of knowledge can be pregnant with potential. We, likewise, know that diverse sets of voices and perspectives can impact the outcome of a project. We hope these impacts are positive. We, also, recognize, even within our own discipline, there may be misalignments in approach, methodology, and general competence. So, we must learn how to communicate, how to practice, and how to collaborate. These are interrelated and interchangeable. Successful collaboration in practice rests on effective communication in practicing such collaboration. The act of design, itself, is not a linear process. It’s a messy business involving requirements of program, site context, cultural and social constraints, and budgets. It also involves the required choreography of navigating conversations with the client, consultants, and other stakeholders with interest in the project. These are only a few of the constellation of pressures on a design process in architecture. I refer to Nicolescu again here: …Today, there are hundreds of disciplines. How can a theoretical particle physicist truly hold a dialogue with a neurophysiologist, a mathematician with a poet, a biologist with an economist, a politician with a computer programmer, beyond mouthing more or less banal generalities? Yet, a true decision maker must be able to have a dialogue with them all at once.” (Nicolescu 41, italics added) Extending Nicolescu’s argument, I posited this question in the previous section: is there someone between and across disciplines and beyond all disciplines who could be the true decisionmaker, dialoguing with all disciplines at once…and could that someone be the architect? How may we then bridge the perceived division between the academy and practice as we educate future leaders who will transform the way we practice and, in turn, how we educate our students? We can agree that interdisciplinary partnerships in practice are increasingly becoming the standard. Interdisciplinarity, likewise, as a teaching tool – both mechanism and methodology – is fundamentally well-established. But, how does one gain such knowledge in disciplinary expertise while simultaneously navigating the unpredictable landscape of collaboration? In my mind, the answer lies in understanding the science of design and design thinking while advancing models for education which, in turn, impacts models of practice. Reflection on the Interdisciplinary Experiment at Georgia Tech

One might wonder the reasons for introducing interdisciplinary pursuits in the student experience, especially the undergraduate one, at all. Allow me to offer this context. The stated vision of the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech includes these goals: to educate our

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students to understand design as a creative, aesthetic, technical, and research-based pursuit; for our students to see design as synthetic, expanding their creative capacity; and that, within our school, we leverage the distinct opportunities of our students to steer the future transformation of our profession. Here we see clearly the linkage sought between education and practice! The backbone and, indeed, the strength of our undergraduate program is its emphasis on design pursuits, most clearly deployed through the sequence of required design studios. Even as students are enthusiastic about the quality, breadth, and foundational skills that they gain, there remains room for discussion on the nature of design education in the built environment. To speak to this, I can frame this debate under the umbrella of the senior interdisciplinary design studio experience. Initiated in 2016, the spring senior design studios combine our students from the B.S. Architecture program in collaboration with undergraduate students from schools across campus. At the outset of shaping the curriculum for the senior design studios, we set a series of ambitions to guide our efforts. We are fundamentally committed to educating future architects and designers to serve their clients while also recognizing the interests of building users and the communities involved, as well as the broader public interest. We extend this aim by seeking to engage in creative interdisciplinary dialogue on ideas, inquiry, and design in order to enrich and support the discipline of architecture. We imagine a broad and inclusive dialogue integrating aesthetic, social, and environmental concerns. Finally, we are invested in emphasizing the integration of knowledge through structured collaborative teamwork, framed within the creative pursuits in the design process. What becomes clear is that these goals must be pursued with willingness to challenge one’s own assumptions about what design is or is not, and, by extension, that one’s role in such an effort can be radically different from what we might have imagined at the outset. It is worth referencing Herbert Simon’s declaration: “Everyone [who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones] designs” (Simon 111). In this statement, he suggests architecture, business, education, law, medicine, and engineering are all fundamentally concerned with the process of design (Ibid.). So, in my mind, to this end, this suggests we must all be fluid, not rigid; open, not closed. As the undergraduate program Director and Associate Chair, I invested my energy toward refining the curricular structure of the required design studios to prepare our students in developing leadership skills to not only face the critical challenges of our times but also to nimbly adapt to conversations across disciplinary boundaries, real or perceived. Simon suggests that professions including engineering, architecture, and business among others are not concerned with the necessary, but with the contingent – not with how things are but with how they might be – in short, with design. The possibility of creating a science or sciences of design is exactly as great as the possibility of creating any science of the artificial. (Simon xii, italics added) Designing the design method – the science of design – is, in fact, the very first challenge students in interdisciplinary design studios face. All of the students come from diverse backgrounds and speak different languages – “program” means one thing to an architect and something else to an engineer. Yet, they are all ostensibly in pursuit of a common objective, that is to seek good solutions to the design problem set forth by the professor.

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However, before they can turn their minds to that specific studio problem, they must establish their rules of engagement, of communication. I referred to the common ground of architecture earlier in this essay. Simon’s take on common ground is the ability to communicate across fields. “Consequently, we as designers, or as designers of design processes, have had to be explicit as never before about what is involved in creating a design and what takes place while the creation is going on” (Simon 137). Ultimately, then, for the collaboration, whether framed in the senior design studios or in practice, to be successful, we (the architects) can define, describe, even design our roles. This is not to suggest our discipline is more important than others. Rather, architects may be the connection between coarse and fine grain thinking, offering value to multi-disciplinary problem solving leading to possible new directions. We hold the ability to synthesize possible solutions to a problem by extracting the pieces, searching precedents and adjacent literature to build our understanding, and importing both broad and granular understanding into our process to cast one of many possible outcomes. Perhaps one such outcome arises when we translate our understanding – the knowledge gained – and apply it across multiple threads of doing. A successful science of design – the methodology – yields a successful science of the artificial – the outcome. “The two possibilities stand or fall together” (Simon xii, italics added). Horizontal thinking, as I initially positioned, actually becomes richer in applied vertical thinking. This elasticity is what makes our students – and both future and current leaders in practice – uniquely equipped to address complex problems and to potentially expand the scope, and even the definition, of design. Let us circle back to design thinking – specifically framed within the discipline of architecture, a blend of art and science, and explore how this relates to the constructs of practice and education as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary endeavors. The Culture of Art. The Culture of Science. One Culture…or Two?

C.P. Snow lamented the schism between, what he described as, the two cultures of arts and sciences. “There seems to be no place where the two cultures meet” (Snow 16). Yet, he also voices this nugget of optimism, “The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two cultures – two galaxies, as far as that goes – ought to produce creative chances” (Snow 16; italics added). That sounds promising – to produce creative chances. Returning to Nicolescu, he refers to these opportunities of “producing creative chances” as ones that seek new, durable, and powerful social ties. These new social ties can be discovered through research of the bridges between different areas of knowledge and between different beings, because the exterior space and the interior space are two facets of one and the same world. Transdisciplinarity can be understood as being both the science and the art of discovering these bridges… A true dialogue can only be transdisciplinarity, founded on the bridges that link beings and things at the deepest level. (Nicolescu 89) And then going on to conclude, “These attempts have the merit of revealing that dialogue between science and art is not only possible, but necessary” (Nicolescu 98, italics added).

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I am reminded of Ernst Cassirer’s persuasive arguments in which he asserts, “…side by side with logical or scientific language, there is a language of poetic imagination” (Cassirer 25). He further clarifies by describing the differentiation in this way: “Language and science are abbreviations of reality: art is the intensification of the real. Language and science depend upon one and the same process of abstraction; art may be described as a continuous process of concretion” (Cassirer 143). So, can we consider that the space of design thinking lies between language, science, and art? And that it relies on the connections between these three? As practitioners, students, and faculty work through the design problem, they might reframe their process in questions like these: Can I solve the problem I have set? Do I like what I get when I solve this problem? Have I made the situation coherent? Have I made it congruent with my fundamental values and theories? Have I kept the inquiry moving? (Schon 133) Applying Cassirer’s position, Schon’s questions suggest that the space of design thinking, that of improvisation, sits squarely between and connects language, science, and art. For example, we could play this out like this: Can I solve the problem I have set? – Science. Do I like what I get when I solve this problem? – Art Have I made the situation coherent? – Language Have I made it congruent with my fundamental values and theories? – Science Have I kept the inquiry moving? – Science and Art This suggests that the designer/artist and the designer/scientist are one and the same. We may start from different points and may have different areas of focus. However, while we will employ different methodologies, “we share the aims of generating knowledge and solving problems in the relationship between human beings and their physical environment” (Hillier 117). At the start of this book project, I established an aim of examining the role we conventionally understand for the architect – and to reconsider how we may frame inventive and creative pedagogies to support a radical new future of practitioners, leaders, designers, and collaborators “…beyond the confines of any specific discipline, focusing not on a world of design but rather on the complex processes, assumptions and responsibilities of designing the world” (Bruyns and Stavros 15). This suggests opportunities for aspirational considerations of interdisciplinary thinking in education and, in turn, how these may lead to exciting new models in practice. Beyond Education, Bridging Practice

I share with all of the authors in this book a deep commitment to broadening the arena for our students by building and fostering connections between groups from different backgrounds and expertise. We see examples of this in professional practice where architects engage with clients, stakeholders, and consultants on projects. In many of the case-study examples in this book, faculty have implemented a range of models for interdisciplinary engagement in the architecture design studios and, indeed, in allied coursework in which

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students and faculty work together, across disciplines, to grapple with critical and relevant challenges that require broad inputs. This is practicing collaboration in real time. We open the conversation across scales with the possibility that the social structures of collaboration between divergent voices can evolve and emerge organically. Rather than imposing rules of engagement – architects will do this and engineers will do that – the hope is that individuals will find common ground in leveraging the expertise of their singular voices to lead to a stronger collective one. This is potentially revolutionary in how we might frame future models of education – which could also mean new models of practice. Returning to Nicolescu, he expands on a new kind of education. …in the future every profession and every craft should be an authentically woven occupation, an occupation that would bind together in the interior of human beings threads joining them to other occupations. Of course, it is not simply a question of acquiring several competencies at the same time but of creating a flexible, interior core that could quickly provide access to another occupation should that become necessary or desirable. (Nicolescu 134) I am not suggesting the role of architecture education is to promote a multi-purpose curricular model. I am, however, intrigued with the idea of an adaptable and flexibly core intellect that suggests we are able to elastically assess a situation and best determine how to leverage disciplinary knowledge to flexibly respond to it. This is applied design thinking at its best. A successful science of design leads to a successful science of the artificial – the method supports the outcome. Strengthening the role of the architect by establishing reciprocal engagment between practice and the academy is the opportunity intertwined throughout this book. The relationship between practice and education advancing an interdisciplinary – or transdisciplinary – framework offers a fertile space ready to be explored. In On Connection and Community: Transciplinarity and the Arts, Rosemary Ross Johnston offers this definition of transdisciplinary thinking: [transdisciplinary thinking] seeks to make connections, stimulate creativity and develop ideas of intellectual community and intellectual citizenship. It aims to encourage a unifying but not restricted perspective across knowledge and across cultures. It overtly seeks ways to open up thinking to “maps of unlimited possibilities.” It seeks to create mindscapes that are unfettered by traditional patterns and procedures. It develops kinds of thought that are common to a number of fields, and gives a central place to the imagination…It encourages speculation and contemplation, which Northrop Frye, the literary scholar, noted as the position of the mind where the arts and sciences begin. (R. Johnston 229–30) Make connections…stimulate creativity…open up thinking to maps of unlimited possibilities. This absolutely describes what we do as designers. Equally significant is the assertion of the position of the mind where arts and sciences begin, that is, at the interection of speculation and contemplation. Snow lamented the insurmountable (in his mind) gap between arts and science – R. Johnston and Cassirer offer an optimistic view that the space between art and science is where the opportunity begins! Indeed, this is further underscored by Michel Camus in The Hidden Hand Between Poetry and Science, as he credits

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Nicolescu with opening “up paths of encounter between poets and scientists, between students of the human sciences and students of the hard sciences” (Camus 55). This is the “both/and” condition that threads its way through this book and the very basis of my own positions argued throughout this book. Deep diving into both arts and science. Braiding connections between the academy and practice. The Future…

In Assembling the Architect, a book on the history and theory of professional practice, George B. Johnston suggests that architects (like other professionals) will need to reconceive how to educate ourselves and others – not for the narrowly defined profession as know it – but for the multifarious roles we will be compelled to play as practice itself continues to change. “…New tools have the potential to thrust architects by whatever names back more organically into the heart of the actions, into a multitude of pluralist practice” (G. Johnston 213). Cautioning against knee-jerk reactions, however, he points to the current homogeneity of architectural education, which, he suggests, results from its being “severed from architectural practice” (G. Johnston 213). He continues his argument to suggest the building industry must play a larger role in educating the architect. Perhaps it does. However, I contend that as the profession of architecture, itself, continues to go through its transformations in response to the social, environmental, technological pressures (these were shared by several of the contributing authors), the ensuing stresses on academic programs to be agile and anticipatory likewise increases. The nature of education must change – just as the nature of practice must. As the ground around us is constantly shifting, we, as practitioners, must maintain our nimble footing navigating an evolving landscape of practice and of education. Johnston asserts “Like Daedalus, the embodiment of cunning and inventiveness, ‘the architect’ we are now assembling is recast as a pervasive social mechanism, an embedded principle of systemic craft and problem-solving ingenuity everywhere apparent but increasingly difficult to see” (G. Johnston 214). Johnston’s full argument is much deeper and more elegantly articulated than these brief statements I extract here. However, let’s reflect on Johnston’s descriptor of “embedded principle of…problem-solving ingenuity everywhere apparent” (Ibid.). This statement finds alignments with Simon’s assertions in The Science of the Artificial, my own assertions, and, most certainly, the other authors in this book. Indeed, architects hold the potential to be the connective threads in the web of collaborative interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work. We are poised to describe our role in concert with a diverse set of viewpoints to reimagine new ways to collaborate. Our practice and education must together foster ways to extend the future of the architect as entrepreneur, strategist, practitioner, inventor, visionary, communicator, technician, programmer, designer, etc. – and do this for a future we don’t yet know. This is both the opportunity and the challenge. In Design Commons (2022), co-editors Gerhard Bruyns and Stavros Kousoulas offer their position on interdisciplinarity versus transdisciplinarity. While interdisciplinary research entails the collaboration of different domains, it does so from the point of integration, where any of the disciplines involved share methodologies and theoretical frameworks to work towards a unified – thus, integrated – form

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of research. On the other hand, transdisciplinary research affords the production of methodological, theoretical and conceptual innovations, novel trajectories that emerge in order to address what binds each discipline: a shared problem. In other words, transdisciplinarity does not obey any constraints of any discourse, but, on the contrary, transforms them to productive opportunities. (Bruyns and Stavros 15, boldface added) Here we see, again, reference to productive opportunities. At the outset of this essay, I suggested the binary positioning of the academy and practice is a fiction and that there was a mutual connecting consideration, the shared problem. In fact, the shared problem as described by Bruyns and Kousoulas is precisely aligned with Bill Hillier’s argument 50 years earlier! “…Each, from a different base, and with a different focus, will be concerned with generating knowledge and solving problems in the relationship between human beings and their physical environment” (Hillier 117). Several authors across this publication – Billie Faircloth, Alan Organschi, Meejin Yoon, Achim Menges, Andrew Witt, among others – express the need for transdisciplinary networks and innovative systems of thinking. This broadened lens suggests a shift in how we currently operate – even to those of us who are the most dedicated to interdisciplinary models of engagement. What if, then, what we – in practice and in education – really need are transdisciplinary thinkers? How might we tailor educational programs in pursuit of preparing students for the big problems that will necessarily require similar levels of big and radical approaches? And how might this also translate into different models for practice? To be clear, I see this as a reciprocal engagement where practice informs the academy and the academy informs practice – a world where we all openly challenge a linear path that this (education) leads to that (practice). We are all learners, educators, and practitioners operating collectively in a fluid and reciprocal space imagining there is no end and there is no beginning – our actions just continue to cycle and re-inform future ones. Perhaps, there is not a need to place a limit on either inter- or trans-disciplinary modes of practice. Perhaps, to be radical we must simply remind ourselves, “Disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity are like four arrows shot from but a single bow: knowledge” (Nicolescu 46). Final Thoughts (or What’s Next)…

I have reflected on the capacity of horizontal thinking, bringing into alignment such ideas of collaboration, practice, and communication. The strength and promise of inter- and trans-disciplinarity in practice and in education lies in offering a playground for students, faculty, and professionals to engage in testing and proposing a range of outcomes in response to exploratory questions. By extension, this shared design space leverages the strengths of the multiple disciplines at the table. This common ground can offer a platform for different modes of design thinking from architects, from engineers, from industrial designers, from biologists, from scientists, from external partners to come together and enable richer conversations to emerge. The value of exposing our students to experience and live first-hand such conversations is a critical piece of foundational thinking, providing them the basis to steer the future transformation of our profession. In Richard Llewelyn Davies’ inaugural address on The Education of an Architect (1960), he refers to Fridtjof Nansen’s voyage across the Polar ice cap. Nansen had a theory about polar drift. He believed that the ice moved in a particular way, across the North Pole, from

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east to west. Although he had assembled all available knowledge on this subject and all the scientific data, his thesis still remained incomplete, unproven. So, he turned from thought to action – he designed and built a ship, embarked on it, and deliberately allowed it to become locked in the ice, to test his thesis – to prove it and, from the outcome, learn from it. Here is a proposal for thought to action. I return to a provocation I offered in the introduction to this book. We (the academy and practice) want educated users with visionary dreams. We (as academics and practitioners) want to equally impact practice and education. This is our “ship” in that we examine the role we conventionally understand for the architect – and we reconsider how we may frame inventive and creative pedagogies to support a radical new future of practitioners, leaders, designers, and collaborators “…beyond the confines of any specific discipline, focusing not on a world of design but rather on the complex processes, assumptions and responsibilities of designing the world” (Bruyns and Stavros 15). The explicit benefit of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary work lies in the exposure to other disciplines and in learning how to communicate and how to collaborate. It lies in practicing collaboration. Returning then to the example set by Nansen, we will study all of the parameters to arm ourselves with the best possible data and knowledge. We will establish the scope of the challenges across all scales and through lenses that look outward as they also look inward. In order to test the efficacy of our theories, we will need to turn those theories into practice. Not all progress starts with architecture; however, I contend interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary practices hold the potential to reveal the multiple ways and scales in which architects can be the sticky glue. We must, however, remain open to the possibilities of other definitions of our roles and what constitutes success. We must willingly challenge what we may narrowly understand as the discipline of architecture – and of our roles as architects. History has taught us that we learn from the past to understand where we are today to then imagine what might be the next step. To that end, the stage is set for continued discussions on the role of interdisciplinary and trandisciplinary praxis and practice. The prospects remain organic, elastic, and unpredictable. The architect is an entrepreneur, choreographer, strategist, visionary, student, and teacher – and, that is what makes the future of practice and education so exciting. Note 1 Portions of text included in this chapter were previously published in “Expanding Fields: reflections on the science of design” Kim, J.J-Y.,ed. Dialogues in Design Thinking: reconsidering the interdisciplinary studio experiment in the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech (School of Architecture - Georgia Tech, Atlanta, 2021), 62–67.

Works Cited Bruyns, Gerhard, & Stavros, Kousoulas. “An Introduction to Design Commons.” Design Commons: Practices, Processes and Crossovers. Eds. Bruyns, Gerhard and Stavros Kousoulas. Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2022. 1–16. Print. Camus, Michel. “The Hidden Hand between Poetry and Science.” Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. Ed. Nicolescu, Basarab. Creskill: Hampton Press Inc., 2002. 53–66. Cassirer, Ernst. An Essay on Man. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1944.

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Davies, Richard Llewelyn. “The Education of an Architect.” An Inaugural Address Delivered at University College of London. 2nd ed. London: H.K. Lewis and Co., 1960. Hillier, Bill. “Architecture and Engineering in Environmental Education.” Journal of Architectural Research and Teaching, 2.2 (1972): 111–118. Johnston, Rosemary Ross. “On Connection and Community: Transdisciplinarity and the Arts.” Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. Ed. Nicolescu, Basarab. Creskill: Hampton Press Inc., 2002. 223–236. Johnston, George. Assembling the Architect. New York and London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020. Kristeva, Julia. “Institutional Interdisciplinarity in Theory and Practice: An Interview.” The Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity. Eds. Coles, Alex and Alexia Defert. London: BACKless Books in association with Black Dog Publishing, 1998. 1–22. Nicolescu, Basarab. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Schon, Donald A. The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, 1983. Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1998. Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

27 INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUES What Are the Boundaries of Design (or Design as a Mode of Inquiry) J. Meejin Yoon

In order to look into the future, we need only to look deeply into our present, and often, the future is tucked away in our studios and labs on our university campuses. The university not only has insights into the future but an important role and responsibility for critically prototyping that future – requiring increasingly interdisciplinary perspectives, despite the very definitive disciplinary organizational structures that underpin our universities. This trajectory of “beyond disciplinarity” recognizes that the entrenched and emerging challenges we face as a society cannot be solved within a single discipline. Wicked problems require drastically expanded approaches and perspectives as well as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary platforms, practices, and pedagogies. Today, the increasing emergence of institutes, centers, labs, and inter-, trans-, antidisciplinary programs within the university reflects an acknowledgement that disciplinary expertise and departmental structures continue to require expanded and complimentary platforms and frameworks. Whether it is climate change, migration, equity, sustainability, or public health, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research organized through the lens of questions, problems, and contexts that exceed a single disciplinary domain are critical to both the advancement of new knowledge and applied research to real-world problems. And as centers, labs, and institutes become increasingly focused on complex, urgent multi-scalar problems, they create more disciplinary diverse units, teams, and cohorts. It is in this productive space, of both dialogue and dissonance, that one sees renewed capacity and potential for design. Design as a mode of inquiry is both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary. It is projective and anticipatory – each act of design constituting an act of speculation into an unknown future. Design has also been a term that has been frustratingly difficult to define, particularly by designers. In a 1969 Q&A by French curator Madame L’Amic, Charles Eames was asked 29 questions to define “design.” When asked, “Is design an expression of art?” he responded that “design is an expression of purpose.” When asked if design was a “method of general expression,” he responded “No, it is a method of action.” And when asked “What are the boundaries of design?” he rhetorically responded, “What are the boundaries of problems?” (Eames, “Design Q&A”). For Eames, design DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-36

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was not limited by disciplinary boundaries but a form of inquiry which both bridged and spanned boundaries. Among the most insightful definitions of design is one shared by Herbert Simon, a political scientist whose work influenced several fields including artificial intelligence, computer science, and economics. In his seminal 1969 book, The Sciences of the Artificial, he states that while the natural sciences are concerned with how things are, “the designer, on the other hand, is concerned with how things ought to be” (Simon 4). As both an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary pursuit, design is indeed inspired by the optimism of how things ought to be. Design delves into our deepest human values and aspirations – reflecting how we want to live and interact with each other and the world we share. How we situate design and locate it within the disciplinary structure of the university has been a challenge from the very beginning. Design as a mode of knowledge, a mode of inquiry, and a method of action opens up possibilities because it is fundamentally projective and boundary traversing. While “design” is a term well utilized across several fields, in the field of architecture, design is seen as an activity of synthesis across domain expertise. Furthermore, architecture as a discipline is, itself, arguably interdisciplinary. Architecture brings together the building arts and building sciences, integrating engineering, computation, history, and theory, as well as aspects of finance, policy, planning, and the social sciences through the synthesis of design. Design straddles both the arts & humanities and engineering domains – it both problematizes and problem-solves. And while architecture departments in the United States can be found either in arts colleges or engineering colleges, or as independent professional schools, they find that on whichever side of campus they land, they are often missing key critical disciplinary adjacencies. It is interesting to note that some of the earliest ideas around the university were actually not tied to a physical campus. In Mark Wigley’s essay “Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture,” he shares the university was, by definition, like a corporation (Wigley 10). It was really the body of the faculty and its practices that defined the university. Early on, when the university constituted a liberal arts education, subjects such as architecture were cited as examples of training that should be excluded from the university, but eventually the university was expanded to include architecture education. The first school of architecture in North America was part of the land-grant college of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An early photograph of the architecture department at MIT, founded by William Ware, shows the department as a place of collections, which housed an archive of artifacts, a library, and a studio. When Ware left MIT for Columbia University, he argued that architecture was a fine art and should always be categorized among the fine arts. At MIT, the department of architecture would follow a different trajectory, one more interconnected with disciplines and methodologies of science and engineering across the Institute. The physical layout of MIT is a network of buildings and corridors that foster a sense of connection and collaboration. The buildings in aggregate operate like a megastructure connected by what is referred to as the “infinite corridor” – a continuous circulation corridor that connects buildings and departments. Each of the interconnected buildings houses individual departments which were referred to by the number in which the “course”

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(department) was introduced. The Department of Architecture, referred to as Course 4, was created at MIT following: Course 1, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Course 2, Mechanical Engineering; and Course 3, Materials Science and Engineering. MIT’s interconnected corridors and disciplines were transformative in my career as an educator, a designer, and an architect. The Department of Architecture would evolve to have an internal disciplinary structure which housed distinct groups including Architecture + Urbanism; History Theory Criticism; Design and Computation; Building Technology; and Art, Culture, and Technology. It simultaneously had a rich context of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary platforms, centers, and programs. Working within the structure of a research institute provided a unique context for me as a designer and architect. MIT’s influence on the relationship between design and research follows two trajectories in the wake of the Second World War. During the post-war period, MIT moved to strengthen its position as a leader in scientific and technological education, building on both its military research and its partnerships with industry and government. The School of Architecture and Planning at MIT contributed to this effort by championing research projects, publishing reports, and offering numerous studios on housing. These efforts were stimulated by technological innovation in the home building industry at a time when home ownership was seen as a national resource. MIT sought to position itself as a leader in housing. Lectures, conferences, and special courses such as Industrialized House, Housing Development, and Cooperative Housing Development provided the pedagogical research context following the post-war years. Many student thesis projects were framed by this context in their speculations about the future of housing alongside the future of the discipline and the field. One MIT M.Arch thesis, “An Industrialized House of Plastics,” written by Albert R. Bodinger in 1953, was particularly representative. Bodinger’s interest in plastics led him to contact numerous plastics manufacturers in hopes of gaining a deeper understanding of the material and the industry. Bodinger visited the Monsanto Chemical Company in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts, which established the initial relationship between the company and MIT. The Monsanto Chemical Company approached the MIT Department of Architecture in 1954 with the intent to sponsor research on the applications of modern plastics in the construction of housing. MIT Architecture faculty members Marvin Goody and Richard Hamilton took up the project to design a low-cost, prefabricated house made almost entirely of plastic, which was completed in 1956. The project, known as the Monsanto House of the Future, emerged as a prototype demonstration project between MIT faculty, the Monsanto Chemical Company, and Disneyland. Between 1957 and 1967, upward of 20 million visitors toured the House of the Future at Disneyland where it was advertised as a typical suburban house of tomorrow. A speculative student thesis project, an industry-sponsored research project, and a mass public venue would signal a triangulation between pedagogy, research, and public dissemination that has a continued legacy (both embraced and problematized) in the field today. Broader questions around the trajectory of computing, visual communication, human interaction, and digital tools also found their way into the Department of Architecture at MIT, creating new intersections between art, science, and technology. In 1946, the artist György Kepes was hired to create and teach a radically new set of drawing courses, which were to replace the Beaux-Arts-inspired instruction previously offered. In two years, Kepes implemented a rotating set of subjects which were woven throughout the five-year

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undergraduate curriculum, including Visual Fundamentals, Structure of the City, Form and Design, Light and Color, Graphic Presentation, Painting, and Advanced Visual Design. Through these courses, he experimented with the new techniques and technologies available to him at MIT and shared the results through interdisciplinary seminars, exhibitions, and publications. By operating at the interface between the humanities and the sciences, he was able to facilitate dialogue between the two. Kepes was establishing this new way of working in between art and science, when a new technology arrived on campus – the computer. In the 1960s, computers were still sizeable, prohibitively expensive installations, and, thus, almost exclusively available at universities, large companies, and the military. This meant that MIT – and in particular, the Department of Engineering – was one of the few places in the world where students could actually interact with computers. In this period, MIT was the site of numerous important innovations in electrical engineering, computer science, and computer graphics. One important early computer tool to emerged from this cluster of research interests was Sketchpad, a program developed in Ivan Sutherland’s PhD at MIT in 1963, which allowed users to draw geometric shapes with a touch-pen and would foreshadow a suite of computer-aided design and computational design tools to follow. It was in this context that Nicholas Negroponte, who completed his Masters of Architecture at MIT in 1966, would forge a connection across the departments of architecture, engineering, and planning, to pursue a thesis that connected urban systems, visualization, cognition, and computer science. Steven Coons and Kepes would be important advisors for Negroponte’s thesis, entitled, “The Computer Simulation of Perception During Motion in the Urban Environment.” Upon completion of his thesis, Negroponte stayed on to teach at MIT at a time when Kevin Lynch was also teaching in Planning. Negroponte created the Architecture Machine Group as a home for their emerging work on computing and architecture. Among their early prescient projects, URBAN 5 explored threedimensional graphic computer capabilities as a tool for urban analysis. By 1984, Negroponte’s success with the Architecture Machine Group enabled and inspired the creation of the MIT Media Laboratory, founded by Negroponte and Jerome B. Wiesner. The Media Lab continued both Kepes’ legacy of arts-science collaboration through visual media, and the Architecture Machine Group’s ethos of interdisciplinary research in media technologies and human-computer interaction. This parallel trajectory between computing and the visual arts alongside a history of applied research in building technology is the interdisciplinary context for the first of two case study projects for this article – the Collier Memorial. The Collier Memorial

The Collier Memorial at MIT was designed to honor MIT officer Sean Collier, who was killed by the Tsarnaev brothers following the Boston Marathon bombing on April 18, 2013. Following the tragedy, I was asked by a committee at MIT to design a memorial that would pay tribute to Sean’s life and service as well as serve as a place and space of remembrance and healing for the community. The brief also asked that the design consider different types of remembrance, and committee members wondered if there was a particular “MIT-ness” that the memorial might embody. As with any design challenge, I sought to find a unique response to the events, recognizing that the specific aspects of the

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memorial design would serve as a reflection of a particular moment in time. Even though it was 2013, the United States was still grappling with the aftermath of 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The possibility of increased xenophobia around Muslim Americans and more broadly around immigrants and non-nationals was amplified by the Boston Marathon bombing. How then, I wondered, could a contemporary memorial honor the service of the MIT officer, represent the ethos of MIT, and offer a meditation on the moment, when the nature of an open and democratic society, its institutions, and values were contested by a rise in hate crimes and bigotry? In response to the shock and trauma of the domestic terrorism, a campaign coalesced around the term “strong.” Terms like “Boston Strong,” “MIT Strong,” and “Collier Strong” emerged on T-shirts, traffic signs, banners, and buttons. I reflected on what was meant by the term “strong,” and what was the appropriate response to loss in the wake of an act of terror and tragedy. For some in the community, the appropriate response would be a memorial that symbolized duty and patriotism. There were numerous requests for siting and raising an American flag at the memorial. The tensions between patriotism and nationalism were palpable. It was in the conversations and dialogue with Sean’s colleagues and friends that a more nuanced and collective position on what is “strong” emerged: strength coming from the many, the many coming together to lean on each other and support one another. Strength was translated into principles of stability, equilibrium, community, and co-dependency. The Collier Memorial is sited at the corner of Vassar and Main Streets on the northwest corner of the MIT campus, in the location where Sean Collier was shot and killed (Figure 27.1). The memorial forms a freestanding arched portal that highlights a

FIGURE 27.1 

The Collier Memorial at MIT. (Photography © Iwan Baan.)

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“conspicuous absence” at its center. Constructed of 32 blocks of solid granite, the memorial forms a vaulted space, made of five half arches which lean in on each other – a fully compressive solid masonry structure. The five-pointed figure can be read as an irregular star, or an open hand, oscillating between references – the star of a flag or the hand of mens et manus (hand and mind), MIT’s motto. While the Collier Memorial can be discussed from several perspectives, for the purposes of this chapter I want to focus on the design of the memorial as a case study in interdisciplinary applied research. I have stated that the nature of design today is such that problems cannot be confined to a single disciplinary response. While architecture has always brought together expertise from various disciplines, including structural engineering, civil engineering, and relied on the skills of multiple crafts and trades, the nature of design today has been radically transformed by contemporary digital tools for design, representation, simulation, and fabrication. Digital design workflows have re-ordered design operations and short-circuited traditional techniques of verification and review that provide quality control. Concurrent with the evolution of design tools and methods, the construction industry is evolving to incorporate new protocols for procurement, digital surveying and 3D scanning, as well as new procedures for construction administration and documentation. The Collier Memorial design and construction is unique because of its unusual brief and its classification as a non-building structure, but also due to the proposed construction method – the all-compression masonry arch. During the design process, I asked my colleague, Professor John Ochsendorf, if he thought the design concept was technically feasible. Ochsendorf, a structural engineer with a specialization in masonry arches and vaults, was confident it was possible and excited to bring his research and analysis of historic vault structures to bear on a contemporary design challenge. In proposing a contemporary structure be constructed of large solid masonry blocks, the project moved beyond conventional construction and into the realm of atypical construction. The principles of compression arches are well known and understood, but the implementation of all-compression construction had not been practiced in decades, and contractors and engineers had little experience with this type of construction. The unusual design warranted a design process that included a research and development phase with performance mock-ups, as well as an expanded team of consultants and fabricators. To address the atypical nature of the proposed design, I assembled a team of collaborators that could engage in the necessary debate and dialogue to execute the design. The team included civil engineers Nitsch; landscape architect Richard Burke; lighting designers HLB; electrical and plumbing engineers AHA; structural engineers Knippers Helbig; and the engineer of record, RSE Associates, as well as the masonry consultant engineers, Ochsendorf DeJong & Block. On the academic side, Oschendorf’s participation also included his masters and PhD students in structural and civil engineering, alongside two of my undergraduate students in Architecture (Course 4). MIT brought on construction manager, Suffolk Construction, geotechnical engineers McPhail, and surveyors Feldman. In addition to the consultant team of various disciplines, the project also relied on the expertise of specialty fabricators and installers that would traditionally be understood as trades. The early engagement with stone fabricators, Quarra Stone, and masonry installers,

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Phoenix Bay State, brought questions of procurement, fabrication, installation, temporary structures, and construction sequencing into the early design conversations. Traditional design-bid-build project delivery methods segregate design from execution. This method assumes that the design team will completely design, engineer, coordinate, and document a project before it goes out to bid. After the bid is awarded, a construction team of subcontractors and various trades will execute the design following a construction sequence and applying means and methods with little input from the design team. Traditional delivery methods are summarized by the term “means and methods,” which are explicitly called out in AIA contracts as the express rights and responsibilities of the contractor. Typically, the architect’s role is limited to design intent, while the contractor is responsible for the means, methods, techniques, sequences, and procedures. While this separation of intent from execution may work for conventional construction, it did not lend itself to innovative construction, or archaic construction, for that matter. Fortunately, the concept of a solid stone compression vault signifying a diverse community with a shared purpose was approved by the committee at MIT and the design team was able to incorporate research experts and masonry experts as well as form fabricators and installers. Design workshops focused on the engineering of the stone arch involved extensive discussions of basic principles, assumed load cases, as well as structural engineering software and approaches to redundancy. Philip Block developed a custom software application as a plug-in for Rhino modeling software that allowed us to design the geometry of the vault with real-time parametric feedback on the weight of the stones, the thrust vectors of the stones, and basic feedback about the viability of the proposed geometries. The custom software tool ensured that the stone would be in equilibrium under gravity by finding a compressive line of force within the masonry volumes of the buttress walls. This allowed us to test hundreds of versions of the memorial geometry while ensuring the stability and equilibrium of the system. The geometrical tests vary the angle of the buttress walls, the dimensions of the buttress walls, the shape of the interior void, and the subdivisions of the form into discrete blocks with planes of interface arranged perpendicular to the thrust lines. Once the geometry was developed through the feedback loop of the digital design tool, the structural engineering of the vault was verified by a range of additional means of calculation. Physical models were used to simulate stability under various loading conditions. Various structural engineering software was used, including thrust network analysis (RhinoVault) and finite element methods (ANSYS) (Figure 27.2). We tend to think of engineering as having a single answer to a single problem. Through the process of designing the Collier Memorial and in collaboration with the four different structural engineering teams, we understood that the different engineering approaches produced different solutions based on different assumptions, load cases, safety factors, software platforms, risk tolerance, and construction methods. While a unique structural approach involving an archaic construction method, it precipitated a design and engineering process that included an extensive team that negotiated a common understanding of the engineering and construction approach (Figure 27.3). In addition to engineering, the Collier Memorial also involved extensive demands on the fabrication and installation. From the engineering, we understood that the shallow arched structure was extremely deflection sensitive. Force vectors were transferring between stone

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FIGURE 27.2 

Diagram showing the line of thrust. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

FIGURE 27.3 The

multi-disciplinary design team meeting to discuss the issues of installation. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

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blocks at the planes of interface. This load transfer was essential for the stability of the overall structure. In order to ensure load transfer, the two faces of the adjacent stone blocks had to be completely parallel with a perfect fit to eliminate the chances of concentrated loads, open joints, or lateral displacements. The specifications for the stone fabrication, therefore, were highly exacting, requiring a precision in the hundredths of a millimeter. Working closely with stone fabricator, we developed the specifications for the fabrication of the stone blocks to be pre-formed by an array of digital fabrication equipment, including CNC saws and multi-axis robotic saws (Figure 27.4). The fabrication team prototyped the milling of large volume blocks of stone and developed a quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) protocol for verifying dimensional accuracy after fabrication and before shipping. The installation sequence for the memorial was also the topic of extensive discussion. Traditional arch construction relies on scaffolding, or “centering,” to support the arches until a keystone can be inserted to engage both sides of the arch. The five-way geometry of the memorial buttresses meant that the keystone was an irregular five-sided figure. The section profile of the keystone was also designed with a step, compounding the geometry of the keystone interface as 15 surfaces on the keystone and 15 faces on the adjacent stones. Fabricating a perfect fit between these blocks would require the fabrication of 30 near-perfect faces on six individual blocks. This level of precision required near-perfect fabrication tolerance and near-perfect installation tolerances. Even with the employment of state-of-the-art robotic fabrication and continuous on-site digital surveying, the team felt it was unachievable. During one of the multi-discipline coordination sessions, the stone installers proposed to reverse the traditional construction sequence. They proposed to “install” the keystone first, locating it on scaffold, up in the air (Figure 27.5). From there, they proposed building the adjacent stones from the inside out, allowing the memorial to be built in the air and only engaging with the foundations once all the blocks were installed and keystone lowered. Any errors or tolerance in fabrication or erection would not accumulate toward the center but would be “shed” to the perimeter. Subsequent blocks were fabricated based on updated digital models to account for any errors produced in the field. Once all the blocks were assembled, the scaffold under the keystone was lowered a millimeter at a time until the keystone load was transferred to the adjacent blocks, and the forces created the arching action needed for structural stability (Figures 27.6 and 27.7). The incorporation of atypical construction sequencing and critical high precision fabrication relied on the early and continuous coordination with an expanded design team that was involved early in the design process. The whole multi-disciplinary team worked together to find solutions to atypical and unprecedented design and construction challenges. With the support of MIT, the Collier Memorial team managed to design and construct an exceptional structure that addressed the desire for a uniquely MIT memorial, one that embodies the spirit of community through its symbolism, and the methodology of research and development that resonates with MIT (Figure 27.8). UVA Memorial to Enslaved Laborers

Our experience with the Collier Memorial at MIT transformed our approach to design processes and disciplinary expertise. We learned first-hand the value of an interdisciplinary design team and the necessity of an open approach when tackling an unprecedented design

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FIGURE 27.4  Fabrication

of the Memorial’s stone blocks. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

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FIGURE 27.5 Lifting

the blocks into place during construction of the Memorial. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

FIGURE 27.6  The

Collier Memorial during construction. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

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FIGURE 27.7  The

Collier Memorial during construction. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

FIGURE 27.8 The

ovoid space at the center of the structure creates a passage, a marker, and an aperture that reframes the site. (Photography © John Horner.)

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challenge. The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia presented a different kind of design challenge. In the fall of 2016, we learned the University of Virginia (UVA) sought design teams to develop a memorial to commemorate the lives of enslaved men, women, and children who had built and maintained the university since its founding. As we learned more about the proposed memorial, we assembled an interdisciplinary team to think through the challenges posed (Figure 27.9). We reached out to designer and historian Dr. Mabel Wilson, whose scholarship on the architecture of UVA and Thomas Jefferson was critical to understanding the legacy of slavery and whose expertise spanned history, design, and context. Mabel also was a UVA alum and had first-hand lived experience and perspective as a student on UVA’s grounds. We also reached out to UVA professor Frank Dukes, whose work with communities and reconciliation was essential for a design process predicated on community engagement, and local landscape architect Gregg Bleam. Our design team included civil engineers Nitsch, lighting designer George Sexton, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical engineers WSP, and structural engineers Silman. Our approach to assembling the team for the project was based on the premise that the design called for a broad range of skills, experiences, and expertise. We felt that the sensitivity of the context of UVA and the subject matter of the memorial necessitated a collaborative team of diverse experts to seriously engage the legacy of slavery at the university and the complex history of the university’s relationship with the local community –some of whom are descendants of the enslaved. It should be stated that the work on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers began years before we were involved in the project. The idea of a permanent memorial was the result

FIGURE 27.9 The

design team meeting at Höweler + Yoon’s office for a charette. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

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of a student initiative to acknowledge and commemorate the history of enslaved Africans on the university grounds. The student group, self-named the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, began a campaign in 2007 for a memorial shortly after the university installed a stone plaque under the Rotunda that acknowledged the contribution of the enslaved to the construction of the buildings on grounds in a manner the students felt was inadequate. The memorial also benefited from years of work performed by the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University (PCSU), whose scholarly work provided the historical expertise critical to the project. Scholars on the PCSU pieced together records from the archives and property records, and collaborated on the timeline of events that was eventually inscribed on the memorial. The work for the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers began by designing the design process and initiating a six-month community engagement process. Rather than develop a formal solution to the memorial, we began by asking questions and listening to the various stakeholders (Figure 27.10). The pre-design process was an education in the architecture and history of the UVA grounds. The famous Academical Village was built by enslaved men, women, and children involved in every aspect of the construction, from the making of bricks and the sawing of lumber to the laying of bricks and the tooling of the wood. We also learned that the landscape had been shaped by back-breaking labor and the celebrated pavilions designed by Jefferson were strategically sited on the ridge to enable the pavilions to have a walk-out basement level, concealed from the lawn. The lower level at the rear of

FIGURE 27.10  Meeting

with members of the Charlottesville community and descendants of the enslaved was crucial to the process of designing the Memorial. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

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the pavilions included work yards where the enslaved would cook and garden, chop firewood, and slaughter animals and was further concealed by the high serpentine garden walls. The community engagement process involved numerous meetings with community members in schools and churches as well as in people’s homes and front porches. Frank Dukes was an essential figure in this process, as he was already involved in community negotiations with the effort to remove confederate statues in Charlottesville. Dukes’ efforts, combined with the UVA community ambassadors, ensured that the design team was hearing from a cross section of the Charlottesville community. It was through the engagement process that the design team learned the hidden histories of the built environment and the ways in which architecture and landscape were used to conceal the violence of slavery at the university. The scholarship produced by the PCSU and the sentiments heard during the engagement meetings fed directly into the design process. We learned from the local and descendent community that the university grounds were unsettling, and because of this discomfort the memorial would need to be carefully sited to create a welcoming space for visitors from the community and the university. We also learned from the community of descendants that the memorial should be able to tell truths, however painful, without obscuring or sanitizing the past. The design team made numerous proposals for four different sites on the university grounds and tested concepts at a range of scales and configurations with the community. The concept of a Ring Shout, a ritual dance in the round, in a clearing designed for gathering gained the support of members of the community as well as the university (Figure 27.11).

FIGURE 27.11 Dedication

ceremony of the Memorial, held on “Descendants Day.” (Photography © Sanjay Suchak. Courtesy of the University of Virginia.)

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The final design developed as a series of nested stone rings that create a new horizon line in the form of a ridge that begins at a low elevation and rises to eight feet. The memorial was sited in an area known as the Triangle of Grass, allowing it to be easily accessible to the community and act as a “front porch” to the university. The gentle slope of the site required the memorial to be carefully integrated into the sloping grade of the site. The memorial is conceptualized as a landform, a berm-like form that negotiates the interior grade and the exterior grade. Working with landscape architect Gregg Bleam, we were able to integrate the memorial into a handicap-accessible path network that serves as a primary approach to the Rotunda. The interior path of the memorial slopes gently down as the ridge of the memorial rises creating a very subtle effect of embracing the visitor in an outdoor room that is open and welcoming but also sheltered from its context. As a response to the community desire for a representational component of the memorial, we reached out to Brooklyn-based visual artist Eto Otitigbe to collaborate on a visual element to be integrated into the memorial wall. Through the collaboration, we landed on the inclusion of a portrait of Isabella Gibbons, an enslaved woman who became a matriarch and teacher in the community after emancipation. We developed a technique of translating her photographic image into a series of parallel grooves of varying depths to produce a representational image of her eyes in the surface of stone at a colossal scale. Once the design was developed and approved, the translation from concept to construction once again involved the early partnering with builders, stone supplier, and stone fabricators. The university’s rules around procurement made it challenging to select a builder or fabricator, but we developed a pre-qualification process that would identify capable bidders needed to build the memorial. Team Henry was selected as the General Contactor with Quarra Stone as fabricator and installer. The continuity of Quarra as both fabricator and installer gave their team an advantage in assuring the university of the level of quality would be maintained from fabrication through installation. The fabrication challenges for the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers included the precise milling of the cone segments of the inner and outer walls, as well as the complex tool pathing of the partial portrait of Isabella Gibbons. Ensuring that all the individual stone panels and blocks aligned to form the precise geometry of the cone-shaped walls came down to the dedication of the stone installation team. For the Collier Memorial, precision was necessitated for structural reasons. For the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, precision was needed for the cohesion of the panels to form the continuity of surface of the inner and outer walls. One of the most difficult challenges with the UVA memorial was the design of the inscriptions: the names of the enslaved and the historical timeline. The desire to recognize the estimated 4,000 enslaved that lived and worked on the university grounds was frustrated by the fact that no comprehensive records exist. The university historians pieced together fragments of records from property logs and personal accounts, but the actual known names remain a fraction of the estimated total number of enslaved. How then to recognize 4,000 individuals when more than 3,000 were unknown and unknowable? Working with the historians and archivists, and through dialogue with Mabel Wilson and the team, we developed a strategy of inscribing marks – we call them memory marks – that hold a place for the 4,000 (Figure 27.12). Above the marks we inscribed the names, if they were known (Lewis Commodore, Sam, or Nelson), their craft or skill as it appeared in the

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FIGURE 27.12 The interior wall of the Memorial features 4,000 “memory marks” to commemo-

rate the lives of the enslaved. (Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.)

records (Stonecutter, Laundress, Butler), and kinships as we could interpret from the records (Mother, Daughter, Grandmother). The inscription of names and relationships creates a genealogical cloud, an interpretation of the community of the enslaved that spanned generations. It is precisely not an archive or a record. There is no complete archive. There is no complete record. Instead, the inscribed names are a “portrait” and genealogical cloud of the community. Conclusion

The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers and the Collier Memorial presented unique design challenges and required a specific interdisciplinary approach that expanded the traditional makeup of a consultant team. The incorporation of a masonry expert, a community organizer, a historian, an archaeologist, or a stone carver, into the design team allowed us to collectively bring unique perspectives and expertise to the design process. The two case studies presented here are meant to illustrate the importance of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations. The nature of the two projects necessitated a unique approach to teaming, collaboration, workflow, and construction sequencing. At every step of the design process, the traditional structures of consultant teaming and design-bid-build delivery were questioned to allow for different kinds of expertise to bear on

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FIGURE 27.13 Gathering

of White Coats for Black Lives in honor of George Floyd at the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. (Photography © Sanjay Suchak.)

the design tasks at hand. They also represent two institutional contexts and the university’s mission to expand and share knowledge. As a result of the interdisciplinary processes, the two projects also produced unprecedented structures that have impacted the sites and communities in which they are located. The built works are doing work in the world, providing sites of remembrance and commemoration. In the case of Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, the university and community have regained a level of trust and engagement that did not exist prior (Figure 27.13). The impact of the two memorials is also measured in the new types of knowledge and knowhow that were produced in the process: new techniques in construction sequencing of masonry construction, new means of calculating design loads in masonry structures, new techniques for stone carving on conical surfaces, as well as new best practices for community engagement, and precedents for institutional responses to the legacy of slavery. These are some of the contributions that interdisciplinary approaches to design can yield. The context of a university enables both disciplinary and interdisciplinary inquiry. It is a space that creates a particular set of conditions for discovery and the testing of ideas, hypotheses, methods, and tools. And while the university serves as a site for prototyping ideas through design research, the task of implementation beyond the academy falls on others. The highly determined space of academic research and inquiry needs to be coupled with a mode of practice and methodology that moves speculative research and methods into the world. The space of implementation and practice comes with its own set of variables, contingencies, and unknowns. As ideas move from research into practice, from

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controlled experiments in university labs and studios to the unpredictable and complex space of society and the planet, they will encounter unanticipated conditions and have unexpected impacts. Those transactions between the university and practice expand the boundaries of design as it engages with multi-scalar challenges in an inevitably messy and multi-disciplinary world that remains full of potential. Works Cited Dutta, Arindam. A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and the “Techno-Social” Moment. SA+P Press, Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 2013. Eames, Charles. “Design Q&A.” The Films of Charles and Ray Eames, Volume 4. Executive Producer Lucia Eames. Pyramid Media, 2000. Sachs, Avigail. “The Pedagogy of Prefabrication: Building Research at MIT in the Postwar.” A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and the “Techno-Social” Moment, edited by Arindam Dutta, SA+P Press, Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA, 2013, pp. 226–251. Scott, Felicity D. “Discourse, Seek, Interact: Urban Systems at MIT.” A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and the “Techno-Social” Moment, edited by Arindam Dutta, SA+P Press, Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA, 2013, pp. 342–393. Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial, The MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1996, pp. 4–5. Vallye, Anna. “The Middleman: Kepes’s Instruments.” A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and the “Techno-Social” Moment, edited by Arindam Dutta, SA+P Press, Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA, 2013, pp. 144–185. Wigley, Mark. “Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture.” Assemblage, Vol. 15, 1991, pp. 7–29. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3171122. Accessed 6 Apr. 2023.

28 WALKING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Alan Organschi

Q: “What are the boundaries of Design?” A: “What are the boundaries of problems? …the great risk here is that the analysis may be incomplete.” Charles Eames (in an Interview for the 1969 Musée des Arts Décoratifs international exhibit What is Design?) Neuhart, (14). A Seemingly Unbounded Problem

Let’s start here, with one big, admittedly existential (and seemingly intractable) challenge to our discipline and our practice: Homo faber, highly evolved maker species of the late Anthropocene, intrepid navigator of geographies and traverser of spatial scales, skilled manipulator of increasingly refined forms of matter, dogged extractor of rare fuels drawn from remote and barely accessible sources, prodigious producer of consumables, voracious consumer of products. We are the engines of terrestrial disturbance and the transgressors of planetary boundaries, and we have pushed geo-biological, -chemical, and -physical systems to a tipping point (Schellnhuber et al. 5). It’s now beyond dispute that humanity is witness to a confluence of catastrophes of its own making. Severe climate instability, ecosystem collapse, mass extinction, and the deepening rather than rebalancing of social inequities are no longer dire predictions but painful, lived realities. In our technological zeal to correct these planetary predations, to stabilize our climate, to restore the landscapes and habitats trampled, and distribute an array of ever-improved products, we will inadvertently but inevitably deplete other finite, increasingly critical resources and possibly unleash new systemic impacts in the process. Meanwhile, it’s likely that we’ll continue to fail to meet the basic needs of broad swaths of human society or protect those non-human species that are our fellow inhabitants of the planet. Over the next three decades, the explosive growth and urbanization of human population – 2.5 billion new inhabitants in the planet’s cities – will drive unprecedented levels of DOI: 10.4324/9781003296355-37

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FIGURE 28.1 Into

the Woods: design-build crew members of the Yale Regenerative Building Lab harvest weakened trees from an overstocked Sassafras stand for structural applications. Horse Island Coastal Research Station.

Walking the Boundaries of the Built Environment  259

consumption of all kinds of products but especially a ravenous demand for the largest, most material- and energy-intensive ones: new buildings and infrastructure (Ritchie and Roser). To meet this demand by 2050, building stocks will have to double (IAE, 3) and this building boom will triple the area of urban land that covers the planet (Simkin et al. 2). This will have significant implications for the health and biodiversity of non-human habitats (Seto et al. 109). The year 2020 was a moment of global inflection: anthropogenic matter (material produced by human industry) now outweighs terrestrial biomass (Elhacham et al. 442–448). So, what does all this have to do with contemporary architectural practice? The point is this: we devote ourselves to the design and production of some of the largest and most durable artifacts on the planet. We are conceivers and makers, certainly, and by our own disciplinary self-assessment the orchestrators of all the material, space, energy, technique, and associated expertise and human labor required to produce the built environment. But also, by extension, we are the agents of massive consumption. Whether through intention or neglect, we determine the future health of both the source ecosystems from which we draw resources for the things we make and the atmospheric, marine, and terrestrial systems into which their waste residues will be ultimately deposited. These are our legacies as much as the quality of the spaces and structures we create and benefits to the lives of the people who inhabit them. If we accept the arguably conservative estimates that the full life cycles of buildings and infrastructure (their production, operation, maintenance, and ultimately disposal) represent upward of 40% of annual anthropogenic global greenhouse gas emissions as well as

FIGURE 28.2 Building

class.

sector extractivism: carbon pools and atmospheric impacts by material

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a host of other, as-yet-unquantified impacts to marine and land-based ecosystems, then we begin to understand that the very premise of our discipline – to make large physical objects that demand both initial inputs and ongoing consumption of material and energy – is working against our professional efforts to mitigate our own environmental impacts (2019 Global Status Report…). The conceptual and professional frameworks within which we operate, the sprawling supply networks we rely on to conduct our work, the rapidly obsolescing artifacts we leave behind (even the unexamined assumption that we play a benevolent role in society) can only perpetuate those unintended consequences for the increasingly fragile health of our planet. This is not to say that architects have been the motive force that’s driven human consumption and all its associated impact (Kuittinen et al. 242). But we do work, collectively, at the sharp point of a spear, facilitating those aforementioned transactions of material and energy, often with a deficit of reliable information or, worse, a lack of curiosity about the systemic ramifications of our decisions. If by dint of our material specifications and technical configurations we may unknowingly contribute to a host of destructive impacts, doesn’t that mean that the reverse may also be true? That through the jiu-jitsu of radically expanding our design agency, might we seek to reverse rather than simply reduce the planetary impact of creating yet another planet’s worth of building in the next 30 years? If interdisciplinarity, the subject of this book, is to be the watchword for new design practice and an ambition of architectural education, then we might profitably ask: to what end? Moreover, what would interdisciplinary practice and the educational programs and formats that shape it look like to meet that end? At the risk of obsessively over-painting a dark picture of a dire situation and potentially overstating our disciplinary culpability for its ultimate outcome, I would pose the inherent conflict between the materials, means, and methods we employ and our best intentions. I choose to frame the “problem” as broadly and systemically as I have not merely to assign blame. Instead, I want to expose our potential agency and, more relevant here, the degree to which our agency depends on deep and informed interaction and effective collaboration with colleagues from other disciplines who can join us in solving a problem as deep and entangled as the accelerating changes to our climate and, by extension, the risk to the health and well-being of human civilization, not to mention global ecosystems. Boundaries, Paths, and Disciplinary Transgressions

Architects, by training and possibly by temperament, are generalists. We are engaged, after all, in the multi-disciplinary and wide-ranging enterprise of imagining and implementing various scales and forms of human inhabitation and settlement. We are also inherently systems thinkers, coordinating different realms of knowledge that range from the technical and scientific to the experiential and cultural and we manage that information flow through the way we conduct our practices. At the same time, we are also adept at design specialization. We may gravitate naturally to the pursuit of topics and techniques that align with our own personal facility or intellectual proclivity, and we seek to instrumentalize that special skill and interest – be it in managing processes of community engagement, developing new digital fabrication techniques or applications of artificial intelligence, navigating building finance or development, etc. – in the architectural design processes in which we involve ourselves. This promiscuous intermingling of broad overview and deep

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specialization makes us potentially strong interdisciplinary collaborators, capable of learning and becoming conversant in other disciplinary languages and concepts, just as our need to think across a range of scales – from the specifics of technical detail to the effects of solar exposure on our buildings or regulatory requirements on their spatial organization – position us to address trans-scalar challenges like climate change. If – as interdisciplinary practitioners – we’re both capable collaborators and potential system thinkers and we’re as committed as we believe ourselves to be to environmental health and social well-being, why do the planetary impacts of our building sector activity continue to expand at such an alarming rate? What is the paradigm shift necessary to transcend the notion of “sustainability” as a set of products or checklist certification programs that have become a proxy for effective, regenerative, and restorative design thinking and action? How do we construct new conceptual frameworks and redirect our angles of approach to do dramatically better than what William McDonough pithily described 20 years ago as only “less bad?” McDonough, like Eames before him (but perhaps with a greater sense of urgency), was getting at our tendency to operate with information that’s based on too narrow an analysis; that fundamental questions or conditions lie beyond the reach of our conventional scope of inquiry if not action; and that those conditions, be they physical, spatial, logistical, cultural, economic, ecological, climatic, might inflect or even upend our solutions to a given problem (McDonough and Braungart 45). Moreover, in the face of pending climate disaster, the norms of architectural practice and the educational formats in which practitioners are steeped have been rendered inoperative. This is probably the point in the discussion when two concepts from scientific analysis may prove helpful. The first is the concept of system boundaries, a framing principle in the assessment of any system by which we seek to identify what elements are affected by a particular action and eliminate those from our calculations that aren’t. In architectural practice, we often seek to transcend the artificial boundaries that other actors in the building delivery process may prescribe for us: beyond the façade specialist’s focus on the detail and performance of the building envelope to consider the way it interacts with the shape and character of a building site; beyond the metes and bounds of a property assigned to us by a client to assess the effects of our design on the quality of life in a city district; beyond the spaces and buildings of a neighborhood to understand the way in which urban infrastructure – storm water systems, electrical or waste lines, mobility services, even sociocultural activities – might inform our design decisions. In the same way, we also seek to transgress the temporal limits of our proposed interventions, to consider, say, the life-cycle performance and associated cost of a building instead of the five-, ten-, or even twenty-year return on investment that might be the narrow calculation of a developer. As those system boundaries expand in time and space, however, the variables increase in number and their effect on each other and the entire system becomes ever more complex, it becomes correspondingly difficult to discern which are critical factors and which are insensitive to the machinations we put in motion by our design decisions. Such a sensitivity analysis, a critical step in establishing relevant system boundaries, is a time-consuming but necessary way to understand those distinctions. The mining of limestone to produce Portland cement, for example, will have effects on remote, often unseen landscapes and ecosystems, just as the demand for water and sharp sand, the additional ingredients of conventional concrete mixes, will have other potentially irreversible impacts to other places and ecological functions. In a similar way, timber as a structural substitution, if specified

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indiscriminately and with the unexamined and dangerously simplistic alibi that wood is renewable or carbon positive, could serve to diminish the biodiversity and carbon stocks of the forest stands from which it is drawn. So how do we plumb the depths of such vast complexity as we seek to slip the artificial boundaries imposed by the conventions of architectural practice? After all, the factors that have so narrowly circumscribed the range of our concerns and effectively diminished our agency are economic as well as practical. As members of the service sector, working at the behest of a rather select clientele (capable in the most modest cases of mobilizing significant resources to implement what we design), we are beholden to their limits, both conceptual and budgetary, as well as to the entrenched behaviors and unexamined assumptions of contemporary commercial building practice. Add to those boundary-narrowing factors the glacially adaptive regulatory frameworks within which we build, the risk-averse and litigationavoidant contractual obligations into which we enter, and the increasingly product-oriented modes of material specification or the rote transcription of pre-packaged details and assemblies that have replaced well-informed, builderly technical design and documentation. This host of externalities combines to create what sociologists describe as path dependencies, the second critical analytical concept worth considering in any discussion of interdisciplinarity. These are the unexamined assumptions, unchallenged behaviors, and overly rigid processes that serve to reinforce our patterns of thinking and narrow our potential courses of action. Take the instrumentalization of current financing metrics and regulatory systems to implement the goals of “green procurement,” in which the purported objective is to reduce associated environmental and social impact and contribute to the protection of vulnerable ecosystems, the regeneration of disturbed or degraded sites, and the leveling of social inequities in the communities affected by a given project. We could fairly say that we are currently using the timeframes and metrics of valuation adopted from the fossil hydrocarbon economy, an extractive and linear system of consumption that fails to quantify or internalize the cost of remote impacts to those vulnerable ecosystems, the enormous government subsidies of the infrastructures that enable it, the economies of scale that allow investment debt to be better amortized, or the stranded assets that many sites and buildings may become as the climate forces significant changes and poses greater and greater risks to the landscapes in which we choose to build. The answer to the inevitable question – does it cost more? – posed to any climate- or ecology-forward material specification or renewable energy system that we specify within that petro-finance framework will inevitably be “yes.” On the face of it, sprayed-on polyurethane foam insulation is “cheaper” and, as measured in required thickness, more insulative than its wood-fiber-based alternative. But if you expand the assessment to include the chemical-, energy-, and emissions-intensive nature of synthesizing that fossil fuel-based material, or the insurmountable challenge of separating it at the end of its service life from the other components of a wall or roof assembly for reuse in some second life cycle of a building or other product (not to mention oceans teeming with nearly as much particulate plastic as plankton), we would appropriately adjust our criteria for assessing “cost” (Weissgerber). Put simply, if lifecycle carbon or biodiversity is substituted for dollars or euros as the currency of exchange, then the calculus changes and so does the answer to that common cost-benefit question. What may seem here like arcane levels of detail are my attempt to describe the sort of disciplinary rut that we often get stuck in in our everyday practices. Viewed

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under the light of such urgent challenges as climate change and biodiversity loss, those path dependencies start to feel a whole lot more like superhighways to self-destruction. Given this urgency – the risks of continuing to dutifully tread those well-worn paths or the diminishing opportunities our potential agency as orchestrators of human, material, and technical resources afford us – what better time is there for a complete reevaluation of our cultures and modes of practice and the systems of education that feed it? Can the traditional disciplinary concerns of architecture serve to answer the systemic challenges we face? How will we exchange and engage knowledge in our work as architect – quantitative analysis and assessment from interrelated fields of the natural and social sciences, technology and industry, policy, and governance – that reach beyond the conventional sources of building and art history, architectural theory, formal and aesthetic experimentation – so that we may practice systems thinking across an expanded global spatial field? This is a long way round to the topic at hand, which is the question of what form the collaboration and knowledge exchange may take among the many different participants in the design process and, more critically, throughout those extended networks that we activate, intentionally or not, through our everyday work as architects. How does interdisciplinary practice instrumentalize previously untapped modes of inquiry, intellectual resources, and creative approaches of our would-be collaborators to transform conventional practice and address emerging challenges? The kinds of interdisciplinarity we’re familiar with in architectural design practice, the simple and often satisfying bilateral collaborations between partners with shared interest in the relationship of architecture to some other particular field of scientific research or creative invention, won’t meet such a totalizing challenge as climate restoration or the creation of an equitable, resource efficient, and convivial built environment. What’s required is the formation of a trans-disciplinary network of thinkers and actors each corresponding

FIGURE 28.3 Building

sector system change: a trans-scalar diagram for institutions, cities, and bioregions describing existing capacities and knowledge gaps for regenerative building transformation.

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to the points within the networks and flows of material energy that feed construction, all working closely and in careful coordination to generate relevant exchanges of experience as well as data, i.e., knowledge that can be propagated, tested, and verified, in order to holistically address, ameliorate, and possibly even reverse the deleterious planetary consequences of global building sector activity. Put another way, such a highly coordinated multi-disciplinary knowledge network would look nothing like the simple intersection of two streets and a lot more like a busy multimodal transport hub in a major metropolis. It’s probably wise at this point that we remind ourselves of the broad and overlapping set of factors which have contributed in the first place to the hardening of specialization in the fields of scientific research, technological innovation, cultural creation, not to mention the departmentalization among the agents and instruments of policy and governance. The silo, which has served as an effective and durable metaphor to describe the disciplinary segregation of different fields of inquiry, modes of analysis, disciplinary dialects (if not whole languages), may be as tall as it is (and its metaphorical walls as robustly constructed as they are) due to the explosion and deep penetration of scientific and cultural knowledge and technical facility over the roughly two centuries since the onset of the industrial revolution. This proliferation of actionable information and the suffusion of new tools and techniques of analysis and production throughout all realms of human activity has, in turn, placed a high philosophical and commercial value on expertise. Nowhere is this more evident than in the building sector where subsets of consultants carve up overall scope and liability for the design, engineering, and construction of a project. This professional compartmentalization is presumably necessary to competently navigate increasingly complex administrative jurisdictions and regulatory processes, manage the varying contractual obligations which are lodged in both the documents and procedures of design service, and stay abreast of the latest products, techniques, and assessment methods. And in the best cases, this may provide some insights into how to achieve a broader form of interdisciplinarity – or perhaps more accurately, a profound and interwoven trans-disciplinarity – that can send stark signals and offer meaningful feedback throughout the vast networks of material and energy supply and demand. Evolutionary Trans-disciplinarity

In 25 years of architectural design practice, our firm, Gray Organschi Architecture with its subsidiaries JIG Design Build and the Timber City Research Initiative, has repeatedly edged up to, poked and prodded at, and at times charged headlong at the limits in scope, method, and agency imposed by our contemporary building culture and economy, our profession, and the educational formats which comprised our professional architectural training. Occasionally, due to our founding focus on experimentation in wood and in building our own, mostly timber-based designs, we found ourselves fully outside the boundaries of conventional professional practice, unsure about how exactly to get back in so that we might compete for larger, more public, often institutional building commissions. It became clear to us that we had somehow transgressed the carefully delineated roles and responsibilities of the conventional architect-builder relationship that are enshrined in the standards and guidelines for practice outlined by professional organizations like the American Institute for Architects and its international counterparts and we would therefore need to amend our approach so as to be…well… more disciplined about our discipline.

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FIGURE 28.4 

Mass timber design-build: Thoreau Bridge, Steeprock Preserve.

As a result what began as a small design-build practice – what we considered initially to be a kind of interdisciplinary undertaking – has evolved into a more professionallyoriented firm, one that is fully compliant with and observant of the conventional formats of architectural practice, but engaged in and informed by a series of adjacent activities: our ongoing work in fabrication and construction management, teaching in graduate-level design and building technology with a focus on design-build pedagogy, and a research initiative that explores potential building sector decarbonization strategies through the use of circular and bio-based construction materials and building assemblies. Our ongoing examination of possible bioregional synergies between ecological silviculture and regenerative construction, between carbon sequestering forests and the carbon storage potential of dense urban buildings constructed from sustainably sourced wood has led us back from the relative shelter of conventional architectural practice and out into the intensely bright light of interdisciplinary partnership and trans-disciplinary strategy. (The regenerative transformation of the global building sector and its potentially symbiotic restoration of the planet’s forests (and other vital ecosystems) will call for all available “hands on deck” and all the tools we have in our toolbox.) Our decade-long research initiative has given us access to (and allowed us to work closely with) an array of partners in other disciplines and sectors, each of which touches, in different but profoundly interwoven ways, our work as designers and builders. These have included forest-, material-, social- and climate-scientists, wildlife biologists, industrial ecologists, physicists and mathematicians, urban and rural land use planners, manufacturing partners and their supporting organizations, community advocates, political economists, developers, building regulators, and by extension, city, state, federal, and most recently international policy makers. Each of these collaborators connects us – where we have a need for or can provide critical information and expertise – to adjacent actors in disciplines that can further inform or provide corrective recommendations for both the local initiatives and global systemic strategies we’re seeking to develop.

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FIGURE 28.5 Bio-regional

buildings.

woodshed: mapping northeastern timber supply onto mid-rise urban

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It probably won’t come as a surprise that these kinds of collaborations have dramatically enriched our professional practice and the world view that informs it, alternatively challenging or reinforcing our inclinations and intuitions as designers, shifting our focus to more effective ends, and redirecting us away from simplistic assumptions into broader and more nuanced approaches to the problems we seek to solve. What might be surprising to learn is that architects and designers have a great deal to offer our collaborating partners in the natural and social sciences and in policy and governance. In our capacity as building technicians and observers of social and community processes, we offer those who typically work through extrapolative processes a “boots on the ground” experience in addressing the kinds of logistical or behavioral resistance that often create barriers to actual implementation. Alternatively, as inherently interdisciplinary, trans-scalar, and systemic thinkers, architects can provide insights into the orchestration of planning and building processes and systems when considering potential applications of more granular scientific discoveries or technical innovations. Which brings us back to the fundamental question upon which inter- and trans-disciplinary practice hinges: how we are to teach this to the new generation of building designers who will inherit an increasing scarcity of resources and the accelerating degradation of a planetary systems? They’re looking for that answer. De-schooling and Re-tooling Architectural Education

In principle, the design studio, the central pedagogical format of most contemporary professional architectural training programs, is an interdisciplinary and multi-modal platform designed to simulate, to varying degrees, the kinds of problems faced in actual architectural practice. Under the creative guidance of a good studio instructor, those “problems” are usually distilled to direct a student to focus on a particular mode of ideation and visualization, a method of problem-solving, or a topic of inquiry. These are necessarily adjusted to the level of experience and sophistication of students at any given stage of their education. The problem with the conventional design studio format is that in attempting to generate hypothetical answers to simulated building, landscape, or urban planning problems, it effectively deracinates them. It strips that particular educational experience of the actual kinds of social, physical, economic, environmental, or logistical resistance that might turn an exercise in intuitive guesswork and personal invention into a more substantive, deeply informed process of research, analysis, interdisciplinary consultation, and exchange, and by extension, meaningful experimentation. Add to that the administrative and financial challenge of staffing and coordinating enough teachers with a sufficient range of sociological, financial, scientific, technical, or environmental expertise to guide a student through the complex intellectual exchanges and negotiations that reflect true interdisciplinary problem-solving (and don’t forget the kinds of unconventional and evolving problems posed by our impending planetary crisis.) As a result, most programs introduce a supplementary curriculum of support courses covering a list of technical topics such as visualization technique, structural assessment and design, building technology, and most recently, sustainability. This has the effect of disaggregating what should be an integrated, holistic process into a sub-order of even more siloed inquiries, leaving only the most enterprising, mature, and intellectually agile student to put the pieces of the puzzle back together. It becomes, ironically, the opposite of what the studio format was designed to achieve. And

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it can have the unfortunate effect of disincentivizing any form of truly interdisciplinary inquiry and exploration. The integrated studio, often deployed somewhere in the middle of the professional curricular calendar, represents an attempt to fertilize the studio design problem with a broader range of design concerns and decision-making criteria. Unfortunately, due to the same constrained resources of time and financing that plague the most well-endowed schools of architecture, the subject areas that are integrated simply replicate and reify the rather limited forms of interdisciplinary exchange that are part of conventional practice. Occasional visits to the studio by guest faculty in mechanical or structural engineering or more loosely allied fields fail, in most cases, to effectively instill good habits, build durable instincts for an integrated design process, or successfully promote more broad-based interdisciplinary relationships – no matter how talented the teachers and the students. I believe the answer may lie in an innovative model from primary education: projectbased learning, in which the immersive pursuit of a specific analytical, creative, technical, or historical project forms the armature on which to hang or – better put – synthesize and integrate any subject matter or topic of inquiry from any discipline. A well-designed topic and project of extended duration and sufficiently deep investigatory potential can support lessons in history, mathematics, literature, engineering, and science. In the analysis and documentation of the growth of a city, the examination of a forest ecosystem, or the tracing and mapping of a watershed, to give a few examples, the possibilities for creative crossover and conceptual blending are practically limitless. I used to think that the design-build studio, a more recent development in the trajectory of architectural education, was merely a technical practicum in which architecture students experience, first-hand and over an extended period, the techniques and processes, the logistical complexities and physical challenges, and the emotional rewards of implementing their own designs to provide insights into their future practice. It is, of course, all of that. But after 20 years of coordinating design-build studios at Yale and working on student-led design, documentation, and building projects in and around the City of New Haven with actual clients (many suffering some economic and psychological distress due to a risk of homelessness), under strict regulatory regimes and performance requirements, and within tight budgets and compressed schedules, I’ve come to understand the profoundly interdisciplinary (and deeply internalized) lessons that this particular educational format can offer. It is, at its best, an advanced form of project-based learning, serving as a platform for a wide range of exploration and inquiry framed by actual constraints, stresses, and demands and providing sustained exposure to experts in the fields of building finance and regulation, housing advocacy, forestry, wetland science, industrial manufacturing, community engagement and participation, public relations and communication, life-cycle assessment, wildlife biology, horticulture, just to name a few from my own teaching experience. These kinds of high-stakes, full-immersion, project-based educational formats are costly to maintain, challenging to organize, and nerve-wracking to implement. They require the buy-in and willing collaboration of local community members, municipal authorities, as well as the administrations of the universities and professional schools that sanction and support them. And they demand a nimble and collaborative faculty willing to accommodate a degree of uncertainty, to embrace failures as valuable lessons, and to commit to aggressively engaging and consistently sustaining working relationships with experts in fields closely allied to design and building as well as those less directly and obviously connected.

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FIGURE 28.6 

Invasive species and ecosystem disturbance on Horse Island.

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FIGURE 28.7 

Exploded axonometric Horse Island Coastal Research Station.

Teachers thereby model interdisciplinary thought and practice for their students and the communities of researchers, practitioners, and citizens in which they work. And meanwhile, what better way to deeply instill concepts and reflexive practices in structural design, environmental performance, material optimization, durability, waste reduction and impact mitigation…? The author and social advocate Ivan Illich argued in his treatise on contemporary education entitled De-schooling Society that school, the institution, had come to replace learning, the process, and suggested that the library was perhaps the only real unmediated repository of primary knowledge and source of information (Illich). If in proposing here that we figuratively dismantle the walls of our schools of architecture so as to dissolve disciplinary silos and air out curricular cul-de-sacs, I do so as provocation to those who might still be convinced that we can simply adjust business-as-usual educational formats to prepare our students to meet the environmental challenges they will face in their practices in the next two to three decades. I worry, frankly.

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FIGURE 28.8  Structural

columns harvested from overstocked sassafras stands, Horse Island Coastal Research Station.

On the Nature of Boundaries

What are the boundaries of the built environment? They may be largely physical but don’t necessary lie at the peri-urban interface between constructed landscapes and wildlands. It may be said that they are legally delineated and politically governed, but from the perspective of atmospheric chemistry they are unmanaged and porous. It can be fairly stated that the reach of human planetary disturbance and – more specifically for our purposes – the

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FIGURE 28.9 

Prefabricated skylight monitors, Horse Island Coastal Research Station.

impacts of our activities as designers and builders are now effectively boundless, when scrupulously accounted for. As a result, we can no longer invest in the quality of our cities or plan for their improvement without simultaneous and coordinated investment in the restoration and protection of the bioregions that surround and serve them. Those forest stands, watersheds and aquifers, agricultural landscapes fecund or fallow, must also be served, stabilized, and their unmonetizable value acknowledged and secured. We must come to understand that upstream environmental health and well-being is essential to

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FIGURE 28.10 

Roof and structural column detail, Horse Island Coastal Research Station.

downstream human health and well-being and that in considering one, we implicate the other. In other words, good architectural solutions – at their principled core and in their effective reach – must be deeply ecological ones, from this point forward. The boundaries of problems, as Charles Eames would have it, are the artificial conceptual and disciplinary limits that often bring us up short in our analyses and thereby limit or misdirect any corrective, regenerative action we might take. We must become the boundary walkers, willing to recognize and, where necessary, step over into those fields of

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FIGURE 28.11 

Horse Island Coastal Research Station.

inquiry that are not our own (or even familiar to us). We need to acknowledge the quality and extent of our own agency in order to best judge the capacity of others to aid us as we try to discern the shape and contour of those stark challenges we now face. And we must embrace the essential opportunities that our varied skillsets, divergent forms of knowledge, and collective resourcefulness can offer us.

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Bauhaus Earth: The Project

A “project” may be a specific architectural design, like some of the mass timber and biobased buildings and structures from our practice. It may also be a particular line of research, such as our ongoing Timber City and Decarbonizing Design Research Initiatives. Or it may be the career-long body of experiments in building, teaching, research and all the interdisciplinary collaborations that I have co-developed and collectively nurtured with colleagues from architecture and related fields all along the way that have led me to the reflections I’ve shared in this essay. I find it hard to tease it all apart. In a way, the formation of Bauhaus Earth, an interdisciplinary think tank, lab, and learning network based in Berlin, Germany, but global in scope, is the current project that somehow captures it, for the time being, at least. Our most iconic model for contemporary interdisciplinary education and practice, the Staatliches Bauhaus founded a century ago under the direction of Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany, was conceived as a crucible of interdisciplinarity, a new intellectual and creative nexus of artists, artisans, designers, and architects who sought to forge a response to the continental cataclysm of world war and address the new socio-economic demands of a burgeoning industrial middle class. It offers our own disciplinary history valuable lessons as well as cautionary tales. I currently serve as the Director of Innovation Labs at Bauhaus Earth, an expanding global network of experimental collaborators, facilities, and pilot projects of different forms. Launched on Earth Day of 2021 and modeled on the interdisciplinary collaborations and experimentation of the original Bauhaus, this new iteration of the Bauhaus movement is the brainchild of the eminent climate scientist John Schellnhuber, Director Emeritus of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The initiative comprises an ecosystem of researchers and experimenters from the natural and social sciences, industry and technology, art and design, policy, and governance, distributed across global regions where the stresses of burgeoning populations and the resulting resource scarcity will be registered most acutely throughout our terrestrial system in coming decades. We work at the intersection of those fields to accelerate the transformation of the building sector from a significant source of ecological impact and climatic disturbance into force for environmental regeneration and a means to fairly distribute economic opportunity and ensure social equity and well-being. We have proposed that by turning cities into carbon sinks using bio-based material and building assemblies, we can literally build deeply symbiotic and regenerative ecological and economic interdependencies between urban growth and forest restoration and expansion. In doing so, we can reverse our current planetary trajectory toward hothouse earth conditions, flatten our inevitable overshoot of the 2°C global temperature increase originally identified as a sustainable ceiling by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and ultimately, or at least in a matter of a couple of centuries, restore climate stability and protect our own species and most of the others who are our planetary cohabitants from the worst effects of unchecked growth and the resource extractivism that accompanies it (Schellnhuber 105). We are currently working through interdisciplinary methods with colleagues across Europe, in the Western Cape of Africa, in Indonesia, Bhutan, and Amazonia. We look to further expand these collaborations to address a range of scales and multiplicity of approaches and to tap into knowledge and expertise whose source is both human and non-human.

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FIGURE 28.12  Interdisciplinary

Symposium, Bauhaus Earth Innovation LAB. In foreground, earth blocks formed from mining waste residues are displayed prior to structural load testing.

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We understand ourselves, along with all our likeminded collaborators working across the planet to assess environmental impact, provide sustainable flows of material, and design regenerative solutions to all the future demand for infrastructural systems and building that comprises human settlement, to be the agents of this systemic transformation. Works Cited Eames, Charles “Qu’cest-ce que le ?” Interview by L. Amic in Neuhart, John, et al., Eames Design: The Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1994, p. 14. Elhacham, Emily, et al. “Global Human-Made Mass Exceeds All Living Biomass.” Nature 588, 2020, pp. 442–448. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5 Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, International Energy Agency and the United Nations Environment Programme, 2019 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction: Towards a Zero-Emission, Efficient and Resilient Buildings and Construction Sector. 2019. https:// iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/3da9daf9-ef75-4a37-b3da-a09224e299dc/2019_Global_ Status_Report_for_Buildings_and_Construction.pdf Illich, Ivan, Deschooling Society. Harper Row, 1972 Kuittinen, Matti., et al. Carbon: A Field Manual for Building Designers. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2022, p. 232. McDonough, William, & Braungart, Michael. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press, 2002. 45. Ritchie, H, & Roser, Max “Urbanization.” Our World in Data, 2018, https://ourworldindata.org/ Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim, et al. Horizon Europe-New European Bauhaus Nexus Report, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commission), 2022, p. 5. Schellnhuber, Hans-Joachim, “Global Warming: Stop Worrying, Start Panicking?” PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 105 (38), 2008. https://doi.org/10.1073/ pnas.0807331105 Seto, Karen C., et al., “Global Forecasts of Urban Expansion to 2030 and Direct Impacts on Biodiversity and Carbon Pools.” PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 109 (40), 2012, 16083–16088. Simkin, Rohan D. et al. “Biodiversity Impacts and Conservation Implications of Urban Land Expansion Projected to 2050.” PNAS 119 (12), 2022, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas. 2117297119 Weissgerber, Marc, “Shifting Capital to a Regenerative Built Environment”, 22 November 2020, Bauhaus Earth Retreat, Berlin, Germany. Lecture.

INDEX

ACSA (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) 118 AIA (American Institute of Architects) 16, 118, 127, 244 Alam, Maya ix, 120, 162–172 Alday, Iñaki ix–x, 12, 24–37, 54–61 ALLTHATISSOLID see Kuo, Max A/P Practice: Casa Zwei 169; see also Alam, Maya Aqueous Landscapes 85–92 architectural practice 4, 13, 15, 132, 162, 267; evaluation of 193, 223, 234; relationship to climate 259–262; relationship to pedagogy 193; research-centered 119, 123, 128–129, 142–143, 265; trans- and interdisciplinarity 138, 174 ASU (Arizona State University) 12, 62–64 Atlanta see Georgia Institute of Technology Aureli, Pier Vittorio 25–28 Bell Laboratories 217–226 Benevolo, Leonardo 26 Berney, Rachel x, 93–98 Booth, George G. see Cranbrook Academy of Art Born, Branden x–xi, 94–98 Borys, Ann Marie xi, 99–105 Boston see Collier Memorial; MIT Bruyns, Gerhard 234–235 BUGA Wood Pavilion see digital design built environment 5, 15, 24–37; boundaries of 257–277; impact of technological advancements 38, 162–163, 168–170; interdisciplinary education within and across 54–61, 63–4, 93, 230–231;

relationship with existing environment 66, 108; research of 126–127, 132–134, 141–142 Caine, Graham 106–108 Casa Zwei see A/P Practice Cassirer, Ernst 232–233 Certain Measures xix, 120, 149–152; see also Witt, Andrew Cheng, Renée xi, 12, 15–23, 94–96 Chow, Renee xi, 12, 43–49, 118 CIVAC Linear Park see Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura Clifford, Brandon xii, 12, 72–75 CoBI (Center of Building Innovation) see ASU collaboration 228–236; empowerment 96–97; interdisciplinary 1, 4, 10, 13, 50–51, 67–71, 77–78, 99–100, 119, 213, 221, 254; multidisciplinary 45, 153; transdisciplinary models 123–144 Collier Memorial 241–249, 253–254 Columbia University 139, 239 community engagement 51–52, 78, 250–256 The Cooper Union 77–83, 108–113 Cranbrook Academy of Art 220–226 Davies, Richard Llewelyn 235 Design University of Bozen/Bolzano 173 digital design 78, 81, 243–244, 246; BUGA Wood Pavilion 39; connection to physical 162–172; data-driven or parametric 65–71, 151–153; livMatS Pavilion 40 Dossick, Carrie Sturts xii, 99–105

Index  279

Eames, Charles 238–239, 257, 261, 273 ecology 32, 149–151, 174; Ecological House 106–107; economic considerations 262–263; role in architecture 24–35, 38–39, 85–86, 108, 123–124; urban 130, 132, 142–143 entrepreneurship i, 12, 21, 55, 234, 236

landscape architecture 19, 21, 30–36, 46–47, 51, 93, 96, 123–124, 126, 181, 187, 193, 209–210, 252–253, 267; AIassisted 151–152; see also Aqueous Landscapes livMatS Pavilion see digital design Los Angeles 157–158

fabrication 18, 39–41, 76–84; Collier Memorial 244–246; Memorial to Enslaved Laborers 253–254; robotic 140 Faircloth, Billie xii, 118–119, 123–144, 235 Frampton, Kenneth 26, 32 Fresnillo Playground see Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura

McDonough, William 261 megalithic architecture 72–75 Memorial to Enslaved Laborers 247–256 Menges, Achim xv, 12, 38–41, 235 Mexico City 182–185, 191 MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 72–74, 119, 239–249; see also Collier Memorial Montiel, Rozana xvi, 120, 181–191 MSD (Melbourne School of Design) 194, 199–207, 211 multidisciplinarity 45–47, 52, 76–77, 81, 125, 173–180, 235; distinction from interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity 9–10; see also YRP Murray, Ainslie xvi, 12, 85–92

Gardner, Nicole xii–xiii, 12, 65–71 Georgia Institute of Technology 10; Hinman Building 195–199; interdisciplinary experiment 229–231 GM (General Motors) 219–220 Grasshopper see digital design Gray Organschi Architecture 119, 264; see also Organschi, Alan Haeusler, Matthias (Hank) xiii, 12, 65–71 Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design 139, 149–154 Hillier, Bill 117, 235 Hong Kong 44 Horton, Philip xii, 62–64; see also ASU; Neveu, Marc Höweler + Yoon Architecture see Yoon, J. Meejin Illich, Ivan 126, 270 Integrated Studio 99–105, 268; see also University of Washington interior architecture and design 50, 109, 174, 179, 231–233 Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture see The Cooper Union Johnston, George B. 234 Johnston, Rosemary Ross 120, 233 justice: climate 63, 143; redistributive 94; social 52, 63, 75, 124 JWA Architects 199; see also MSD Kallipoliti, Lydia xiv, 12, 106–113 KieranTimberlake 119, 123–144 Kim, Julie Ju-Youn i, xiv, 3–6, 9–13, 117–121, 228–237 King, Donald xiv–xv, 93–98 Koolhaas, Rem 155 Kousoulas, Stavros 234–235 Kristeva, Julia 65, 229 Kuo, Max xv, 120, 155–161

NAAB (National Architectural Accrediting Board) 118 NADAAA see Tehrani, Nader Nehemiah Initiative Seattle xiv, 19, 93; Interdisciplinary Studio 19–22, 93–98 Nervi, Pier Luigi 77 Neveu, Marc xvi–xvii, 62–64 New Delhi see YRP New Haven 268 New Orleans 26 New York City 78, 81, 109 Nicolescu, Basarab 6, 10, 13, 120–121, 125–126, 129, 228–229, 231, 233–234 noa* xvii–xviii, 120, 173–180 Organschi, Alan xvii, 118–119, 235, 257–277 Palacio, Julian xvii, 12, 76–84 parametric design see digital design Pask, Gordon 65 path dependencies 126, 262–263 Philadelphia see University of Pennsylvania PILARES Cultural Center see Montiel, Rozana preservation 34–35, 199 professional practice see architectural practice public space 33–35, 59–60, 185, 190–191 real estate 3, 11, 160–161; educational approach 19–20, 43, 93 RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) 31, 127 Rier, Stefan xvii–xviii, 173–180; see also noa*

280 Index

RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) 201 Rozana Montiel Estudio de Arquitectura see Montiel, Rozana Rungger, Lukas xvii–xviii, 173–180; see also noa* Saarinen, Eero 120, 217–223, 226 Saarinen, Eliel 220–222 Schon, Donald 232 Seattle see Nehemiah Initiative Seattle semi-scientist see Kallipoliti, Lydia Simon, Herbert 4, 13, 117, 230–231, 234, 239 sustainability 52, 63, 65–66, 100, 179, 261, 267; relationship to transdisciplinarity 124–126, 238 Sydney see UNSW Tehrani, Nader xviii, 118–119, 193–214 transdisciplinarity 6, 63, 119, 123–147, 149, 153, 233–236, 238–240; distinction from interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity 9–11, 13; role of data 151–152 Tulane University see YRP University of California Berkeley 43 University of Massachusetts Amherst 50–53 University of Melbourne see MSD University of Nottingham 132 University of Pennsylvania 144, 163–167

University of Toronto 194, 206–213 University of Virginia see Memorial to Enslaved Laborers; YRP University of Washington 12, 99–105; see also Nehemiah Initiative Seattle UNSW (University of New South Wales) 12, 65–71, 85 Urbach Tower 40–41; see also Menges, Achim urban design and planning 19, 21, 43, 65, 93, 96, 150–151, 157 urbanism 24–25, 151, 155, 193, 201, 209, 214 Venturi, Robert 26–29, 33–34 Vitruvius 25, 173 Weitzman School of Design see University of Pennsylvania Whyte, William H. 108 Wigley, Mark 239 Wilkins, Gretchen xviii, 120, 217–226 Witt, Andrew xix, 12, 120, 149–154, 235 Woods, Lebbeus 217–221, 226 Yale University: Center for British Arts 206; Regenerative Building Lab 258; School of Architecture 142, 268 Yoon, J. Meejin xix–xx, 72–73, 118–119, 235, 238–256 YRP (Yamuna River Project) 36, 54–61 Zekos, Erika xx, 12, 50–53