Exercising the Everyday: A Pedagogical Approach

Early architectural education is often introduced through concepts couched in abstract, formal strategies. This approach requires a large conceptual leap for beginning design students, causing difficulty in grasping concepts and transitioning into design education. As an alternative pedagogical approach, this paper considers the everyday as a basis for conceptual development and skill building in beginning design. It argues that pedagogy based on a familiarity with the everyday human experience in the built environment leverages intrinsic knowledge and makes design a more accessible practice. This paper outlines the application of the everyday as a pedagogical approach in first-year undergraduate seminar courses. In these courses, students develop both an understanding of design concepts and digital workflows through representational exercises. Exercises are framed around concepts and processes of architects and artists concerned with the everyday. Work like that of Allan Wexler or Rachel Whiteread outlines a methodology for students to use observation or transformation to find new readings of everyday forms and spaces. In addition to design processes and workflows defined by the everyday, exercises use objects and spaces familiar to students as inputs to explore abstract design concepts such as composition, scale, and positive/negative relationships. Using the everyday as a constant, students learn new variables such as representational strategies, digital tools, and design concepts through these exercises.In today’s educational context of increasingly virtual or hybrid modalities, students are removed from physical settings that facilitate creative acts and spend more time at home, facing the dominant presence of the everyday. This paper discusses how pedagogy focused on the everyday can serve as an equalizer, allowing students to incorporate personal experiences into their beginning design education and find comfort with the familiar at a time when everything is new.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.112.65

Volume Editors
Germane Barnes & Blair Satterfield

ISBN
978-1-944214-45-6