Investigating Design-Build as an Alternative Model for Architectural Education

The architect has always very nobly (although not always very humbly) believedin his ability to change the built environment and by extension thelives of people for the better. In South Africa today architects have an importantrole to play in re-shaping the built environment in response to pressingsocial needs.The traditional architectural studio is an interactive project-based learningenvironment that is almost universal in its approach to the training of architecturalstudents. Although the projects might imitate real-life scenarios oreven be set in response to actual problems or opportunities, students veryseldom (if ever) get to see the final product. Solutions to the problem set isusually shown through graphic presentation, since it is obviously impractical,if not impossible, to build all the actual designed buildings. However,Hill and Beaverford (2010:1) assert that the “very specific, and at timesdiscipline-centric studio experience, often fails to promote interest and understandingof new perspectives (and) social realities”.The Rural Studio has sparked an interest in design-build studios and followingthis example, numerous international institutions are now offering somesort of design-build program. What they all have in common in how theyoperate is a strong link to the vision that the late Samuel Mockbee had “ofarchitecture that embraced not only practical architectural education andsocial welfare but also the use of salvaged, recycled, and curious materialsand an aesthetics of place” (Dean: 2010:15) However, architecture schoolsin South Africa have not yet embraced this pedagogy and specifically not theuse of design-build as an exclusive methodology for training architects andarchitectural technologists.“Recently, architectural education has begun to recognize the potential ofa more intensive relationship between the tasks of designing and building”.(Erdman et al., 2006:174) Design-build in this context “denote(s)more than simply an expansion of professional services and opportunities,describing instead integrative approaches to architecture whereby the act ofbuilding becomes an essential critical and pedagogical tool” (ibid). “Somethirty years ago Victor Papanek said that ‘design has become the most powerfultool with which man shapes his tools and environments and by extension,society and himself’. (Papanek in Pollack, 2007:42)This paper is an initial literature survey to investigate the pedagogy of thedesign-build studio in the context of a design-build project by students atthe Cape Peninsula University of Technology. The importance and relevanceof using design-build methodology as an exclusive in the training of architecturaltechnology forms the underpinning of the investigation.Students in their second year of study at the Cape Peninsula University ofTechnology recently completed an outdoor classroom at an under privilegedmulti-grade school. The experiences and learning opportunities of the students,staff and school community could potentially lead to the developmentof an alternative model for socially responsible architectural education.

Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa

ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1