Walking the City - An Alternative Approach in Architectural Pedagogy Through Collaborative Networks

8/9/2019 Walking the City - An Alternative Approach in Architectural Pedagogy Through Collaborative Networks

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Walking The City: An Alternative Approach in ArchitecturalPedagogy Through Collaborative Networks

Hafiz AMIRROLDepartment of Architecture

School of Architecture, Planning and Policy DevelopmentInstitut Teknologi BandungJl. Ganesha 10 Bandung [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The process of teaching and learning architecture in todays complex and diverse condition can sometimes be difficult and also challenging. One of the great mistakes most architecture schools makeis to think that they are simply in the business of producing great architects. However, there should bea greater ambition to this a school of architecture must also be on top of all: a promoter and

collector of new architectural ideas, ambitions, techniques, agendas and act as a malleable platform toall new minds that are interested to join this platform. By seeing this as an agenda to promote a morereflexive and progressive kind of architectural education, this paper try to discuss an alternativeapproach in architectural pedagogy by promoting a technique in teaching and learning, which isknown as drive, or the practice of urban drifting. This situational-based technique in learning thingsrelated to our everyday life and the city is an attempt at analysis of the totality of daily life practice,through the passive movement through space. Amidst of Bandungs complex arrangement of interwoven layers of city and lifestyle components, this technique of walking or drifting the city can bean effective method in approaching issues of the psychological aspects of the built environment. Thiskind of architectural pedagogy is a concept of exploring the built environment without preconceptions,and to discuss the reality of actually inhabiting the environment. By using Bandung as the city context,coupled with its wide myriad of creative inhabitants/ city users, walking in the city as a new tool inteaching and learning architecture may promote the participants (teachers, students and collaborators)

as having a key role in understanding, participating, portraying and intervene the city in a moreresponsive way.

Keywords: architectural pedagogy, drive, psychogeography, urban drifting, direct urbanism, Bandung, collaborative networks

INTRODUCTION

In the book Occupying Architecture (1998), Mark Cousins described architecture as a discipline whichinvolved the collection of prior knowledge from various fields except architecture. He further elaborated architecture as a field immeasurable and indeterminate. Thus, if this is the case, architecturaldesign, which also include its process of teaching and learning, is an indeterminate act thatencompasses humanistic value of the physical and the emotional. This paper tries to examine the

potential of urban drifting as an alternative act or tool in designing architecture in promoting a morereflexive, progressive and real kind of architectural education; focusing on how by the simple act of walking and wandering through the city can generate alternatives design and architectural pedagogyapproaches.

Walking deals with the wide myriad of phenomena in life the mundane and the dynamics. It providesunexpected accumulation of the physical and the social, and has been long associated with the city.Looking at the city and its inhabitants today, they provide the values to understand urban infrastructureand stories at the most intimate, humanistic scale for architects to understand its complexities andhidden dimensions that sometimes are barely noticed without the act of walking through the city.Immemorially, it has been noted that famous philosophers, artists, writers and poets had their works

inspired by their city through the daily walking activities; strolling and observing the phenomena thattook place on a daily occasion. (Sulaiman, 2007)


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The city, which is the subject of the wanderer, has been the focus of many literatures in urban theorieswhere scholars, teachers and students try to understand and design. Cities have been the best laboratoryfor architectural studies, and notable architectural schools such as Londons Architectural AssociationSchool of Architecture and The Bartlett, New Yorks Columbia University, Pratt Institute and Cooper Union, Rotterdams The Berlage Institute of Architecture and many other prestigious institutions havelong been using the city as their laboratory and playground in understanding design issues. Their architectural pedagogy approached the city as a unified element as an overall synthesis of differentdisassociated parts. At the same time, these schools also recognize the need of realizing the city by

parts, i.e. singular element or place in order to really able to understand it.

The process of teaching and learning architecture in todays complex and diverse condition cansometimes be difficult and also challenging. One of the great mistakes most architecture schools makeis to think that they are simply in the business of producing great architects (Steele, 2009). However,there should be a greater ambition to this a school of architecture must also be on top of all a

promoter and collector of new architectural ideas, ambitions, techniques, agendas and act as a malleable platform to all new minds that are interested to join this platform. It is the interest of this paper todelineate the potentials and importance of walking through the city as an alternative tool in the processof architectural education.

The concept of the city as a playfield in understanding architecture and urbanism shall be explored to

the smallest and detail scale, and only by exploring the city by wandering through it will providestudents and teachers of architecture to really experience its phenomena and the real story behind it.This paper will focus on the issues of the generic architectural pedagogy that is happening in mostarchitecture schools, and to re-examine it by proposing this alternative approach using the method of urban drifting and through collaborative networks. In order to share the idea of this method, the paper will discuss several theories that were constructed based on the same idea, and will also lay some casestudies that show examples how architectural education may progress by utilizing this method. It ishoped that by the understanding and execution of this method, architectural discoveries will soon arrivein a more unexpected of ways, made possible by the perceptible shifts in ways of observing cities,space, structure and social life.

ARCHITECTURAL PEDAGOGY AND THE CASE OF BANDUNG

Mark Wigley, architect, educator and the current Dean at Columbia Universitys GSAPP believes thatthe best teacher of architecture embrace the future by trusting the students, supporting the growth of something that cannot be seen yet. He believes that this is a kind of emerging sensibility that cannot be

judged by contemporary standards but must foster from a way of thinking and actions that draw oneverything that is known in order to reach the unknown (Wigley, 2009). Architectural education

becomes a form of optimism that gives our field a future by trusting the students to see, think, and dothings with the goal to achieve a certain evolution in architectural intelligence. The process towards thiskind of evolution is not an easy task for an architectural school to achieve. The direction of the schoolmust be clearly defined, supported with dedicated academic staffs and students that should seearchitecture as a set of endlessly absorbing questions for the society rather than a set of clearly definedobjects with particular effects.

Architectural knowledge, known for its complexity and wide-ranging process may involve an endlesskind of enquiries. One of them is by gaining through experience (Purwono, 1989). Bacon (1967)emphasizes the importance of personal experience in movement through spaces in the design of cities.Bloomer and Moore (1977) suggest the importance of introducing architecture to students from thestandpoint of how buildings are experienced, rather than how they are built. This kind of approach inteaching, learning and experiencing architecture might have been developed by speculating humans

psycho-physical properties, and draws much influence from the works of the environment psychologists such as James Gibson and phenomenologist, such as Christian Norberg-Schulz andGaston Bachelard. These methodologies in architectural pedagogy may provide interesting results byengaging participants directly with the city as the field of study.

The city, seen as the best experiment in understanding architecture and most of its components, shall beconsidered as the product of the generative functional systems of its architecture and urban spaces. Thissystem suggests that the city is derived from an analysis of political, social and economical systems andis treated from the viewpoint of these disciplines. The city, with its complex spatial structure shall also

be drawn into deeper understanding by analyzing its significant structure, problems of description,classification and typology, individuality of urban artifacts, and its urban dynamics and the problem of


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politics of choice (Rossi, 1984). These matters must be explored and developed further withunderstanding and perceptions that are not restricted with a preconception, thus the notion of exploringthe city to its finest detail must be conducted to establish a complete panorama of architectural studies.

This paper will emphasize on the potential of Bandung city (Figure 1) as the testing ground to applythis alternative method in architectural education. Bandung is located in the province of West Java andis one of Indonesias cities with a rapid growth rate. This is indicated by the existence of large-scaleeconomic activities with large capital such as industrial activities, communication facilities, creativeeconomies and comprehensive transportation networks in supporting social mobility, facilities for education and religion practice as well as adequate health facilities. These conditions had forcedBandung to develop as a city that should provide decent living, working and playing environments toall of its inhabitants due to the accelerating density growth. Nevertheless, it is a sad fact to know thatBandung, with all of its potential, rich resources that are readily available, and its wonderfulgeographical features, is still facing many urban problems due to the lack of proper and decentinfrastructure and facilities, added with poor maintenance of readily available infrastructures.

Bandung has also been the center for knowledge and creativity for Indonesia for many decades. Thehigh numbers of higher institutions, many of which focus on arts, science, engineering, and technology,help in projecting the image of Bandung as a creative and intellectual city. The citys geography andstrategic location play key roles in the characterization of its creative community. With the initiation of

the Bandung Creative City Project and it being chosen as the pilot city for East Asia Creative CityProject in 2013, the creative industries in Bandung showed significant developments and trendsaffecting young people from various cities. Bandung will soon become a central point in the futurecreative-based economic development and this promise great potential for Bandung to be the testingground to promote the notion of drive in the process of architectural teaching and learning throughcreative collaborative networks.

Figure 1. Bandung city map and aerial viewSource: www.mapsntrails.com, 2009.

However, these potentials seemed to be underutilized by those involved in the practice of architecturaleducation by not using the context of the city to its fullest in the effort to understand urban paradigms.The complex composition and deep-rooted problems of the city actually is a positive platform that

provide conditions that may help students and teachers of architecture to progress with an emergingkind of architectural explorations since it offer numerous examples of indeterminate potentialities toactivate many kind of spaces. Successful spaces are usually parceled up into places by people throughthe manifold identifications of events that revolve in their daily life. Peoples understanding of space isdependent on their experience of the places they identify themselves within the broader context of generic spaces surrounding them. (Zubir, 2009)

The question of conventional or standard architectural education system haunts the advance progression of architectural institutions in Bandung. Currently, there are seven accredited higher institutions in Bandung that provide formal architectural education. Ever since the beginning, students

and teachers have been prescribed to generic architectural education syllabus that is valued far greater than any agenda that promotes creativity. Even though the current system that is being offered is notwrong and is efficient enough to produce architects and designers for the industry, more seriousconcern demanding architectural schools to secure their position as educational centers rather than


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Figure 2. The Naked City Psychogeographical map of Paris through urban drifting by Guy DebordSource: Situationists: Art, Politics, Urbanism, 1996.

Walking Activity as Spatial Assemblage

By learning from these two protagonists that uses urban drifting in formulating a method inunderstanding and researching urban place or city, the daily walking activities around an area istranslated through assembling and sorting fragmented urban spaces as layers of abstracted elements.The mapping study therefore is an assemblage of fractured parts of the daily activities and other thingsthat take place within the city. Simultaneity, fragmentation, and ephemerally characterize this conditionwith intertwined walking paths and networks that create places, which enhance aesthetics and social-cultural-political awareness. This method of study also explore the permeable streetscapes that exposethe myriads of the ordinary people and sees opportunities for spaces to be meandered, maneuvering andexploring the spatial and physical repertoire of an area.

The real gift of the best architects is to produce a kind of hesitation in the routines of contemporary life,an opening in which new potentials are offered, new patterns, rhythms, moods, sensations, pleasures,connections, and perceptions. These qualities were often left out in the design vocabulary inarchitectural education, and even if they were stated in the design brief, most students failed toencompass and actualize these qualities in their design propositions. Learning from various sources andhistory might help the process of translating these phenomena in architecture into more tangibledimensions, and one of them is to learn from the traditional Japanese prints, also known as Ukiyo-e(Figure 3). Ukiyo-e is one of the most prolific print making practice in Japan, depicting social andcultural transformations with changing habitats and the transient effects of life on the move.

These traditional printmakers try to capture these latent qualities from the daily experience, which alsomainly involving the procession of walking and observing their surrounding into graphics thatrepresents a world of impermanence. The ambition of the print images is to record and narrate socialhappenings that took place, and as students and teachers of architecture, Ukiyo-e might help ininitiating an approach in learning the city through the process of walking and recording (Dawes, 2008).The ambition shall be to capture sequence of spaces that encompass the fleeting condition of daily life,at the intersection of real and fictional worlds. Urban drifting and mapping techniques shall help in thedevelopment of study process by navigating each route taken in a given context and the spaces andconditions encountered. To further unravel inherent complex territories and topologies of the city, twoand three-dimensional approaches will have to be developed in helping to reframe specific siteconditions for appraisal and project interventions.


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Figure 3. Ukiyo-e and Hiroshige book narrating and recording social and cultural conditionsSource: Journey to the Floating World, Jonathan Dawes, 2008.

URBAN DRIFTING: DIRECT URBANISM AND COLLABORATIVENETWORKS

From the conception of urban drifting and its potential to contribute towards a more progressivearchitectural pedagogy, the question that arises now deals with ways to implement it into the educationsystem. How can the simple act of drive can contribute to urban processes by using alternative toolsand methodologies that are not yet institutionalized or accepted within the professional field, but isimportant and relevant in the sense of needs? How can the practice of urbanism, architecture, art andother related disciplines achieve acknowledgment in their own rights, as a new force, which cancounteract and confront the pragmatism of standard architectural academia? These questions lead to theformulation of direct urbanism, which encompass the process of urban drifting and collaborativenetworks.

Direct urbanism employs tactical interventions and strategic thinking in its process to learn about a place. The fundamental basis for direct urbanism considers planning as a participatory principle and places the emphasis on the complexity of the situation and those involved (Brandt, 2008). This mean

that urban intervention will negotiate a wide range of tasks and possibilities, and the way to tackle thisin a holistic way is by having collaborative networks between the urban drifter and the collaborators.Collaborators here include those involved, directly or indirectly, in the process of drive, such as:

1. Students of architecture2. Teachers/ tutors of architecture3. Residents/ dwellers4. Planners, designers and policy makers5. Other participating community that inhabit the area (i.e. traders, artists, refugees, marginal

society, homeless, transit dwellers, tourists, etc.)

The methodology of direct urbanism is then applied in situations in which the objectives is notimmediately clear and is free from any pre-conception a notion of exploring and understanding the

context as an open-ended processes inherent to urban and architectural practices in the public domain,which obviously will involve many other elements and disciplines. Direct urbanism, through the process of urban drifting promotes an anticipatory fiction that operates and may open latent, hiddendimensions of a place that we usually ignore or misread due to the limitations of the conventional andstandard of architectural teaching (and learning). This alternative approach describes the modest initialstages of latent qualities which acquire collective actions and desires, and so become the impetus for transformation in strategic thinking in the process of understanding a place.

In this investigation of direct urbanism, the projected techniques are examples that indicate the potentialof drive in architectural applications. It may devise ways of developing an appropriate and extensivearchitectural language incorporating all pertinent direct elements in drawing and representing theefficacy of the emergent concepts, interventions and results (Figure 4). They define new andunexplored territories for the active involvement of architecture and urbanism, create new definitions of

architectural and urban space understanding, and provide alternative experiential relationships withinthe context. These applications shall be adapted to the society in which they take place, they come into being, its space-time relationships, and are more than an analysis of culture and society, but contributetowards the larger extent of cultural and political paradigms through architectural means. (Hill, 1998)


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Figure 4. Urban drift and psychogeographical elevation map of Tower Hill, LondonSource: Hafiz Amirrol, 2008.

Coming back to the issue of Bandung as the research field for urban drifting and collaborativenetworks, the fine urban fabric of the city has always been the best area that provides hiddendimensions that are barely known to most people (Figure 5). Untold stories, unique behavioralcharacteristics, specific social and cultural practice, and many other interesting facts that may begathered from urban drifting are things that may drive the thinking of design studies and developmentinto more progressive and advance level. Usually, imaginative projection involve thinking about a

places memorable qualities, memorable events that happened there, memorable people associated withit, even memorable fictions that have been made up about that place. In this way, we become moreassociated to places related to the conditions of life (Zubir, 2009). To stimulate these imaginative

projections of a place, systematic urban drifting techniques are required in the process of learning andexperiencing architecture in a non-generic way.

Urban drifting can be made more systematic by utilizing advance technologies and new gadgets that arecommercially available in the market. Global Positioning System (GPS) installed on mobile phones,video cameras, sound recorder and other tools will help making urban drifting more comprehensive andinteresting, allowing more accurate data and events to be recorded and analyzed. The relationship

between psychogeography, mapping, architectural and urban study, social research, urban intervention,mobile and wireless technology studies, art, media and many other disciplines merge as a systematicmethod in the learning process. Exploring the connection between urban landscapes, and the emotionsand actions of the inhabitants of the space, and looking to see what new technology and media mayoffer, psychogeographical mapping gathered from the action of drive promise better insights for thelearning process of architectural and urbanism.

Figure 5. Alleys in Bandung that expose many hidden dimensions of the citySource: Hafiz Amirrol, 2010.


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CONCLUSION

From the examples and arguments that have been laid out, it is the interest of this paper to see thisalternative tool in architectural education to be realized in the academic system, especially in thecontext of architectural schools in Bandung. There is no doubt that the city, such as Bandung has a lotto offer it is the most interesting field to learn and understand architecture and urbanism, and urbandrifting will reveal many hidden qualities, with different pacing and ambiences of the urban spaces to

encourage progressive architectural thinking for the students. The latent qualities of the city itstransformations, impermanence, instability, characters, stories, and many others are importantelements that need specific approach in trying to understand them. One of the best approaches is to

participate in the act of urban drifting, as they will directly help in the process of understanding anddefining the characteristics and activities of a place by revealing patterns of behavior, movements, traitsand programs.

Disparate elements of information of the city gathered from the process of drive need to besystematically organized in analyzing and learning from the city. Strategic operations through visualand graphical representations are the best method in further revealing the gathered data for useful

purposes in the process of designing. Visual accompaniment to assist with perceiving the experiencefrom the walk can be collaboratively done in unconventional methods of representations video,

pyschogeographic maps, sound recording, diagrams, projective drawings and modeling, chronotographs

and many other techniques are useful for students and teachers of architecture to produce progressivedesign and help in the organizing and strategizing design thinking. The only way for architecturestudents to master these representative techniques is to start with collaborative networks. Collaborativenetworks in these processes may involve participation from the society of the city themselves (i.e.dwellers) and other participatory networks from others such as artists, filmmakers, videographers,sound artists, bookmakers, photographers, social researchers, etc.

The relationship between designers users context is at the most pleasurable when concept andexperience of spaces abruptly coincide (Tschumi, 1990). To achieve this pleasure, strategic operationsof architectural learning need to be formulated in a progressive and up-to-date way. Multi-disciplinaryand inter-disciplinary acts need to be popularized in the already well-establish concept of educationsystem. Collaborations on the conception and realization of innovative projects through expressing andrepresenting the experiences in psychogeographic ways will continue the investigation in the learning

process into a more holistic point of view, perceived from the dichotomy of architecture, urbanism,social sciences and humanistic disciplines. Todays unprecedented development in technologies andnew media also help in the idea of approaching architecture from a wider perspective.

Through the combination of basic architectural knowledge, the act of urban drifting and collaborative- participatory networks, a new set of architectural teaching-learning system may be established in progressing the pedagogy of architectural education. Mnemonic meaning and qualities of the citydisseminated from this new approach are great potentials in promoting the agenda of non-standardarchitectural study, which have long been the subject of debates between great schools of architecturearound the world. A clear direction and objective of the schools need to be understood and absorbed byall teachers and students in securing the position of architectural school as promoter to creativity, notonly as producers of workers for the industry. This article might suggest the basic idea of walking as acatalyst in architectural education and design approach, but participative and collaborative networks arethe most important in validating this approach as a tool in the context of the academia and practice.


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BLOOMER, K. and MOORE, C. (1977) Body, Memory and Architecture. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress.

BRANDT, C.V. (2008) Direct Urbanism vs. Direct Architecture (AA Diploma 10, Unit Brief). London:AA School of Architecture.

COUSINS, M. Architecture as a Weak Principle, in HILL, J. (1998) Occupying Architecture . London:Routledge.

DAWES, J. (2008) Ukiyo-e: Journey to the Floating World (AA Intermediate 6, Unit Brief). London:AA School of Architecture.

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Walking the City - An Alternative Approach in Architectural Pedagogy Through Collaborative Networks

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