WARPED EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES IN SIMULATION OF PRACTICE

The following paper is an account of an experiment in architecture pedagogy and urban design undertaken at Tampere University of Technology from 2010–12. The students involved were misled into believing they were partaking in the reconstruction of a design studio project made originally in 1978 at the University of California under the direction of Christopher Alexander. Alexander had used the project, set on a waterfront site in San Francisco, to demonstrate what he termed a «new theory of urban design» based on bottom-up incrementalism rather than a top-down master plan. In the reconstruction, however, the students were not explicitly being taught the method or theory, but rather were being tested in their attitude towards their own role as decision makers. If it can be argued that first and foremost architects should be concerned with the skilful realisation of buildings, how does education deal with the question of ideology as raised by David Harvey in relation to the ‘right to the city’ within the current neoliberal urbanisation process? Do students internalise the idea of their own ‘right to design’? The experiment showed the students that irrespective of their grand architectural ambitions the outcome on the waterfront site had degenerated into artless urbanism because they did not have the overall control they expect – just like in the real world. Architects and city planners suggest many different, sometimes ingenious, solutions to perceived problems, but it is the marketplace that decides which will succeed and which will fail. Witold Rybczynski (2009, p. 95)