Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Michael J. Crosbie
and professors gain new insights into the process Studio. Each chapter opens with a helpful and
MICHAEL J. CROSBIE
of teaching and being taught. The studio seems insightful essay by Salama and Wilkinson on the
to occupy a locus between home and prison, articles that follow. The book commences with
a place of salvation and damnation, the site two special contributions, one each by N. John
of triumph and humiliation. Unlike any other Habraken and Henry Sanoff (both giants in the
forum for education, the studio takes on an field of architectural education) that provide
independent life, with its rules, traditions, and historical context for the five chapters that
revelations. Out of it, in ways that we don’t fully follow. Underlying both essays is the question
understand, students become architects. of power—in the studio, and in the profession
at large—woven as a theme throughout the
Over the years, especially during the last half of book.
the last century, much has been written about
the architecture studio and its pedagogy. Architectural design continues to be a
The turbulence of much of that period was problem-solving exercise. The types of problems
reflected in the studio and its changing role addressed are known as “wicked”: they are not
in training architects for a society in flux. easily defined, they are not simple (not even
The studio continues to be a focal point for the “simple” ones), and it is a challenge to
experimentation, reflection, invention, and declare when they have really been solved.
reaction. A new publication brings together Another helpful dichotomy is the difference
some of the most thoughtful, helpful, and between convergent and divergent problems.
provocative ideas about the architecture Convergent problems compile information
studio and how it can be adapted. Design that leads to a single, correct answer (math
Studio Pedagogy: Horizons for the Future, problems, for example). But studio design
edited by Ashraf M. Salama and Nicholas problems are divergent—the information
Wilkinson (both of whom are architects collected, the reflection on that information,
and architectural educators), brings under and the application of the student’s analysis to
one cover 23 contemporary articles by 25 the problem at hand will lead to many solutions,
architectural educators from around the world some better than others, but all applicable to
who consider the special nature of the design some degree. The book offers examples of
studio, how it is changing, and how it might how such design studio problems have been
change in the future. approached at different schools, at different
times, for a variety of reasons.
Salama and Wilkinson, both of whom have
written extensively about architectural Design/build studio problems lend a hands-
education, organize the collection under on experience that includes architecture’s
five chapters: 1. Theoretical Perspectives and physical weight (in a way that paper solutions
Positions; 2. Critical Thinking and Decision Making can never capture). Community-based projects
in Studio Pedagogy; 3. Addressing Cognitive by architecture students and faculty offer the
Styles in Studio Pedagogy; 4. Community, Place, possibility of an actual solution being adopted
and the Studio; 5. Digital Technologies and the and realized. Projects pursued in virtual design
studios joined by the Internet, as collaborations paradigms concerning the crown jewel of
MICHAEL J. CROSBIE