Urban Design as a Catalyst for Advancing Architectural Education

Abstract

New approaches to improving architectural education have emerged inrecent years, but comprehensive research that investigates the rolesthat urban design can play in promoting positive changes in architectural education and pedagogy is scarce. Despite urban design's close alliance with architecture, many in the architectural discipline seem to lack acoherent understanding of what urban design can offer to architectural pedagogy. Following an in-depth review of relevant literature, this paper briefly outlines the history, goals, methods, characteristics, and benefitsof urban design. This lays the foundation for proposing four approaches toadvancing architectural education and pedagogy: facilitating (promotingconsensus about design), grounding (promoting logical underpinning,inquiry by design, and evidence-based design), convening (promoting social design), and designing therapeutically (promoting environmentalsensibility). Findings and lessons drawn from other fields are also usedto support the four approaches. The paper concludes by discussing theimplications of its findings and suggesting areas for future research.