Per-Johan Dahl

Social space implies a great diversity of knowledge.¹Henri Lefebvre

left: Bachelor students working in the “Fullskalelab” at Lund Institute of Technology; top right: Spatial investigations by Bachelor Students at Lund Institute of Technology, School of Architecture; bottom right: School of Architecture Model by Masters Students at the Sustainable Urban Design program, Lund Institute of Technology, School of Architecture

Educational institutions in Europe and elsewhere are often categorized by hierarchical structures and disconnected programs. Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral students are working segregated from each others with little or no interaction. From a traditional academic point of view, this system may be validated as Bachelors consume and Doctors produce knowledge. On the other hand, however, as soon as tradition is replaced by innovation disadvantages unfold. In contemporary practices, architects and urbanists are required to master a great diversity of knowledge, ranging from the theoretical and historical backgrounds of their different disciplines to the pragmatics of digital technologies, fabrication and customization processes, management, and building law. The ability to connect and evolve space construction principles from this complex web of assorted information can not be matured in social isolation, but needs interaction.

knowledge can only be challenged, evaluated, and consolidated by constant interaction between individuals and peers

“Architecture is, first and foremost, a process of creating knowledge,” Lebbeus Woods says.² Indeed, the cultivation and transmission of knowledge has signified the very core of the discipline ever since Alberti submitted his drawings for the reconstruction of San Francesco at Rimini.³ The commitment to knowledge production, hence, should characterize our everyday practice, from the experimentation with structures and materials at the building site to the transformation and upgrading of educational systems. The RIEAch workshop undestandobservedefineideateprototypetest, organized for the first and second year Bachelor students at the Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden, builds upon this commitment.

left: Model by Bachelor Students at Lund Institute of Technology, School of Architecture; right: Model by Masters Students at the Sustainable Urban Design program, Lund Institute of Technology, School of Architecture

Commissioned by Professor Abelardo Gonzalez, RIEAch Director Guy Lafranchi teamed up with Per-Johan Dahl and Mikael Pedersen for conducting a three day workshop dedicated to architectural experimentation. Beginning on March 10, 2010, focus was set on the exploration of spatial conditions emerging from the clashes between expanding cities and rigid infrastructures. Due to Lafranchi’s interest in Design Thinking, the workshop fused team building strategies and open source methodologies with Situationist mapping techniques, fabrication, and space construction theory.4 The workshop deployed the exhibition as organizing venue for conversation and display, which thus required an extra layer of curating.

The site for the workshop consisted in a highway territory located at the northern part of Lund. Characterized by the implementation of a large scale research facility, the urbanization of the area raises questions about innovation of new forms and patterns, manipulation of spatial typologies, relocation of programs, and transformation of farm lands. The same site was utilized by Dahl for a workshop with the international Masters program in Sustainable Urban Design, also situated at the Lund Institute of Technology. Operating under the same roof as the Bachelors, still cut off from social interaction, the Masters were developing new ways for deploying the grid as primary form in the construction of open urbanism. Merging literature seminars with design and prototyping, the Masters workshop was still in progress when the Bachelors started up.

Overlapping the Masters workshop, the Bachelors were assigned to accommodate interviews with the more advanced students. With the purpose of information exchange, the interviews helped the Master students to verbally articulate their design decisions and formal strategies, whilst the Bachelors could learn from their older peers. The Bachelors were also required to allocate a number of representatives for attending Master reviews and thus make reports to their common fellows about critical momentums and apprehensive discussions. By processing the information obtained from the Masters, the Bachelors could build upon shared knowledge and thus apply a high level of detailing and refinement to the space construction principles developed for the area.

The RIEAch workshop in Lund opens up for a revision of educational systems. The disconnection of programs, exercised by traditional academia, indeed has its validity as different levels of knowledge production require, to some extent, various degrees of autonomy. However, like Woods concludes, you have to “be alone [and] be together.”5 Indeed, knowledge can only be challenged, evaluated, and consolidated by constant interaction between individuals and peers. It is at the intersection of differences that complexities mature.

Bibliography
Brown, Tim. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. New York: Harper Business, 2009.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1991.
Wittkower, Rudolf. Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Woods, Lebbeus. Radical Reconstruction. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997.

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¹ Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1991), 73.
² Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997), 14.
³ Leon Battista Alberti’s 1454 reconstruction of San Francesco at Rimini is notorious for being the first building erected solely from the guidance of drawing. The legacy of Alberti remotely controlling the execution of the exterior hovers over contemporary attempts made by Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and others to master the construction of complex structures with the guidance of digital models. For Alberti’s San Francesco see for example Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988).
4 About Design Thinking see for example Tim Brown, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation (New York: Harper Business, 2009).
5 Woods, Radical Reconstruction, 29.