Othering pedagogies: Integrating performing games and theatrical improvisations in the early stages of architectural education.

Ntzani, Dimitra ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9798-8873 and Banteli, Amalia 2023. Othering pedagogies: Integrating performing games and theatrical improvisations in the early stages of architectural education. Presented at: Architectures of Alterity: Body, Media, Space, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, 7-8 September 2023.

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Abstract

It’s been more than twenty years since Rob Imrie looked into present and absent corporealities from UK architectural education and practice and argued that human bodies are predominantly visualized as stable, canonical, and normative. Imrie advocated for an open-ended and flexible design discipline, one that is sensitized to diverse bodies and transgresses cultural orders (Imrie 2003, 47-65). Nowadays, the inclusion of diverse corporealities in the early years of design learning is often supported via sensory explorations and bodily surveys, the invention and construction of artefacts, costumes or furniture, and the visual studies of imaginary users. In this familiar pedagogical framework, architecture is mainly studied as a cultural condition, not as an apparatus that can reproduce and challenge cultural orders. Moreover, the primary medium that students employ to study other corporealities is their own bodies. These self-referential approaches to design learning unwillingly encourage understanding others as distorted versions of the self. Hence, two opportunities are lost: a) an opportunity to adopt a hetero-referential way of design learning and b) an opportunity to acknowledge that first-year students are another transgressive corporeality and potentially an empathetic one. The presentation shares the knowledge gathered through a series of learning alliances between the Welsh School of Architecture and Hijinx Inclusive Theatre Company. While reflecting on the integration of performing games in design pedagogies, it suggests that performing arts help us redefine design-learning as an othering process, and appreciate the creative challenges of our sensitive first- year cohorts. Such unpredictable and risky alliances strengthen connections with other creative practices and communities, teach students to think outside the box, and introduce ethical and aesthetical concerns as essential design principles in the early years of architectural education.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Lecture)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Architecture
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NA Architecture
Funders:	Cardiff University Education Innovation Fund
Date of Acceptance:	7 September 2023
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2023 10:36
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/162681

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