نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 استادیار دانشکده معماری و شهرسازی، دانشگاه صنعتی جندی شاپور، دزفول، ایران.
2 استاد مدعو دانشکده معماری و شهرسازی، دانشگاه صنعتی جندی شاپور، دزفول، ایران.
3 دانشیار دانشکده معماری و شهرسازی، دانشگاه صنعتی جندی شاپور، دزفول، ایران.
چکیده
کلیدواژه‌ها
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
The outbreak and expansion of the Corona epidemic institutionalized new commitments and reactions, which included setting up online educational platforms. Whilst all people in the world were actually experiencing new conditions, it has arguably brought about new opportunities to rethink the usual way of working in most fields, including urban design.
“Practice makes perfect” sounds like a familiar mantra in urban design problem-solving workshops, where students typically work in teams, get feedback throughout their desk crits, and revise and resubmit projects in multiple iterations. Translating this premise in an urban design workshop boils down to spending hours in the field making key observations on land use configuration and diversity, street network make-up, existing building conditions, and distribution of open/green space. These key layers, then, give some food for thought to any designer who attempts to craft solutions based on areas that need redevelopment or redesign (i.e., tearing down dilapidated or run-down buildings or retrofits), and then coming up with new designs for areas slated for construction or requiring retrofit.
The urban design pedagogy and studio literature underline the gap between theory and practice. Epistemological and ontological concerns surrounding the discipline further complicate matters. To narrow this gap, this paper focuses on a recent workshop taught online at the Jundishapur University of Technology. While the COVID-19 pandemic imposed certain restrictions, the outcomes seem promising.
Theorizing the five episodes of urban discovery (walking, observing, encountering, perceiving, and interpreting), enabled nine urban design graduate students to engage in an integrative rather than a synoptic learning experience. This approach not only boosted the students’ self-discovery and confidence in observing, analyzing, and designing their projects (plan evaluation, plan making) but also helped them to learn from peers rather than rehashing their instructors’ pedagogical intentions.
As it eventually turned out, the students unanimously confirmed that those five episodes significantly affected their preconceived notions of observation and analysis as precursors of creating urban design alternatives. For example, they alluded to the fact that they customarily observed land use make-up, building conditions, construction materials, development density, etc., in any given site. This mainstream modus operandi of practicing urban design has deep roots in the canons of the profession, ensuring that students can put together masterplans that translate the local needs into certain land use types or quantify density, per capita, and so forth.
With all upsides and downsides, the students’ enthusiasm and passion promise future utility in using and incorporating these five episodes into urban design thinking and studio teaching.
Surprisingly, instead of receiving pushback from the students, the instructors received positive feedback about incorporating theoretical debates in future studio/workshops. Contrary to expected attitudes typically observed in studio courses hoping to start the design stage as quickly as possible, the students in this workshop behaved surprisingly differently. They not only did not shy away from exposure to theories but even insisted on its undeniable benefits in boosting their design outcomes. Feedbacks like this reassure scholars wanting to recognize and reduce the theory vs. practice gap facing urban design, both as a profession and an academic discipline.
کلیدواژه‌ها [English]
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