Position Paper
Following conclusions of a series of workshops held by the Education Academy between 2016 and 2018, a position paper on architectural education was presented at the EAAE Annual Conference in Porto on September 1st 2018, and has since become the impetus for numerous future endeavours. You can read its preamble and contents below, or download the full document.
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION
a position paper of the EAAE Education Academy
This position paper is intended as a reference document for use by educators, students and university administrators, research institutions and researchers, funding agencies, professional bodies and architectural practices that are committed to education in architecture and in related disciplines. It seeks to identify the shared fundamentals of architectural education, describes the variety of valid practices and formulates a collective position for the international community and the EAAE member institutions. It declares the principles for the development of vibrant, internationally recognized, qualitatively outstanding and well-grounded architectural education and research and consequently a well-informed professional practice. As such, it is a source of inspiration, dialogue and exchange concerning the future curriculum and pedagogy of architectural education.
Through its propositional principles, this position paper consolidates a variety of ideas towards contemporary architectural education put forward by members of the EAAE Education Academy within a series of workshops held from 2016 till now. Its formulation sublimates discussions on the socio- economic conditions in which architectural education takes place today across the range of contrasting European regions. Instead, this position paper responds to the ongoing changes within architectural education and the architectural profession. It maintains that architecture and architectural education is at the service of the societies it is embedded within and it recognizes the value of heritage, tradition and the contemporary culture. It highlights the importance of the environments in which architectural education takes place and explicates the its central pedagogy of teaching through design. Practice in architectural education has multiple forms and meanings, all of which are addressed in various forms: the practice of design, the practice of teaching through design, professional practice, and the practice of architectural research, including research by design, all of which are addressed in this statement.
This position paper aims to lead to a Charter on Architectural Education, that claims the space that architectural education needs and that explains why such space has to be negotiated. In a time of transforming professional practices and shifting fields of employment, EAAE opens up this document for feedback from all its members. This will lead to revision every three years, thus articulating the values for which the EAAE actually stands for.
Authors:
Johan De Walsche, Harriet Harriss, Mia Roth-Čerina, Riva Lava, Michela Barosio, Pnina Avidar, Lorraine Farrelly, Lukáš Šíp, Uģis Bratuškins, Peter Staub, Gunnar Parelius, Delphine Grail-Dumas, Carla Sentieri Omarrementeria, Jordi Martínez Ventura, Dag Boutsen, Madeleine Maaskant, Fredrik Shetelig, Victor Mani, Maria Paula Trigueiros Silva Cunha, Siniša Justić, Raquel Paulino, Oya Atalay Franck.