The Trans­form­ing Body as a Spa­tial Instrument

Introduction

In a world in which we crit­i­cal­ly chal­lenge pre­vi­ous lin­ear­i­ties, inher­ent to dom­i­nant hier­ar­chi­cal pow­er struc­tures only to reveal a world which is fun­da­men­tal­ly unsta­ble, the mul­ti­plic­i­ty and ambi­gu­i­ty of knowl­edge con­struc­tion ought to be acknowl­edged.[1] It is Jacques Derrida’s con­cept of decon­struc­tion in which we can obtain this inher­ent ambi­gu­i­ty and insta­bil­i­ty of lan­guage and its mean­ing, allow­ing us to observe this world as end­less mul­ti­plic­i­ties. This paper com­ments on a stu­dio envi­ron­ment cul­ti­vat­ing an open-end­ed approach to learn­ing and think­ing to allow stu­dents in archi­tec­ture and spa­tial design to engage in col­lab­o­ra­tive process­es of co-cre­at­ing knowl­edge.[2] Such stu­dio cul­ture active­ly chal­lenges the notion of a sin­gu­lar, author­i­ta­tive source of infor­ma­tion and presents the poten­tial to stu­dents to ques­tion and decon­struct estab­lished knowl­edge, in the pur­sue of new knowl­edge by indeed reveal­ing inher­ent com­plex­i­ties and mul­ti­plic­i­ties. While some hier­ar­chi­cal aspects remain in the eval­u­a­tion of this stu­dio, its teach­ing invests in the dis­man­tling of such hier­ar­chies to set up an edu­ca­tion­al envi­ron­ment where col­lec­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion pro­pels the explo­ration of new ideas. This approach close­ly aligns with Paulo Freire's con­cept of authen­tic think­ing, where ideas are shaped by the com­plex­i­ty and dynamism of real­i­ty through expe­ri­ence and dia­logue.[3] In this didac­tic frame­work, scholas­tic suc­cess is not mea­sured by stu­dents' adher­ence to pre­de­ter­mined tasks but by their abil­i­ty to tran­scend pre­vi­ous lim­i­ta­tions. As an embod­i­ment of free­dom and co-cre­ation, this approach engages with stu­dents as active par­tic­i­pants. This is impor­tant, par­tic­u­lar­ly for a form of ped­a­gogy that encour­ages crit­i­cal exam­i­na­tion, known as prob­lem-pos­ing edu­ca­tion. Prob­lem-pos­ing edu­ca­tion, a con­cept also devel­oped by Paulo Freire, is char­ac­ter­ized by a dia­log­ic approach where teach­ers and stu­dents engage in crit­i­cal con­ver­sa­tions on top­ics that are mean­ing­ful and rel­e­vant to their own lives and com­mu­ni­ties. (ibid) This stands in con­trast to many oth­er edu­ca­tion­al par­a­digms that revolve around the illu­sion of prob­lem-solv­ing strate­gies, often root­ed in a post-con­sumerist mind-set. 

The ped­a­gog­ic prac­tice com­ment­ed on in this paper places strong empha­sis on the fol­low­ing 3 aspects. First­ly, a deep engage­ment with con­tem­po­rary social issues, allow­ing stu­dents to recog­nise the mul­ti­tude of per­spec­tives that col­lec­tive­ly con­tribute to the intrin­sic insta­bil­i­ty of the under­stand­ing of such issues.[4] Next is an empha­sis on trans­me­di­al knowl­edge con­struc­tion, rec­og­niz­ing that learn­ing occurs through diverse modes of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and var­i­ous media. As such, stu­dents can inter­sect var­i­ous dis­ci­plines such as film, the­atre, dance, sculp­ture and archi­tec­ture, rec­og­niz­ing that noth­ing exists in iso­la­tion.[5] A third and cen­tral idea in this paper is the con­cept of the trans­form­ing body as a spa­tial instru­ment in the design of spaces. The term ​‘body’ in the first instance refers to the phys­i­cal pres­ence of each indi­vid­ual stu­dent. How­ev­er, the ​‘body’ also acknowl­edges oth­er bod­ies, both human and non-human as part of an ongo­ing process of evo­lu­tion and adap­ta­tion. Par­al­lel to a com­men­tary on a selec­tion of design projects pro­duced as part of this ped­a­gog­ic prac­tice, the fol­low­ing chap­ters devel­op the idea of the ​‘trans­form­ing body’ as a learn­ing expe­ri­ence, con­nect­ing a four­fold the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work. Alice Y. Kolb and David A. Kolb's work on learn­ing styles and learn­ing places, as a basis for enhanc­ing expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing in the con­text of a spa­tial design stu­dio. [6] John Dewey’s work empha­sis­ing the impor­tance of expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing in ways that bod­ies and spaces are com­bined in dynam­ic and rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ships of mutu­al and con­tin­u­ous change.[7] Mau­rice Merleau-Ponty's the­o­ry of embod­i­ment stat­ing that the per­cep­tion of the world is fun­da­men­tal­ly shaped by our body.[8] Karen Barad's ideas on agen­tial real­ism, argu­ing for an under­stand­ing of the world as an entan­gle­ment of phe­nom­e­na high­light­ing the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of enti­ties in the world.[9]

The ped­a­gog­ic prac­tice explored in this paper is ground­ed in the trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial of the body, and draws crit­i­cal inspi­ra­tion from the above men­tioned the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work to explore the con­nec­tion between bod­i­ly expe­ri­ences and spa­tial design. With­in this approach, bod­i­ly expe­ri­ences are seen not as iso­lat­ed occur­rences but as inte­gral parts of a dynam­ic web of inter­ac­tions. This inte­gra­tion of ideas pro­vides a lens through which to view the body as an instru­ment in spa­tial design, facil­i­tat­ing a more nuanced explo­ration of the intri­cate rela­tion­ships and inter­de­pen­den­cies that shape the design of spaces. As a result, stu­dents are immersed in learn­ing expe­ri­ences that go beyond the con­ven­tion­al under­stand­ing of spaces as sta­t­ic enti­ties, encour­ag­ing them to per­ceive space as a dynam­ic and inter­con­nect­ed sys­tem. The trans­form­ing body becomes a key instru­ment for stu­dents to active­ly engage with and com­pre­hend the com­plex entan­gle­ments inher­ent in such spa­tial systems.

Ideas unpacked in this paper have been devel­oped through thought and study at var­i­ous insti­tu­tions and organ­i­sa­tions. Con­cepts dis­cussed are root­ed in prin­ci­ples of crit­i­cal ped­a­gogy, and exis­ten­tial teach­ing, empha­siz­ing an approach that con­tin­u­ous­ly re-exam­ines the process of edu­ca­tion and research.[10] A core prin­ci­ple in this kind of teach­ing is to acknowl­edge the spa­tial design stu­dio as a lab­o­ra­to­ry in which stu­dents can devel­op a reflec­tive prac­tice inte­grat­ing spa­tial design with var­i­ous acts of self-exam­i­na­tion.[11] Such a place oper­ates with­in the com­plex world of oppo­sites, where var­i­ous per­spec­tives and approach­es coex­ist and inter­act. Stu­dent work dis­cussed in this paper has been pro­duced between 2005 and 20022 at var­i­ous insti­tu­tions. All work orig­i­nates from studio’s writ­ten and taught by the author in his capac­i­ty as course leader, stu­dio mas­ter or the­sis super­vi­sor as part of a larg­er team. 

Freedom and Uncertainty; Problem-Posing Education

The fun­da­men­tal aim of the ped­a­gog­ic prac­tice com­ment­ed on here is to nur­ture stu­dents’ trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial and cul­ti­vate per­son­al growth. In pur­suit of these objec­tives, teach­ing wants to be struc­tured by val­ues such as free­dom, choice, and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty.[12] As var­i­ous exam­ples of stu­dent work will illus­trate, the explo­ration of such val­ues pro­vides a frame­work for stu­dent-learn­ing beyond mere acqui­si­tion of knowl­edge. Project work sup­ports the devel­op­ment of authen­tic, self-aware indi­vid­u­als, capa­ble of mak­ing mean­ing­ful choic­es in crit­i­cal rela­tion to oth­ers. Cre­at­ing such a learn­ing envi­ron­ment requires stu­dents to recog­nise their inher­ent free­dom and take own­er­ship of their learn­ing, which is not intu­itive­ly evi­dent for most. Stu­dents explore design ques­tions in the con­text of their own lives, their own phys­i­cal being in this world, and thus engage with intro­spec­tive reflec­tion to come to under­stand per­son­al expe­ri­ences, thoughts, and emo­tions. The projects pro­duced out this stu­dio cul­ture resist a per­haps ever-grow­ing desire for pro­duc­ing aes­thet­ic impres­sions of sta­bil­i­ty and cer­tain­ty which often answer to the demands set by con­tem­po­rary com­mer­cial prac­tice. In design this often leads towards the con­for­mi­ty to styl­is­tic and cul­tured reit­er­a­tions with­out ques­tion­ing or chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo. Draw­ing upon the insights of Pao­lo Freire in his influ­en­tial work ​"Ped­a­gogy of the Oppressed," two key prin­ci­ples, ​"absence of doubt" and ​"fear of free­dom," come to the fore­front to indeed chal­lenge the sta­tus quo. These terms encap­su­late the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties inher­ent to teach­ing. ​"Absence of doubt" sug­gests a rigid and unques­tion­ing adher­ence to estab­lished norms, which would hin­der crit­i­cal think­ing and per­son­al growth. ​"Fear of free­dom" reflects the hes­i­tan­cy and appre­hen­sion that stu­dents may expe­ri­ence when con­front­ed with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of mak­ing choic­es and tak­ing own­er­ship of their learn­ing. The stu­dio cul­ture com­ment­ed on in this arti­cle seeks to break free from these lim­i­ta­tions by set­ting up an envi­ron­ment where doubt is embraced as a cat­a­lyst for crit­i­cal think­ing and where free­dom is not feared but looked for as a path­way to per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion and authen­tic learning. 

As such, design projects pro­duced don’t start with a set def­i­n­i­tion of things, no clear axioms, no dog­mat­ic truths, no set archi­tec­tur­al pro­gram or delin­eat­ed end-user in sight. Projects don’t even con­fine to a sin­gle dis­ci­pli­nary frame­work. What guides each design is an invi­ta­tion to crit­i­cal­ly exam­ine a spe­cif­ic socio-cul­tur­al con­text, empha­siz­ing the piv­otal role of the
stu­dent-researcher in this process. In such sit­u­a­tions, stu­dents have the free­dom to ini­ti­ate a design process using their own pre­ferred medi­um, lib­er­at­ing them­selves from the con­straints and hier­ar­chies inher­ent in a par­tic­u­lar dis­ci­pline. To reveal a world char­ac­ter­ized by insta­bil­i­ty, the con­struc­tion of knowl­edge indeed needs to occur beyond the bound­aries of an agreed-upon vocab­u­lary. Con­se­quent­ly, the dis­ci­pli­nary nature of the work is con­tin­gent upon the projects at hand and does not orig­i­nate from the con­tem­pla­tion of a spe­cif­ic cre­ative prac­tice. Rather, they adapt as nec­es­sary to assume a form of prac­tice most rel­e­vant for each project. Design is struc­tured along a tra­jec­to­ry of dis­cov­ery. Projects nav­i­gate the unknown, and in doing so, stu­dents have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op courage and resilience. This ulti­mate­ly involves a wider cri­tique, towards recon­sid­er­ing the rigid struc­tures and hier­ar­chies that often char­ac­ter­ize tra­di­tion­al edu­ca­tion­al set­tings.[13] Projects pre­sent­ed in this paper embrace a learn­er-cen­tred approach, with an empha­sis on crit­i­cal think­ing and cre­ativ­i­ty to address a world char­ac­ter­ized by rapid change, com­plex­i­ty, and uncer­tain­ty. They engage in a crit­i­cal exam­i­na­tion of mech­a­nized soci­eties which are often built upon the notion of ​‘divi­sion of labour’. Such struc­tures assign indi­vid­u­als to spe­cial­ized roles with­in dis­tinct sub­ject-spe­cif­ic domains. These hier­ar­chi­cal fables fre­quent­ly come at the cost of reflec­tive prac­tices which can only thrive in the con­tin­u­ous flow of intel­lec­tu­al and con­cep­tu­al inter­con­nec­tion and debate. In pur­sue of crit­i­cal dia­logue, the design stu­dio does shift its atten­tion towards the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of such domains to devel­op what can be referred to as ​‘soft knowl­edge’. Exam­ples of this are, spa­tial intel­li­gence, social intel­li­gence, emo­tion­al intel­li­gence, and adapt­abil­i­ty.[14] In doing so, each project is allowed to explore ques­tions relat­ed to iden­ti­ty, mean­ing, and pur­pose. They ven­ture beyond cat­e­gorised knowl­edge to engage with self-dis­cov­ery and bring forth a deep­er under­stand­ing of one­self in rela­tion to the world.

The fol­low­ing design project serves as an exam­ple in which a stu­dent explores per­son­al spa­tial encoun­ters as an immi­grant work­er dur­ing the 2020 lock-down in the Nether­lands. [ 1 ] Through her design work, she doc­u­ments per­son­al expe­ri­ences and reflec­tions that arise, as she embarks on her dai­ly jour­ney through an eeri­ly emp­ty world. At a time most peo­ple remain at home, she nav­i­gates emp­ty trains, qui­et roads, tra­vers­ing var­i­ous socio-eco­nom­ic enclaves to reach a food dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tre respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing urban food sup­plies. The cul­mi­na­tion of this project, titled ​'Las Esti­radas,' takes the form of a doc­u­men­tary film, set with­in a ware­house instal­la­tion. This film pro­vides an inti­mate nar­ra­tive about the racial­iza­tion of migrant labor­ers across bound­aries of per­son­al safe­ty dur­ing the Covid pan­dem­ic. Var­i­ous bod­i­ly trans­for­ma­tions nar­rate lev­els of strain and strug­gle as she traces a tra­jec­to­ry of mul­ti­plic­i­ty and col­laps­ing iden­ti­ty dur­ing her dai­ly morn­ing com­mute. As an essen­tial work­er, she grap­ples with height­ened expo­sure, sur­veil­lance, and a grow­ing sense of iso­la­tion. Her expe­ri­ences reflect on the ways in which she, as an indi­vid­ual, becomes more and more ​‘stretched’, thus mea­sured by an insti­tu­tion of power.

The Transforming Body

Mau­rice Merleau-Ponty's ​‘The­o­ry of Embod­i­ment’ unrav­els the notion for our per­cep­tion of the world to be fun­da­men­tal­ly shaped by our body. As such, reject­ing the idea that the mind and body can exist as sep­a­rate enti­ties, assert­ing that they are intri­cate­ly linked. Our body, accord­ing to this the­o­ry, is not just a phys­i­cal ves­sel but a dynam­ic and active agent, active­ly engaged with the world. In archi­tec­tur­al edu­ca­tion, this allows stu­dents to repo­si­tion them­selves from being pas­sive receivers of knowl­edge towards becom­ing active par­tic­i­pants in spa­tial learn­ing.[15] Merleau-Ponty's the­o­ry implies for the body to nev­er be sta­t­ic; and trans­forms and adapts as it inter­acts with the world. The fol­low­ing exam­ple of stu­dent work illus­trates didac­tic moments in which stu­dents recog­nise their bod­ies as dynam­ic enti­ties active­ly engaged in the com­po­si­tion of space. Such com­po­si­tion­al process­es want to nur­ture ele­vat­ed lev­els of self-aware­ness of a per­son­al pres­ence in archi­tec­tur­al space. This height­ened sense of aware­ness sig­nif­i­cant­ly impacts the way stu­dents engage with the act of space mak­ing. Even­tu­al­ly, and as projects illus­trate, the body is allowed to become an inte­gral part of the mind as it con­tem­plates the design and com­po­si­tion of space. Inte­grat­ing Merleau-Ponty's the­o­ry stands in ser­vice of a crit­i­cal ped­a­gog­i­cal approach in which embod­ied expe­ri­ences guide a process of inter­twin­ing per­cep­tion and action. The result­ing stu­dent work ques­tions ency­clopaedic design meth­ods and con­sid­ers a design­ing away from pre-set design vocab­u­lar­ies. Projects often reflect on how a per­son­al design-intend might impact a larg­er socio-spa­tial con­text. Such an under­stand­ing of space, through the notion of net­worked expe­ri­ences extends beyond form and func­tion­al­i­ty. It embraces the com­plex­i­ty of aes­thet­ics as ​‘mak­ing sense of the world’ and in doing so con­tem­plate human and non-human expe­ri­ences and well-being. The con­cept of the ​"trans­form­ing body" is the cor­ner­stone in this process, and invites those who are will­ing, to enter the pro­found impli­ca­tions it holds, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the con­text of an archi­tec­tur­al design studio. 

While intro­duc­ing an enti­ty so inte­gral to our expe­ri­ence of the world might appear evi­dent, the under­ly­ing nuance calls for a shift in per­spec­tive. Instead of per­ceiv­ing the body as a sin­gu­lar and sta­t­ic enti­ty, the body relates to the over­ar­ch­ing idea of inter­con­nect­ed­ness. Each body, in this con­text, forms a vital node with­in a vast net­work of oth­er bod­ies, which in turn con­tribute to the cre­ation of rit­u­als, cul­tures, soci­eties and their spaces. Design teach­ing, in this instance, acknowl­edges what Karen Barad and Bruno Latour empha­size as the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of enti­ties in the world. They don’t observe the body as an iso­lat­ed and sta­t­ic enti­ty, yet instead see it as part of a larg­er net­work of bod­ies and accom­pa­ny­ing mate­r­i­al forces. The fol­low­ing exam­ples of stu­dent work chal­lenge the tra­di­tion­al per­cep­tion of the body in space by rec­og­niz­ing each body to be an active agent in the com­po­si­tion of space, through dynam­ic inter­ac­tions with oth­er bod­ies. Set­ting forth the under­stand­ing that all bod­ies are entan­gled in a com­plex web of ongo­ing rela­tion­ships.[16] In these sit­u­a­tions, spa­tial phe­nom­e­na are not sim­ply observed but are active­ly pro­duced to extend the design of space to the mate­ri­al­iza­tion of mean­ing, in which the entan­gle­ment of mat­ter and mean­ing occurs through per­for­ma­tive acts. Such a par­a­digm shift brings forth a sig­nif­i­cant rev­e­la­tion: the body tran­scends its tra­di­tion­al role and trans­forms into an ever-evolv­ing and inter­con­nect­ed instru­ment. Essen­tial­ly, the ​"trans­form­ing body" injects vital­i­ty into an archi­tec­tur­al design dis­course, where it per­forms an ongo­ing rec­i­p­ro­cal dia­logue between the com­po­si­tion of space and its con­se­quen­tial architectures.

Fol­low­ing work falls under the title ​‘Lost in Space’ and was taught at var­i­ous cohorts between 2005 and 2017. ​"Lost in Space" was taught at Can­ter­bury School of Archi­tec­ture in 2005 and lat­er at KU Leu­ven in 2017 at BA 1 lev­el and Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty at mas­ter lev­el.[17] This project sets up a teach­ing envi­ron­ment merg­ing two seem­ing­ly dis­tinct cre­ative realms, pro­vid­ing stu­dents with a plat­form to explore the intri­ca­cies of spa­tial com­po­si­tion. Over a trans­for­ma­tive two-week peri­od, stu­dents embark on a jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery through con­tem­po­rary dance tuition, which is inte­grat­ed into an archi­tec­ture design stu­dio over­seen by a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, offer­ing stu­dents a per­for­ma­tive are­na for explo­ration. [ 2 ] Stu­dents under­take an exis­ten­tial quest to expe­ri­ence rela­tion­ships between body and space. Such jour­ney, in which expe­ri­en­tial knowl­edge is devel­oped, is com­ple­ment­ed with more ana­lyt­i­cal work as stu­dents pro­duce draw­ings in which they cap­ture and ana­lyze var­i­ous bod­i­ly com­po­si­tions in space. [ 3 ] The con­cept of the ​"trans­form­ing body" stands cen­tral in this exer­cise. As the opus to their spa­tial design edu­ca­tion each stu­dent is intro­duced to the idea that their indi­vid­ual body forms a vital node with­in a vast net­work of oth­er bod­ies, con­tribut­ing to var­i­ous spa­tial com­po­si­tions which at a lat­er stage in their cur­ricu­lum is enlarged towards the design of more com­plex archi­tec­tur­al design projects.

Fol­low­ing work is part of the Mas­ter at MIARD in Rot­ter­dam and is titled ​‘30.90582’. [ 4 ] The project installs a dust-cham­ber in a pub­lic art gallery. Peo­ple enter the dust-cham­ber wear­ing pro­tec­tive gear, while a matrix of cam­eras and pro­jec­tors cap­ture var­i­ous inten­si­ties of occu­pan­cy and threat as the cham­ber grows con­scious­ness. Result­ing record­ings are pro­ject­ed inside and out­side the cham­ber to medi­ate per­cep­tion and exem­pli­fy spa­tial and human fragili­ty. This project installs a rever­sal; for the human as sub­ject, in con­trol of its envi­ron­ment, becomes an object con­trolled by an insti­tu­tion of pow­er (in this case dust). Such space, acti­vat­ed by pol­lu­tion and con­trol becomes a mech­a­nism of sur­veil­lance and pun­ish­ment. Fou­cault calls these mech­a­nisms ​“tech­nolo­gies of dom­i­na­tion” in which human con­duct becomes disciplined.

Transmedial Knowledge Construction: Navigating Complexity

The con­cept of trans­me­di­al knowl­edge con­struc­tion, is an impor­tant vehi­cle for stu­dents to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of their posi­tion.[18] As projects illus­trate, this approach moves away from ​‘dis­ci­pline spe­cif­ic’ modes of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in order to engage with qual­i­ties of insta­bil­i­ty and ambi­gu­i­ty in the way stu­dents observe and notate space. Ulti­mate­ly to fos­ter inter­dis­ci­pli­nary learn­ing and encour­age the use of mul­ti­ple modes of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and media to allow for a broad­er spec­trum of expe­ri­ences extend­ing well beyond the con­fines of tra­di­tion­al archi­tec­tur­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The idea of trans­me­di­al knowl­edge con­struc­tion sup­ports an impor­tant ped­a­gog­i­cal approach in that it under­scores the impor­tance of inter­ro­gat­ing tra­di­tion­al cat­e­gories of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and media. Invit­ing stu­dents to ques­tion estab­lished notions con­cern­ing archi­tec­tur­al aes­thet­ics as form and func­tion. In doing so, it seeks to intro­duce stu­dents to a spa­tial research prac­tice by empha­siz­ing the obser­va­tion of spa­tial com­plex­i­ty, mul­ti­plic­i­ty, and diver­si­ty. This empha­sis com­ple­ments tra­di­tion­al prin­ci­ples of abstrac­tion and nota­tion, which have been a focal point in archi­tec­tur­al edu­ca­tion. While rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of these rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al skills, stu­dent work dis­cussed here shifts its focus towards the obser­va­tion and design of dynam­ic and tem­po­ral aspects of space. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, archi­tec­tur­al edu­ca­tion is cen­tered around sta­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions, empha­siz­ing the clar­i­ty of con­cepts, forms, and struc­tures. The work as part of this stu­dio cul­ture, reflects on the qual­i­ties of change and emer­gence, align­ing with Merleau-Ponty's notion of embod­i­ment which has been fur­ther devel­oped by Eliz­a­beth Grosz.[19] She argues that our bod­ies should not be viewed as pas­sive enti­ties but as active par­tic­i­pants in cre­at­ing mean­ing with­in archi­tec­tur­al envi­ron­ments and in doing so chal­leng­ing the con­ven­tion­al view of archi­tec­ture as sta­t­ic and object-ori­ent­ed. In her book, ​'Archi­tec­ture from the Out­side,' Grosz con­tends that archi­tec­tur­al bound­aries are to be seen as per­me­able and porous, con­stant­ly nego­ti­at­ed by the bod­ies that move through and inter­act with them. As such, clear spa­tial cat­e­gories, such as inside and out­side, seem to erode to a point that con­ven­tion­al ideas on con­tain­ment and enclo­sure in archi­tec­ture can be chal­lenged. In align­ment with crit­i­cal the­o­ries of space, this dri­ves archi­tec­tur­al envi­ron­ments to be observed as imbued with social per­for­mance and mean­ing.[20] The fol­low­ing two projects inter­ro­gate such ideas as they seek to define the pro­duc­tion of space as some­thing intrin­si­cal­ly embod­ied and dynam­ic.[21] Projects move away from sta­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions of space in order to explore the con­cept of architectural/spatial bound­aries as nuanced exam­i­na­tions of polit­i­cal and soci­etal nar­ra­tives. Projects tap into a dis­course extend­ing beyond the phys­i­cal­i­ty of archi­tec­ture, to reflect on the com­plex inter­play between built envi­ron­ments and the nar­ra­tives they house and shape. Projects like this exem­pli­fy how trans­me­di­al­i­ty offers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of such ideas to nav­i­gate the intri­cate ter­rain of shift­ing soci­etal landscapes.

The fol­low­ing project is titled ​‘Repro­duc­tive Wilder­ness’ [ 5 ] and presents an inter­ac­tive instal­la­tion where one encoun­ters a pro­found trans­for­ma­tion; a col­lec­tion of ceram­ic organs under­goes a rit­u­al­is­tic bathing; a con­ver­gence where rigid­i­ty meets flu­id­i­ty, where the cor­po­re­al becomes mechan­i­cal, and the mechan­i­cal is imbued with vital­i­ty once again. The project nego­ti­ates spa­tial gen­er­a­tive prin­ci­ples tra­vers­ing realms of polit­i­cal and soci­etal nar­ra­tive as it explores the impli­ca­tions of human and non-human modes of repro­duc­tion. The work sets up an intri­cate inter­play of per­me­abil­i­ty and porous­ness, where the body's inte­ri­or relates to the world beyond its sur­face. The work pro­duced by Shonali Shet­ty dur­ing and after preg­nan­cy presents an ecosys­tem of con­tem­pla­tion, where pre­vi­ous dis­tinc­tions fade in ever-shift­ing rela­tion­ships between organ­ic and arti­fi­cial. The work wants to acknowl­edge the inter­con­nect­ed­ness between mechan­ic and organ­ic spa­tial repro­duc­tion, in all its flu­id, ever-evolv­ing, and dishar­mo­nious complexity. 

This final exam­ple deeply engages with expe­ri­en­tial and soci­etal forces is ​‘The return of the Wolf’ [ 6 ], a trans­for­ma­tive jour­ney, where Noëlle Ingeveldt becomes wolf (but to do so she also ought to become sheep) in order to inter­ro­gate a cul­ti­vat­ed and dis­con­nect­ed land­scape of the Nether­lands. The sto­ry is told as a con­tem­po­rary fairy tale through film. Var­i­ous cos­tumes and props allow this trans­for­ma­tive jour­ney to take place. For the body to become oth­er. As explored by schol­ars like Don­na Har­away and Karen Barad, the project ques­tions the cen­tral­i­ty of the human sub­ject and acknowl­edges the agency and impor­tance of non-human enti­ties and the role they play in shap­ing soci­eties, cul­tures, and their archi­tec­tures. With this work, Noëlle Ingeveldt re-eval­u­ates spa­tial design method­olo­gies, empha­siz­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al world. She puts for­ward a more holis­tic and eco­log­i­cal approach by going far in explor­ing the entan­gle­ment of mat­ter and mean­ing and indeed engage with the eth­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ties that arise from this entanglement. 

Co-Creation: Breaking Hierarchies

The work and teach­ing dis­cussed in this arti­cle nego­ti­ates dynam­ic and rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ships among stu­dents, often from diverse dis­ci­pli­nary back­grounds. This col­lab­o­ra­tive approach is fun­da­men­tal, as it pro­motes a rich diver­si­ty of ideas and method­olo­gies drawn from var­i­ous areas of exper­tise.[22] In turn this allows for the cre­ation of a het­ero­ge­neous cre­ative envi­ron­ment in which stu­dents nur­ture a sense of cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty and aware­ness as they come in con­tact with diverse sets of ideas and per­spec­tives. The projects pre­sent­ed in this paper have grown from a stu­dio cul­ture that active­ly chal­lenges the notion of a sin­gu­lar, author­i­ta­tive source of knowl­edge. While some hier­ar­chi­cal aspects remain in the eval­u­a­tion of stu­dio out­put, con­tin­u­ous efforts have been made to decon­struct these hier­ar­chies with­in the teach­ing process, there­by estab­lish­ing an edu­ca­tion­al ecosys­tem where col­lec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion pro­pels the explo­ration of new ideas. This resis­tance towards the idea of cen­tral­ized knowl­edge in the teach­ing of a design stu­dio stands in ref­er­ence to Paulo Freire's writ­ing on teach­ing in which the super­sedence of the teacher-stu­dent con­tra­dic­tion is explored as a mutu­al process of trans­for­ma­tion in which both can be observed as uncom­plet­ed beings, con­scious of their incom­ple­tion, and their attempt to be more ful­ly human. [23] With­in such a frame­work, the tra­di­tion­al sub­or­di­na­tion of stu­dents to teach­ers becomes obso­lete, facil­i­tat­ing a par­a­digm shift, as pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, in which strict design tasks are strate­gi­cal­ly avoid­ed. By allow­ing stu­dents to engage with design chal­lenges through the lens of their own phys­i­cal expe­ri­ences, this teach­ing method trans­fers the empha­sis from a focus to rigid task com­ple­tion to dynam­ic, reflec­tive process­es. Project briefs serve as zones where didac­tic dog­ma is sup­pressed and where tra­di­tion­al teacher-stu­dent hier­ar­chies can be ques­tioned in order to cre­ate space for ongo­ing reflec­tion and per­son­al growth. This approach assess­es scholas­tic suc­cess not through adher­ence to pre­de­ter­mined tasks but by mea­sur­ing stu­dents’ abil­i­ty to sur­pass pre­vi­ous lim­i­ta­tions. This is deemed impor­tant in order to cul­ti­vate an edu­ca­tion­al envi­ron­ment of ongo­ing cri­tique and dis­cov­ery. The embod­ied nature of this edu­ca­tion­al mod­el pro­motes free­dom and co-cre­ation, posi­tion­ing stu­dents as active thinkers. In doing so, projects con­sis­tent­ly tran­scend the con­fines of the design stu­dio, active­ly engag­ing with a vari­ety of socio-cul­tur­al issues. This delib­er­ate expan­sion serves a dual pur­pose: cul­ti­vat­ing empa­thy and rais­ing a height­ened sense of con­cern. Ulti­mate­ly, this teach­ing prac­tice aligns with this prin­ci­pal objec­tive; estab­lish­ing an edu­ca­tion­al envi­ron­ment where design projects evolve into the pro­duc­tion of nuanced, embod­ied spa­tial instru­ments. The deploy­ment of such instru­ments are not con­fined to the bound­aries of the stu­dio but are pur­pose­ful­ly craft­ed for a broad­er cri­tique and ongo­ing discovery.