1

PEDAGOGY

Rather than a session of innovative online teaching modalities, we seek papers that explore what it means to teach architecture at a distance. Contrary to the remote practices already operating in global architectural production, architectural education has been slow in its uptake, and at odds with recognising the full potentials of an online learning environment.¹ Yet with the pandemic, virtual studios were quickly enforced. What does it mean to teach design face-to-face, and what is lost in translation? What values might there still be for the haptic and analog modes of learning-through-making, in a shift from physical to virtual? What opportunities and new knowledges do remote practices offer for testing and running experimental ways of learning?

NOTES

1. Sharon Haar, ‘The “Pivot”,’ in David Smiley, Alison Hirsch, Iñaki Alday, Kim Anno, Greg Lindquist, Keith Eggener, Linda C. Samuels, Arda İnceoğlu, Lori Brown, Marc J. Neveu, Kristi Cheramie, Sharon Haar, ‘Field Notes on Pandemic Teaching: 4,’ Places Journal, April 2020. Accessed 05 May 2020. <https://placesjournal.org/article/field-notes-on-pandemic-teaching-4/&gt;

2

PRACTICE

If anything, a pandemic has made the remote practice of architecture a global reality.² Already some main challenges are apparent in the rapid technological transformation of design practices. Virtual teams experience communication gaps; virtual architects are disconnected from the material environment which their designs aim to intervene with.³ Yet in these new norms, what might remote field-working methods offer as discoveries in lieu of access to real/physical sites?⁴ New trends might see mono-disciplinary architectural offices replaced by flexible networks of collaborative design practices; each working on parts of a larger project.⁵ How would authorship in architecture be redefined? Are there precedents for new forms of collaborative authorship to emerge?

NOTES

2. Experts speculate that the ‘faster technological revolution’ spurred by the pandemic will continue into the future, with the heightened adoption of remote practices reorganising how design work is produced and communicated across distances to stakeholders. See: Zaheer Allam, Gaetan Siew and Felix Fokoua, ‘The Cause of Wonder and Worry Over Digital Cities Post Virus,’ ArchDaily, April 28, 2020. Accessed 5 May 2020. <https://www.archdaily.com/938484/the-cause-of-wonder-and-worry-over-digital-cities-post-virus/&gt;

3. Questions have been posed of the virtual site visit and fieldwork in which grounded encounters still seem irreplaceable. See: Pola Mora, ‘Trends Report: How Architects are working from Home,’ ArchDaily, March 31, 2020. Accessed 5 May 2020. <https://www.archdaily.com/936691/trends-report-how-architects-are-working-from-home/&gt;

4. Alison B. Hirsch, untitled notes, in David Smiley, Alison Hirsch, Iñaki Alday, Kim Anno, Greg Lindquist, Keith Eggener, Linda C. Samuels, Arda İnceoğlu, Lori Brown, Marc J. Neveu, Kristi Cheramie, Sharon Haar, ‘Field Notes on Pandemic Teaching: 4,’ Places Journal, April 2020. Accessed 04 May 2020. <https://placesjournal.org/article/field-notes-on-pandemic-teaching-4/&gt;

5. Phil Bernstein, ‘Phil Bernstein Shares Ten Thoughts on the Future of Practice,’ Architectural Record, April 24, 2020. Accessed 3 May 2020. <https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/14585-phil-bernstein-shares-ten-thoughts-on-the-future-of-practice&gt;

3

CRITIQUE

Before the pandemic, questions about place were disrupted by social media. However, shelter-in-place forced us to rethink home as a physical place. The architectural community has begun to critically reflect on the shifting spatial paradigms of inside-outside, private-public, and home-workplace that remote practices have emphasised.⁶ Yet, creativity and criticality may be risked in the distancing and fragmentation of education and practice.⁷ There is thus a need for increased open-access to collective knowledge, digital archives and resources in order for remote research/education/working methods to reach their fullest potentials.⁸ What alternative modes of creative energy and critical discourse might be borne from architecture’s contingent and emergent remote practices?

NOTES

6. Reinhold Martin, Susan Piedmont-Palladino, Brent Sturlaugson, Barbara Penner, Harriet Harriss, Judith Rodenbeck, Sandy Isenstadt, Anna Livia Brand, Iman Ansari, Hélène Frichot, Brett Milligan, ‘Field Notes on Pandemic Teaching: 1,’ Places Journal, April 2020. Accessed 04 May 2020. <https://placesjournal.org/article/field-notes-on-pandemic-teaching-1/&gt;

7. Philip Ursprung, ‘Common (Back)ground,’ in Johan Pries, Andrew Herscher, Hugh Campbell, Shannon Mattern, Erin Moore, Rasmus Hansen, Frederick Steiner, Mireille Roddier, Mira Schor, Shelly Silver, Charles Davis, Philip Ursprung, ‘Field Notes on Pandemic Teaching: 3,’ Places Journal, April 2020. Accessed 04 May 2020. <https://placesjournal.org/article/field-notes-on-pandemic-teaching-3/&gt;

8. Barbara Penner, untitled notes, in Martin, et. al.

– Keynote Speakers –

Paul EMMONS

Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center of Virginia Tech, School of Architecture and Design

CJ LIM

The Bartlett School of Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London

Joan OCKMAN

University of Pennsylvania, Stuart Weitzman School of Design

Jane RENDELL

The Bartlett School of Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London

Naomi STEAD

Department of Architecture, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University

Philip URSPRUNG

Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich