Public Interest Design Education Guidebook

Curricula, Strategies, and SEED Academic Case Studies

Lisa M. Abendroth, Bryan Bell, Lisa M. Abendroth, Bryan Bell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317238072
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Public Interest Design Education Guidebook: Curricula, Strategies, and SEED Academic Case Studies presents the pedagogical framework and collective curriculum necessary to teach public interest designers. The second book in Routledge's Public Interest Design Guidebook series, the editors and contributors feature a range of learning competencies supported by distinct teaching strategies where educational and community-originated goals unite. Written in a guidebook format that includes projects from across design disciplines, this book describes the learning deemed most critical to pursuing an inclusive, informed design practice that meets the diverse needs of both students and community partners.

Featured chapter themes include Fundamental Skills, Intercultural Competencies, Engaging the Field Experience, Inclusive Iteration, and Evaluating Student Learning. The book consists of practice-based and applied learning constructs that bridge community-based research with engaged learning and design practice. SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design) academic case studies introduce teaching strategies that reinforce project-specific learning objectives where solving social, economic, and environmental issues unites the efforts of communities, student designers, and educators. This comprehensive publication also contains indices devoted to learning objectives cross-referenced from within the book as well as considerations for educational program development in public interest design.

Whether you are a student of design, an educator, or a designer, the breadth of projects and teaching strategies provided here will empower you to excel in your pursuit of public interest design.

Part 1
Public Interest Design Curricula

1
Whole-Systems Public Interest Design Education

Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington

Jeffrey Hou, Benjamin R. Spencer, and Daniel Winterbottom

Program Philosophy

Public interest design has a long tradition at the University of Washington (UW). Dating back to the 1960s and 1970s, when faculty and students led efforts to preserve Seattle’s beloved landmarks and develop new public parks, this focus remains strong through ongoing initiatives in service-learning, community engagement, and design activism. Rather than confining the study of public interest design to a single course or a small set of courses, as is typical of most design programs, the UW Department of Landscape Architecture has fully integrated public interest design into the curricula of its two professional degree programs: Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA) and Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA). Our focus not only motivates our pursuit of projects in underserved communities but also influences the way we approach issues of urban green infrastructure, physical and psychological health, ecological planning and design, and social justice.

Public interest design is embodied in our programs at multiple levels. Our strategic plan recognizes five focal areas of exploration: design as activism, design for ecological infrastructure, design for ecological learning and literacy, design for human and environmental health, and design for social and environmental justice. These strategic focuses guide the directions of our curricular development, resource investment, student and faculty recruitment, and community outreach. Most, if not all, of our advanced design studios involve working with community groups, civic organizations, and public agencies on projects ranging from eco-district planning to design of community gardens. These courses are taught not by just one or two individual faculty members but rather by the entire departmental faculty.

Despite a wide variation in interests and specializations, all of the faculty consider public engagement to be a critical component of our scholarship, teaching, and practice. We believe that involving diverse stakeholders in deliberations and actions is critical to the social and environmental resilience of our cities and communities and critical to empathetic design. Our focus on design activism in turn attracts students who share such passion and conviction. Over the years, we have developed long-term collaborative relationships with community groups, civic organizations, and public agencies through service-learning projects. These projects provide the experimental ground for public interest design education.

Program Curriculum Overview

Like most professional design programs, both the BLA and MLA programs at UW are organized around a sequence of design studios. The first-year curriculum in both programs consists of a series of foundational design studios focusing on basic concepts and skills with regard to social, ecological, and spatial forms and processes. In the second-year sequence, public interest and community engagement are integrated into studio projects.

Undergraduates in LARC 402 and LARC 403, the Neighborhood Design and Cultural Landscape studios, work with community “clients,” or partners, focusing on actual sites and projects in the community. Recent projects include design for neighborhood greenways and visions for a historic Japanese American garden now open to the public. Community partners range from American Indian tribes to immigrant communities in the Pacific Northwest. As the culmination of the BLA program, Daniel Winterbottom directs LARC 474/475, our Design/Build Capstone Studio. Each year, students under Winterbottom’s supervision work with an underserved community to design and implement a project in collaboration with community partners.

At the graduate level, students in LARC 501, the Ecological Urbanism Studio, work on urban-scale projects in Seattle, focusing on public-space design in partnership with civic organizations and city agencies; students in LARC 502, the Design Activism Studio, typically work with informal urban communities in Peru; and students in LARC 503, the Urban Agriculture Studio, explore urban food issues and design of community gardens in partnership with local communities. Specific studios can be linked to a long-term initiative, such as the Informal Urban Communities Initiative (IUCI), a multiyear effort focusing on empowering the community of Lomas de Zapallal in Lima, Peru. Similarly, a series of advanced studios has contributed to an ongoing community-driven design process in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District since 2002 (Hou 2011, 2014), leveraging over $2 million in funding and resulting in renovated neighborhood parks and streetscapes.

Aside from these regular courses, students have access to study-abroad programs with a focus on public interest design and community engagement. Recent opportunities have included a series of design/build courses in Latin America (Mexico and Guatemala), Eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia), and Asia (China). In Guatemala and Eastern Europe, students worked with communities traumatized by war, poverty, and mental illness. IUCI has also recently expanded its footprint beyond Peru to Cambodia through a study-abroad studio. These courses experiment with integrating service-learning and public interest design education with study-abroad experiences.

Seminars and lectures are also important parts of our whole-systems approach to public interest design education. These courses include LARC 561, Human Experience of Place; LARC 570, Theory and Scholarship; and LARC 571, Advanced Research Methods, which incorporates methods of community engagement.

Design/Build Capstone Studio

The UW Design/Build Capstone Studio was founded in 1994 to strengthen our curriculum and fulfill a university goal of public service. The design/build methodology brings BLA and MLA students the experience of discovering the evocative connection between design, making, and material expression. Without the experience of building, students cannot apply knowledge from construction lecture classes. Teaching models that integrate design and the art of building allow different ways of thinking to enlighten one another, promoting responsive and expressive design. Over the years, the studio has increasingly worked with underserved communities, applying therapeutic and social-justice design principles. We advance the idea that landscape architecture is a unique vehicle for social and ecological activism and hope that our students will carry that idea on into their professional careers.

In The Eyes of the Skin, Juhani Pallasmaa (2012, 25) describes the banality of vision that threatens the significance of designed environments:

Current industrial mass production of visual imagery tends to alienate vision from emotional involvement and identification, and to turn imagery into a mesmerizing flow without focus or participation. The cancerous spread of superficial architectural imagery today, devoid of tectonic logic and sense of materiality and empathy, is clearly part of this process.

Pallasmaa defines (landscape) architecture as “the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this meditation takes place through the senses” (77).

Noted sociologist Richard Sennett (2008, 160) discusses learning challenges, curiosity, and the role of fear:

Diminishing the fear of making mistakes is all important in our art. In performance, the confidence to recover from error is not a personality trait, it is a learned skill. Technique develops, then, by a dialectic between the correct way to do something and the willingness to experiment through error.

The two sides cannot be separated. If the young musician is simply given the correct way, he or she will suffer from a false sense of security. If the budding musician luxuriates in curiosity, simply going with the flow of the transitional object, she or he will never improve.

The design/build capstone studio aligns with Sennett’s goals: students understand the art of building through an exploration of materials and form while also responding to community needs.

Design/Build Studio Pedagogical Goals

The goals of the design/build capstone studio are expansive and vary depending on each project and the needs of the particular community being served (Winterbottom 2002). A specific educational goal is developing a deeper understanding of, and competence in, making and craft. Students explore the multisensory properties of materials to engage users fully and to create appropriate, meaningful places. Communication skills are honed as we work in a participatory design process. We incorporate recycled materials and green building techniques with a view toward sustainable design. Nearly all project clients come from traumatized or marginalized communities, providing a unique opportunity for students to explore issues of social justice and activism (Winterbottom 2014). Through dialogue, students discover normative values and assumptions that contribute to some members’ continued disadvantage. In response to trauma, illness, and personal or societal disruptions, we create effective therapeutic environments that reduce stress and improve well-being through the interplay of nature, form, and materials (Winterbottom 2011).

Over the years, a study-abroad version of the design/build studio, open to both undergraduate and graduate students, has been developed. In projects abroad, we embed ourselves in the community: homestays in Guatemala, rooms in a Croatian mental hospital, or dormitories inside a Chinese sculpture park (Wagenfeld and Winterbottom 2015). In our Seattle-based projects, we are on-site twenty hours per week, building community relationships that grow deeper as time goes on. This familiarity transforms community building into a social, physical, and spiritual art. Through storytelling, spontaneous conversations, and collaborative building, we see cultural, personal, and professional exchange flourish.

Design/Build Studio Outcomes

Students who immerse in this intensive iterative experience understand that design, as William Carpenter (1997, 55) notes, is a “circular, reflective process, from idea, to building and back to idea, linking the thinking about and the act of place making.” Our design process is collaborative yet competitive at the outset. While elements from all team proposals are included in the final design, one or two designs serve as its foundation. Moving into construction, the process becomes intensely collaborative and interdependent. Students must adjust the individual drive that may have guided them through design. They take on multiple shifting roles, as in a professional environment that calls for flexibility and adaptability. When working in the context of another culture, students test their comfort zones and experience personal and intellectual growth. They acquire an expanded global perspective of their roles as change makers and as socially aware citizens. According to student feedback, individual outcomes include growth in leadership ability, self-confidence, and empathy. Students attain a more comprehensive understanding of the political, humanitarian, and practical implications of design, which they hope to bring to their professional work.

The crafting of the studio is a continuing process, and each project offers new insights for improvement and change. According to their feedback, students highly value the nonstructured interactions with the community and volunteers, especially in international projects where cross-cultural enlightenment is of particular interest. Asking students to voice and articulate their ideas, missions, and goals increases their retention in ways that lecturing cannot achieve. Many students enter the design/build program wanting clear, predictable directions. They leave with the crucial realizations that “real life” is innately and wonderfully unpredictable and that flexibility and adaptability are essential for succes...